Modern Treads: The Discount Tire Poster Collection

Modern Treads: The Discount Tire Poster Collection is on at the Phoenix Art Museum through January 3, 2027, in the Lower Level Katz Wing. It's a look at fifteen vintage advertising posters that track industrial innovation and the automobile, and it's built from a collection that's a bit of a local story in its own right.

Those posters come from The Collection of Discount Tire, which Bruce T. Halle—the Scottsdale-based founder and chairman of Discount Tire—started building back in 1982. The full collection holds more than 500 color lithographs and vintage advertising posters dating from the late 1880s to the mid-1980s, so this show is a small slice of a much larger archive. The museum organized the exhibition, and it was co-curated by Rachel Zebro, Associate Curator of Collections, and Susan Driver, Curator of the Collection of Discount Tire.

The show is laid out across four themes: Art in Motion, The Golden Radius, Wheels of Change, and Industry and Reform. To round it out, the museum has paired the posters with period automotive fashions from its own Fashion Collection, so you'll see the cars and the clothes that went with them. If you want more context as you walk through, there's an audio tour available on the museum's digital guide.

The exhibition is presented by the Men's Arts Council, which was founded in 1967 and is home to the Copperstate 1000, one of North America's premier vintage car road rallies. Admission is $23, which is included with general admission.