Exceptional Art Museums in the United States

Located on the campus of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, the Colby College Museum of Art is an art museum with more than 38,000 square feet of exhibition space and over 8,000 works in its permanent collection. Founded in 1959 and comprising five wings, the Colby College Museum of Art has a permanent collection that specializes in American and contemporary art, along with notable holdings of European paintings, Chinese antiquities, and works on paper from around the world.

Acquisitions in the museum include the Alex Katz Collection, the John Marin Collection, the Terry Winters Collection, the Whistler Collection, and the Skowhegan Lecture Archive. The museum also serves as a teaching resource for Colby College.

5600 Mayflower Hill Drive, Waterville, ME 04901, Phone: 207-859-5600

Owned and operated by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, the Hood Museum of Art is a museum with a collection that encompasses essential holdings of American, African, Native American, European, and Melanesian art. Other notable acquisitions held by the museum include Indigenous Australian contemporary art, Assyrian reliefs, a major archive of photojournalism, and works by renowned artists such as Picasso, Sisley, Vuillard, Kent, and Georgia O’Keefe. Founded in 1977, the museum is currently housed in a building designed by Chad Floyd and Charles Willard Moore, and the director of the museum is John Stomberg.

6 E Wheelock St, Hanover, NH 03755, Phone: 603-646-2808

The University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) is an art museum operated by the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, and features a permanent collection of more than 6,000 works of art, including paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures. Located near Park Avenue and Speedway Boulevard on the university’s campus, the museum’s collection includes works from the American and European exceptional art periods to the Renaissance and the present. The University of Arizona Museum of Art forms part of “the Museum Neighborhood,” which also includes the three other museums of the Arizona State Museum, the Arizona Historical Society, and the Center for Creative Photography.

1031 North Olive Road, Tucson, AZ 85721-0002, Phone: 520-621-7567

The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum is an art museum in Providence in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Founded in 1877 and affiliated with the Rhode Island School of Design, the art museum is one of the largest in the country. The museum houses a fascinating collection of approximately 100,000 objects with works originally from Africa, Asia, Europe, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome, and the Americas. Prominent international and American artists represented in the museum include Andy Warhol, Monet, Manet, Picasso, Chanel, Paul Revere, and Kara Walker as well as Rhode Island artists and designers.

20 N Main St, Providence, RI 02903, Phone: 401-454-6500

Set on Emory University’s main campus in the historic quadrangle, the Michael C. Carlos Museum is an art museum with one of the most extensive ancient art collections in the Southeast. The vast array includes more than 16,000 works, including objects from ancient Egypt, Africa, the Near East, Greece, Rome, and the ancient Americas, all of which are housed in a striking Michael Graves-designed building. In addition to housing superb permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum provides an array of educational programs, such as lectures, workshops, symposia, and performances throughout the year. The Carlos Museum also operates a conservation center and a teaching laboratory and publishes scholarly catalogs.

571 South Kilgo Cir NE, Atlanta, GA 30322, Phone: 404-727-4282

The Princeton University Art Museum is set on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, and is the university’s leading art museum. Founded in 1882, the Princeton University Art Museum houses an exceptional collection of more than 92,000 works of art that range from antiquity to the contemporary period. The collection features Greek and Roman antiquities such as ceramics, bronzes, marbles, and Roman mosaics from Princeton University's excavations in Antioch; metalwork, stained glass, and sculpture from medieval Europe; and a collection of Western European paintings from the early Renaissance through to the 19th century. The acquisition also houses a burgeoning collection of contemporary and 20th century art, over 27,000 works and photographs from the late 1800s to the present, and an extensive collection of Chinese calligraphy, ancient bronze works, jade carvings, and porcelain.

Elm Drive, Princeton, NJ 08544

Founded in 1961, the Rose Art Museum is part of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts and displays the works of art from the university’s art collections. Named after benefactors Edward and Bertha Rose, the museum houses an exceptional collection of more than 9,000 objects in an array of permanent and temporary exhibitions, including works by notable artists like Willem de Kooning, Marl Bradford, Roy Lichenstein, Nan Goldin, Robert Rauschenberg, Andres Serrano, and William Kentridge. The Rose Art Museum boasts 13,000 square feet of exhibition space in three galleries and hosts up to 12 exhibitions a year.

415 South St, Waltham, MA 02453, Phone: 781-736-2028

The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, also known as the Blanton or the BMA, is located at the University of Texas at Austin and is one of the largest museums in the country. Founded in 1963 as the University Art Museum of the University of Texas in Austin, the museum spans 189,340 square feet and is home to a wealth of permanent and temporary collection galleries, rotating exhibits and displays, an auditorium and print study room, and a café and shop. The museum’s permanent collection features over 18,000 works, including contemporary and modern art, American and Latin works, Old Master paintings, and drawings and prints from Europe and Latin America.

200 E Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Austin, TX 78701, Phone: 512-471-7324

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is a museum on the campus of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and the arts and culture cornerstone of the college. Set within in an historic building on the campus and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the museum houses more than more than 20,000 objects, including paintings, decorative arts, works on paper, drawings, sculpture, and ancient and present-day artifacts from civilizations around the world. Other notable collections in the museum include an antiquities collection with over 1,800 Assyrian, Byzantine, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman objects; European paintings, decorative arts, illustrated manuscripts, and sculptures; an American collection of colonial and Federal portraits; and European Renaissance and baroque paintings.

245 Maine St, Brunswick, ME 04011, Phone: 207-725-3275

The Hammer Museum is an art museum and cultural center that is renowned for its artist-centric and increasing array of exhibitions as well as its excellent public programs. The Hammer Museum was founded by entrepreneur-industrialist Armand Hammer in 1990 to house his art collection, and today has become one of the most culturally relevant art institutions in town. Affiliated with the University of California, the Hammer Museum features five distinct collections of a variety of work ranging from paintings and pottery to drawings and sculptures. It also hosts over 300 public programs throughout the year, from lectures and readings to concerts, symposia, and film screenings.

10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024, Phone: 310-443-7000