The Muskegon Museum of Art is one of the few galleries in western Michigan planned specifically to house works of art. It was built with funds from Charles H. Hackley in a bequest of 1905 that called for the purchase of pictures to be placed in the Hackley Public Library. Beman of Chicago designed this building with yellowish-white brick trimmed with limestone in the Beaux-Arts classical style. The formal and balanced facade is without windows above the raised foundation but is decorated with pilaster-framed tablets bearing the names of painters, sculptors, and architects. Greek Doric columns of Vermont marble support the festooned projecting entrance portico; other details are also Greek. Originally, the hipped roof had skylights over the galleries. Stairs lead from a spacious vestibule up to the art gallery and down to a two-hundred-seat auditorium. The main stair hall is clad in Vermont marble, other floors, in gray Tennessee marble.

Expansion in 1979–1980 with the Walker Galleries, named for L. C. and Margaret Walker, added exhibit space, staff offices, and storage. The notable collection includes works by Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Alfred Sisley, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and John Steuart Curry.