Art Museuems

Massachusetts has a rich heritage of making and collecting art; this heritage is on display across the state in museums of all kinds.

The world-renowned Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has an encyclopedic collection that ranges from French Impressionists to ancient Egyptian art. The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) showcases contemporary art in its striking new building overlooking Boston Harbor.

Across the Charles River in Cambridge, Harvard University’s Fogg and Sackler Museums are home to works by Matisse, Picasso and Italian Renaissance masters in intimate galleries. And travelling north of metro Boston, Salem's Peabody Essex Museum exhibits connections between art, architecture and culture.

Large-scale American scuplture is sited throughout the 35 acres of the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln. Worcester's Art Museum, acknowledged as one of America’s leading small art museums, includes works by Cassatt, Gauguin, Goya, Monet, Sargent and Whistler.

And at the gateway to the majestic Berkshire Mountains in Western Massachusetts, the Norman Rockwell Museum houses the largest collection of the illustrator’s original art, many from the Saturday Evening Post.

For more information visit The New England Museum Association. A list of more than 400 museums from the New England region and their current exhibits.

Quick Hits

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum documents the P'Town artists' colony with a collection of works by more than 400 Provincetown artists...MASS MoCA presents cutting-edge contemporary art installations and performance art in the Berkshires...The Eric Carle Museum in Amherst focuses on picture-book art.