Immerse yourself in an artsy Golden Triangle getaway

By Gregory Daurer

New exhibit
Kirkland Museum's new exhibition, Vanity & Vice: American Art Deco, opens on May 22. It explores dynamic designs and art deco objects created during Prohibition and the tumult from 1920 to 1933. It also promises to immerse viewers in women’s lives in the 1920’s. Museum representatives say about 70 percent of more than 200 objects in the exhibit have never been displayed at Kirkland Museum.

In Denver's Golden Triangle neighborhood, you can practically eat, sleep and breathe art. Or, at the very least, you can stay at hotels where the walls (and maybe the exterior, as well) are adorned with art. You can eat an artfully presented meal at a museum restaurant after viewing the exhibits. And you can smell the paint on a recently worked-upon canvas. If visual media is your bag, pack your bags for this vacation spot in which major museums, local galleries, artists' studios, and a theater staging plays can all be found within walking distance. Ditto goes for multiple drinking and dining establishments. No need to drive—or even call a Lyft or Uber—to get anywhere within the area's main core.

Geographically, the Golden Triangle extends from West Colfax Avenue at its northern point to where its boundary lines of Broadway and Speer Boulevard eventually meet at the district's southern tip (hence the triangular shape). The neighborhood boasts cultural landmarks, niche shops, and mural-covered walls. You might see the work of one local artist, Koko Bayer, wheat-pasted onto an alleyway dumpster, and luxuriously displayed in a room at a nearby boutique hotel.

24 in 24 series
Here are some great ways to spend 24 hours any time in 2024. Check back for more suggested quick trips in Colorado and neighboring states, or sign up for our newsletter to never miss a story. You can also email me with destination ideas.

What to do

The Denver Art Museum hosts permanent collections surveying global art history. There's Western art — both in the geographical sense, in addition to (yee-haw!) American cowboy motifs. There's indigenous art spanning the Americas, Africa and Asia. Plus, there's 20th and 21st century art galore—from Impressionism to Pop, and onward.

In terms of one pioneering abstract painter's work, the vast majority of it is housed within a single edifice: the Clyfford Still Museum. Some of Still's larger canvases—featuring intermingled swaths of paint — practically dwarf their onlookers. Although he never lived in Colorado, Still's legacy lives on here.

Likewise, Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art houses paintings by the idiosyncratic Colorado artist Vance Kirkland. Especially notable are Kirkland's final works: he would add flourishes to them while suspended horizontally above the canvas, placing a multiplicity of paint dabs onto his bold, outer-space-themed creations.

The William Havu Gallery is run by one of the longest-operating gallerists in the state, and its namesake possesses an eye for outstanding international as well as regional artists, such as the respective Colorado works of husband and wife Tracy and Sushe Felix.

Then there's the newest gallerist in the area: Max Kauffman of the neü folk gallery, which contains a wide array of eye-grabbing and affordable pieces, including Kauffman's own. The neü folk is located within a massive, brick, historical edifice, the Evans School, which now houses numerous studios. The studios collectively open up for visitors every third Saturday of the month from 2-6 p.m.

If you want to attend a play “Off-Broadway” — about a block away, that is, from Denver's own Broadway street — the well-established and respected Curious Theatre Company provides the stage.

The Acoma House. photo by TJ Romero of Architectural Storytelling.

Where to stay

The Art Hotel's surprising architecture befits a museum. And the building actually houses work by major names in the art world, such as Tracey Emin, Ed Ruscha, Sol Lewitt and Jim Dine. If you're coming from the airport, you might first glimpse Luis Jiménez's fiery blue mustang sculpture at DIA before encountering his cartoonish lithograph of the same creature while staying at this top-rated Hilton property.

Murals cover the sides of The Acoma House: a boutique, brick hotel featuring two dozen rooms with art on the walls. Local and international artists have transformed the building into a modern art showcase, each of them adding their own distinctive style to individual rooms. It's a cozier, relaxed lodging, often attracting younger visitors from out of state.

A Ponti martini. photo by Marc Piscotti, courtesy of the Denver Art Museum

Where to eat

The Ponti at the Denver Art Museum serves brunch, lunch and dinner recipes designed in consultation with a James Beard Award-winning chef. All the assemblages consist of locally-sourced ingredients, seemingly showcased on the plate as if on display within the DAM itself.

Situated on the fourth floor of The Art Hotel, the restaurant Fire offers happy hour cocktails outside beside its fire pit, along with views overlooking Broadway toward downtown. The indoor restaurant features steak and seafood entrees on its menu.

Housed within two small, colorful dwellings, the original Cuba Cuba restaurant prepares the tasty Caribbean fare it now serves at its five other metro locations.

On weekends, there just might be a line out the door of the Leven Deli, with customers eagerly awaiting its soups, salads, sandwiches and kebabs. On the side of the building, take note of the design by muralist-about-town Pat Milbery.

Old standby

Situated near the Denver Art Museum, a red British phone booth sits outside of Pints Pub. Inside, Anglophilia reigns.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary as an establishment, Pints Pub bills itself as a “British Gastro Brewpub & Restaurant.” On the menu, you'll find Sheepherder's Stew, Bangers and Mash, Fish and Chips, in addition to burgers and salads. It also bills itself as having one of the largest selections of malt whisky around, somewhere in the neighborhood of 300. If you're a serious devotee, check out the selection within the PDF guide on its web site.

But, let's not forget the beer—since the place is called “Pints Pub,” after all. Pints Pub is also one of Denver’s earliest brewpubs, making its own ales since 1995. The small batches are made four barrels at a time. Usually, two of the beers are available from the bar cask conditioned, pumped out at cellar temperature, without any added carbonation.

Its wooden interior decorated with UK curios, Pints Pub is an unpretentious, historic Denver spot to hoist a pint of beer or glass of whisky.

Gregory Daurer has covered arts and culture, in addition to brewing and distilling. He also plays guitar and writes songs.