Art Galleries in Jerome

Jerome clings to the side of Mingus Mountain at nearly 5,000 feet, a former copper mining boomtown that at its peak housed 15,000 people and is now home to fewer than 500 - most of them artists, gallery owners, and the kind of people drawn to extreme places with interesting histories. The town's dramatic decline and near-abandonment in the 1950s left its Victorian-era commercial buildings intact and cheap, attracting the first generation of artists in the 1970s who recognized what Jerome could become. Today the mile-long main street contains an improbable concentration of working studios, fine art galleries, jewelry makers, and ceramic artists, all operating out of buildings with sweeping views across the Verde Valley that extend on clear days to the red rocks of Sedona 25 miles away.

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Guides for Jerome

Arizona's Most Vertical Art Town

Jerome's improbable survival as a community is the story of American artistic reinvention. At its peak, Jerome was Arizona's fourth-largest city, a prosperous mining town of 15,000 people perched above one of the richest copper deposits in the world. The mines closed in 1953 and Jerome's population fell to fewer than 50 people. The cheap rents and extraordinary hilltop views then attracted artists, hippies, and eccentrics, and over the following decades Jerome rebuilt itself as a creative community. Today the town supports galleries and studios in buildings that still lean and crack as a result of underground mining subsidence, adding a distinctive physical character to the art experience. The Jerome Artists' Cooperative Gallery is the anchor of the commercial scene, representing local artists working in every medium. Independent studios scattered throughout the historic district offer direct access to working artists. The views of the Verde Valley from Jerome's streets are extraordinary, stretching south to the red rocks of Sedona and the mountains beyond, and they inform the landscape work produced by the town's painters and photographers.