Fodor's Expert Review Springfield Museums
This complex of museums in the Quadrangle includes five impressive facilities (single admission), plus a free sculpture garden. The George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum houses a fascinating private art collection that includes a salon gallery with 19th-century American paintings by Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt, as well as a Japanese antiquities room filled with armor, textiles, porcelain, and carved jade. The Museum of Fine Arts has paintings by Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Winslow Homer, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The Springfield Science Museum has an Exploration Center of touchable displays, the oldest operating planetarium in the United States, dinosaur exhibits, an extensive collection of stuffed and mounted animals, and an African Hall through which you can take an interactive tour of that continent's flora and fauna. The Museum of Springfield History tells the story of the town's manufacturing heritage, including bikes and memorabilia from... READ MORE
This complex of museums in the Quadrangle includes five impressive facilities (single admission), plus a free sculpture garden. The George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum houses a fascinating private art collection that includes a salon gallery with 19th-century American paintings by Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt, as well as a Japanese antiquities room filled with armor, textiles, porcelain, and carved jade. The Museum of Fine Arts has paintings by Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Winslow Homer, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The Springfield Science Museum has an Exploration Center of touchable displays, the oldest operating planetarium in the United States, dinosaur exhibits, an extensive collection of stuffed and mounted animals, and an African Hall through which you can take an interactive tour of that continent's flora and fauna. The Museum of Springfield History tells the story of the town's manufacturing heritage, including bikes and memorabilia from the former Indian Motorcycle Company, which was headquartered in Springfield. The Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum, opened in 2017, offers a look into the Springfield childhood of Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) and a wide range of interactive exhibits and wall drawings, all among rooms so colorful that the museum is like walking into a Dr. Seuss book.
Also amid the Quadrangle is the free Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden, an installation of bronze statues depicting scenes from Geisel's famously whimsical children's books. Born in Springfield in 1904, Geisel was inspired by the animals at the Zoo in Forest Park, where his father served as director.
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