Crocker Art Museum. The Crocker Art Museum, formerly the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery, founded in 1885, is the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River.
   Located in Sacramento, California, the museum holds one of the state's premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating from the Gold Rush to the present, European paintings and master drawings, one of the largest international ceramics collections in the U.S., and collections of Asian, African, and Oceanic art.
   Edwin B. Crocker, a wealthy California lawyer and judge, and his wife, Margaret Crocker, began to assemble a significant collection of paintings and drawings during an extended trip to Europe, from 1869 to 1871. Upon their return to Sacramento, they set about creating an art gallery in part of their grand home at the corner of Third and O streets.
   The gallery became of the hub of social activity in Sacramento, hosting benefits for local organizations and welcoming prominent visitors including the Hawaiian queen, LiliÊ»uokalani, President Ulysses S. Grant, and Oscar Wilde. E.B.
   Crocker died in 1875. In 1885, his widow, Margaret, created a public art museum when she presented the E. B. Crocker Art Gallery and collection to the City of Sacramento and the California Museum Association, in trust for the public, the contents of which were valued at the time at more than $500,000. In 1978, the Crocker Art
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