[6] Notable examples include a 2003 retrospective of Lee Bontecou,[7] co-organized with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield,[8] curated by the artist Robert Gober; and Now Dig This!

: Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960–1980,[9] the Hammer Museum's contribution to the Getty's 2011 Pacific Standard Time initiative.

[25] The exhibition was made possible by a substantial gift from longtime museum supporters Susan and Larry Marx and includes more than 150 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by over 100 international artists from the post-World War II period.

Highlights from the contemporary collection include: The Battle of Atlanta: Being the Narrative of a Negress in the Flames of Desire - A Reconstruction (1995) by Kara Walker, Untitled (2007) by Mark Bradford, Migration (2008) by Doug Aitken, Untitled #5 (2010) by Lari Pittman, Mirage (2011) by Katie Grinnan, Ruby I (2012) by Mary Weatherford, Mimus Act I (2012) by Mary Kelly.

Notable recent acquisitions to the Hammer Contemporary Collection include Suzanne Lacy's Three Weeks in May (1977), as well as major works by Lisa Anne Auerbach, Fiona Connor, Bruce Conner, Jeremy Deller, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Friedrich Kunath, Tala Madani, Allan McCollum, Robert Overby, Martha Rosler, Sterling Ruby, Allen Ruppersberg, Barbara T. Smith, William Leavitt, and Eric Wesley.

[31] The Grunwald Center's collection features over 1,000 works by Sister Corita Kent, an influential pop printmaker and social justice activist, including rare preparatory studies and sketchbooks.

[32] Additionally, the Grunwald maintains an archive of the first twenty years of June Wayne's influential Tamarind Lithography Workshop, offering a rare overview of contemporary print-making in Los Angeles.

Highlights from the Grunwald's collection include: Melencolia I (1514) by Albrecht Dürer, Christ Preaching (1652) by Rembrandt van Rijn, Maple trees at Mama, Tekona Shrine and linked Bridge (1857) by Utagawa Hiroshige, Les Grands Baigneurs (1896) by Paul Cézanne, Le Repas Frugal (1904) by Pablo Picasso, and Entropia (review) (2004), by Julie Mehretu.

Designed by famed landscape architect Ralph Cornell, the garden houses over 70 works of modern and contemporary sculpture in a five-acre, park-like setting.

[43] Daumier was an extremely prolific artist whose work spans multiple media, and as such the collection includes paintings, drawings, lithographs, and a series of bronze portrait busts.

The venue currently houses the UCLA Film and Television Archive's well-known cinematheque as well as the Hammer's 300 public programs a year.

[44] Popular series include a weekly meditation program, the Libros Schmibros book club, and the Hammer Conversations which place major cultural, political, and intellectual leaders in dialog with one another.

Past Hammer Conversations participants include the writers Joan Didion, Jonathan Lethem, and George Saunders, the filmmakers Atom Egoyan and Miranda July, journalist Naomi Klein, comedians Jeff Garlin and Patton Oswalt, playwright and screenwriter David Mamet, magician Ricky Jay, artists Betye Saar and Sam Durant, actors Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto, and many others.

The award originally consisted of a catalogue and a $100,000 cash prize and was decided by public vote after a jury of experts narrowed the 60 participants to five finalists.

[50] Past recipients are: The museum was founded by Armand Hammer, the late CEO of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, as a venue to exhibit his extensive art collection, at the time valued at $250 million.

[57] A Los Angeles County Museum of Art board member for nearly 20 years, Hammer withdrew from a non-binding agreement to transfer his paintings to LACMA after disagreements regarding how his collection would be displayed.

Shortly thereafter, on January 21, 1988, Hammer announced plans to build his own museum on the site of a Westwood parking garage adjacent to the Occidental headquarters.

[58] Community leaders who hailed the plan as a positive turning point in the neighborhood's development were soon overshadowed by complaints from Occidental shareholders who sued the company over the museum's escalating construction costs, which were capped by a federal judge at $60 million.

[5] In 1994, the Regents of the University of California entered into a 99-year operating agreement with the Armand Hammer Foundation to assume management of the museum, which afforded the fledgling institution a measure of stability.

[65] Led by board chairman John V. Tunney and John Walsh, a settlement between the UC Regents and the Hammer Foundation in 2007 formally ended long-simmering disputes over the Hammer collection's ownership and established new guidelines for its display that allowed the museum more space for exhibitions and a growing contemporary collection.

[71] Despite the institutional hurdles that earned it the nickname "America's vainest museum" at its inception, the Hammer is now widely acknowledged as "a hot spot for contemporary art and ideas and a venue for serious exploration of overlooked historical subjects."

Under Chair Marcy Carsey, the Hammer's Board of Directors also includes Heather R. Axe, Renée Becnel, Gene Block, Lloyd E. Cotsen, Eric Esrailian, Erika J. Glazer, Manuela Herzer, Larry Marx, Anthony Pritzker, Lee Ramer, Kevin L. Ratner, Chip Rosenbloom, Steven P. Song, John V. Tunney, Kevin Wall, John Walsh, and Christopher A.

Operating money came from a bond portfolio, UCLA's existing art budgets, private donations, and revenue from the museum.

[77] Recent museum honorees include Robert Gober, Tony Kushner, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Judy Chicago, Jordan Peele and Charles Gaines and Chase Strangio.

[81] In 1994, the Hammer Museum made headlines by selling Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester to Microsoft founder Bill Gates for $30.8 million.