Conrad A. Elvehjem Building

About this museum

The Conrad A. Elvehjem Building sits at 800 University Avenue on the campus of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and for art lovers visiting the city it represents one of the better - kept secrets on a campus that is not short of interesting places to spend time. The building houses the Chazen Museum of Art, the University of Wisconsin's primary fine arts institution, though the building itself bears the name of a former university president who championed the arts as central to the mission of public higher education.The Chazen's collection spans an impressive chronological and geographic range, with strengths in European prints and drawings, American painting, and decorative arts - a depth that reflects over a century of gifts, bequests, and acquisitions by a major research university with an engaged donor community. The building's galleries are calibrated for the kind of close, unhurried looking that a teaching museum encourages: this isn't a place designed around blockbuster crowd flows but around genuine engagement with art objects. For visitors accustomed to large urban art museums, the experience can be unexpectedly revelatory - smaller scale, fewer crowds, and often a higher density of genuinely interesting works per square foot.Admission is free, consistent with the university's commitment to public access to its cultural resources. The galleries are open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 11AM to 5PM; Thursday hours extend until 9PM; Sunday hours run 11AM to 5PM. Monday is closed. The building is readily accessible by public transit from downtown Madison, and the surrounding campus - with its lakes, Union Terrace, and Memorial Library - makes for a full day of exploration. Whether you're visiting Madison for the university, the food scene, or a Badgers game, the Elvehjem Building is a free cultural stop worth making time for.