Walter Anderson Museum of Art

The Walter Anderson Museum of Art at 510 Washington Avenue in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, celebrates the life and extraordinary work of Walter Inglis Anderson (1903–1965), one of the most original American artists of the 20th century and a figure whose significance went largely unrecognized during his lifetime. Anderson spent much of his adult life in Ocean Springs on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, making solo overnight voyages by rowboat to the nearby barrier islands — particularly Horn Island — to immerse himself in the natural world and produce an astonishing volume of paintings, watercolors, drawings, and writings.

The museum's permanent collection encompasses thousands of works spanning Anderson's career, from early ceramics and block prints to the large-scale watercolors of birds, fish, insects, and Gulf landscape he produced on his island expeditions. The centerpiece of the museum is the Community Center Mural Room — a small cottage whose interior walls, ceiling, and even the floor were painted entirely by Anderson in 1951 with a vast panoramic mural depicting the natural world of the Gulf Coast. The room was discovered after his death and transferred intact to the museum; it is one of the most remarkable works of American folk art in existence.

The museum also includes the Walter Anderson Cottage, a reconstructed studio space, and changing exhibitions that explore his written journals — dense, lyrical records of his island observations that have been published as a literary legacy in their own right. Ocean Springs itself is a charming coastal town with independent galleries, restaurants, and a short bridge across the Bay of Biloxi to Biloxi.

Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for children ages 6–17. Allow 1 to 1.5 hours for a thorough visit. The museum is 4 miles east of Biloxi via US-90 and pairs well with the Gulf Islands National Seashore Davis Bayou area, 2 miles south.