The DeVos Art Museum is part of the School of Art and Design at Northern Michigan University (NMU) and also serves as a regional art museum for the Upper Peninsula. Eight to ten exhibitions per year of modern and contemporary art from local, regional, national and international artists are presented in two gallery spaces. Each semester the museum displays the NMU School of Art and Design Senior Exhibition and each summer the North of the 45th Parallel Juried Exhibition highlights regional artists from Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Other annual and biannual exhibitions include the School of Art & Design Faculty Exhibition, Upper Peninsula Focus Exhibition and Rabbit Island Artist in Residence Exhibition.

In addition to temporary exhibitions, the museum displays the permanent art collection on a rotating basis. The collection features Native American and Inuit art, Japanese art, 20th century photography and illustration, modern and contemporary design and local and regional art in all medias. Highlights include Anishinaabeg quill containers, woodblock prints by Ando Hiroshige, sculpture by Sol Lewitt, designs by Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen and John Lautner and photographs by George Shiras III.