The Seattle Art Museum is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, USA. It maintains three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill, and the Olympic Sculpture Park on the central Seattle waterfront, which opened on January 20, 2007. Admission to the sculpture park is always free. Admission to the other facilities is free on the first Thursday of each month; SAM also offers free admission the first Saturday of the month. And even the normal admission is suggested, meaning that the museum would like visitors to... pay the complete admission but if they can not pay fully they can still enjoy the museum. The SAM collection has grown from 1,926 pieces in 1933 to nearly 25,000 as of 2008. Its original museum provided an area of 25,000 square feet ; the present facilities provide 312,000 square feet plus a 9-acre park. Paid staff have increased from 7 to 303, and the museum library has grown from approximately 1,400 books to 33,252.
more