Museums
Walter Anderson Museum of Art
510 Washington Avenue, Ocean Springs
Photo: Georgianotthestate, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Walter Anderson Museum of Art sits a few blocks off Highway 90 in downtown Ocean Springs, built around the work of one of the Gulf Coast's most singular painters. Walter Inglis Anderson spent decades rowing out to Horn Island alone to sketch its birds and storms, then brought that work home in notebooks, watercolors, and one very private mural room. It's a small museum, but plan on a full hour — longer if the Little Room gets you.
Getting There
Ocean Springs is about 20 minutes east of downtown Biloxi — cross the Biloxi Bay Bridge on Highway 90, then follow Government Street into town and turn onto Washington Avenue, the town's walkable main drag of shops and galleries. The museum sits at 510 Washington Avenue, next door to the Ocean Springs Community Center, a block or two from the public library. There's a small lot behind the building, plus free street parking along Washington once you're past the lunch rush. Walk Washington Avenue afterward — it's flat, shaded, and lined with places to eat.
What to Expect
Walter Anderson (1903-1965) painted obsessively and mostly for himself, rowing a homemade skiff out to Horn Island for days at a time to sketch pelicans and Gulf squalls, then lashing his watercolors to the mast to keep them dry on the trip back. The museum holds his life's work — thousands of drawings, block prints, and paintings — but the piece nobody skips is the Little Room, the cottage bedroom he covered floor to ceiling with murals of a single day's cycle, sunrise to midnight, and never showed anyone while he was alive. Admission also covers the adjoining Community Center, where Anderson painted a 3,000-square-foot mural, the Seven Climates of Ocean Springs, across the walls in 1951.
Good to Know
The museum is open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.; it's closed New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve and Day. Admission runs $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, AAA, military, and students with ID, $5 for kids 5 to 15, and free for members and children under 5. Give yourself a full hour, longer if the Little Room grabs you. Call 228-872-3164 ahead of your trip if you want to know what's up in the rotating exhibition space.
Our Take
This is the best hour of art on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, casino galleries included. The Little Room alone is worth the drive — there's something almost uncomfortable about standing in a room a man painted entirely for himself and never meant anyone to see. Go on a weekday morning if you can, before the school groups arrive. Pair it with lunch on Washington Avenue for an easy Ocean Springs half-day.
Details last verified August 2026. Always confirm current hours and prices directly with the attraction.