As one of the leading art museums on the West Coast, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art serves a diverse audience of approximately 150,000 people annually. The Museum offers a wide variety of educational and interpretive programs to this broad audience. A 75-member Docent Council provides over 800 gallery tours and slide talks annually.

The Museum’s collection of the arts of Asia, Europe, and the Americas includes paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, ceramics, glass, jades, bronzes, lacquer, and textiles. The broad areas in which SBMA holds a significant number of works of exceptional quality include international antiquities from China, India, Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Near East and 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century art from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Particular strengths of the collection are 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary American painting, photography, and the arts of Asia, especially China.