309 Best Sights in USA

One of St. Petersburg’s newest museums has hundreds of paintings and sculptures that portray the history, culture, and lifestyles of the American West, Native Americans, and wildlife that spans the globe. Founded by philanthropists Tom and Mary James, the museum is divided into themed galleries—Early West, Native Life, Native Artists, Frontier, Wildlife and New West—in a cohesive and easy-to-navigate layout. Rotating special exhibits regularly bring new works to the museum.

Built near Klukwan, a Native village 23 miles up the road from Haines, this site offers visitors the chance to learn more about Tlingit culture, language, and ongoing traditions. Visit the site's Clan House, built using traditional methods; find out about traditional Native art forms, including wood carving and the distinctive Chilkat weavings, still being created today by a small number of skilled artists; see the process for smoking salmon; and much more.

Washington State University's outstanding Museum of Art has more than 4,000 pieces in its permanent collection, including works by regional, national, and international artists. Its six galleries showcase art from the university's collections and host visiting exhibits. The architecturally stunning building nicknamed the "Crimson Cube" opened in 2018.

Works from the 20th and 21st centuries are a specialty in these handsome galleries on the University of Oregon campus. They feature works by many leading Pacific Northwest artists, and European, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese works are also on view, as are 300 works commissioned by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and '40s. You can also view an ever-changing collection of important works from private collections by internationally recognized artists through the museum's Masterworks On Loan program.

A thriving nonprofit community art center, this venue hosts national and regional exhibitions, sells art supplies, provides educational opportunities, including seminars and art classes for all ages, and hosts special events.

Designed by renowned museum architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, the four-level concrete-and-steel building is faced in Tennessee pink marble. It devotes ample space to regional artists and includes four exhibition galleries, an exploratory gallery for children, a great hall, an auditorium, a museum store, and an outdoor sculpture garden.

This museum displays work by California artists from all time periods, representing scenery in Laguna, and the life and history of the Golden State in general. Special exhibits change quarterly.

Across an open courtyard from the Branigan Cultural Center, the Las Cruces Museum of Art shows the eclectic, contemporary works of regional artists. Subjects covered include life in the borderlands as well as landscapes of the Organ Mountains and nearby ghost towns.

Founded in 1969 in a basement on Prince Street, the museum has its roots in the collection of its founders, Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman, two lifelong champions of LGBTQ+ artists. The well-curated exhibits in the spacious first-floor galleries are usually photographic (and sometimes sexually charged), though the museum's impressive archive leads to new exhibitions in various media as often as six times a year.

Housed in a neoclassical granite building that overlooks the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and Long Island Sound, this museum was founded in 1932 with funds bequeathed by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her whaling merchant father, Captain Lyman Allyn (1797–1874). Inside is an impressive collection of more than 15,000 objects covering a span of 5,000 years. Works also include contemporary, modern, and Early American fine arts; American Impressionist paintings; Connecticut decorative arts; and European works from the 16th through 19th centuries. The 12 acres of surrounding grounds includes a sculpture trail.

You can play instruments or try on costumes from around the world and indulge your cultural curiosity at this nonprofit museum dedicated to hands-on exploration of international folk art. The three-floor museum is housed inside a historic Baptist church, across from the Universalist church in the heart of town. The museum hosts workshops and presentations on dance and arts and crafts.

This museum on the University of Nevada Las Vegas campus has a growing collection of works by artists with ties to Southern Nevada. The emphasis is on rotating exhibits, largely held in one cavernous space, with an adjacent auditorium hosting lectures focused on art. The Xeric Garden in front of the museum, which dates to 1988, was the first in town. It also provides a good excuse to wander the scenic UNLV campus.  The Barrick Museum closes completely for several weeks at a time when new exhibits are installed, two or three times a year.

Midway between Orderville and Mount Carmel Junction, you can tour the final summer residence of the famous painter of Western life and landscapes. Dixon lived from 1875 to 1946 and was married to the renowned WPA photographer Dorothea Lange, and, following their divorce, to San Francisco muralist Edith Hamlin. He and Hamlin summered on this property from 1939 until his death; shortly after, she scattered his ashes on a ridge behind the property, which consists of the original log cabin structure and an exceptional Western Art gallery, both of which are maintained by the nonprofit Thunderbird Foundation for the Arts. From March through November, self-guided and docent-led tours (by appointment only) are offered. The gallery and gift shop are open daily year-round.

Founded in 1984, this museum in the heart of downtown is a beguiling, moderately-sized showroom devoted to traditional and contemporary Mexican and Latin American art. The permanent collection includes 5,000 works of art, notably historic lithographs, colorful modern prints, silkscreens, etchings, and traditional ritual masks. If you visit during the local Day of the Dead celebrations, don't miss the Viva la Vida Fest hosted here in late October. Admission is free on Sunday.

This small gem of a museum houses a comprehensive collection of American, Asian, and European paintings, prints, watercolors, and sculpture. The Currier & Ives (active 1834–1907) Collection is the largest holdings of lithographs in the nation.

Built in 1836 as the first U.S. Mint, this building has been a home for art since 1936. The holdings in its impressive permanent collections include fashion, ceramics, coins and currency, and art of the ancient Americas.

Your ticket stub gets you free admission to the Mint Museum Uptown (good for two days).

Each year two-dozen changing contemporary art exhibits join a permanent collection featuring works by E.S. Paxson, Walter Hook, Rudy and Lela Autio, and modern-day Native American artists. The 1903 Carnegie Library building, which was extensively remodeled in 2006, has eight galleries, one of which is dedicated to contemporary American Indian art, a bookstore, a non-lending library, and classrooms.

The main branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Arata Isozaki, contains underground galleries and presents elegant exhibitions. A huge Nancy Rubins sculpture fashioned from used airplane parts graces the museum's front plaza. The museum gift shop offers apothecary items, modernist ceramics, and even toys and games for children to appease any art lover.

Take advantage of the free audio tour.

After moving to a brand-new building in late 2023, the museum is now able to better display its 12,000-piece collection, which includes works by Dalí, Picasso, and Warhol. Exhibits emphasize historic and contemporary art from the American West, and the museum also hosts traveling exhibitions.

This two-story museum in Custom House Plaza showcases works by well-known contemporary artists, as well as artifacts relating to Monterey's maritime history. Featured artists include Salvador Dali, Armin Hansen, Paul Whitman, and Jo Mora. Exhibits focusing on a local artist rotate every three months. 

Photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston and works by other artists who have spent time on the peninsula are on display here, along with international folk art, from Kentucky hearth brooms to Tibetan prayer wheels.

This is a splendid collection of Southern art, from early landscapes, antebellum portraits, and the Civil War period through neo-impressionism and modern contemporary art. The first institution dedicated to Southern art and artists, the museum also holds up to 10 special exhibitions each year bringing important, though sometimes little-known, artists to the forefront.

The 24,000 works in the college's collection include Asian, European, and American paintings, as well as sculpture and contemporary art from around the world. The coins and numismatics exhibit is definitely worth a look. 

The region's first museum dedicated to the achievements of Latinx in the Americas has a permanent collection as well as rotating exhibits that cover everything from Latin Americans in the state legislature to Latin American female artists in the 20th century. Among the more than 3,300 permanent pieces are the oil painting Virgin of Solitude (circa 1730) and a Mayan polychrome jar (circa 650–950), as well as contemporary works. In addition to the regular hours, the museum is open (with free admission) the first Friday of each month from noon to 9.

This stunning destination for the international wood-art community cultivates and promotes education and creative expression of the form. Rebranded in 2023 to include the word "museum" in its name, this space features a two-floor, light-filled museum showcasing more than a thousand beautiful pieces of artwork all made from wood. The gift shop is stocked with gorgeous handmade works, some by accomplished artists whose works are on display, including those who are a part of the organization's annual Windgate Wood Arts Residency Program (WARP).

Housed in a glass-and-glazed-terra-cotta building on the rim of Columbus Circle, the museum is an epicenter of experimental and innovative craft, art, and design, with a focus on contemporary jewelry, glass, ceramic, fiber, wood, and mixed-media works. Pieces are human scale, with many neatly housed in display cases rather than hanging on walls. Exhibitions offer new ways of thinking, experiencing, and telling stories about art and design. Recent special exhibitions included "Barbie: A Cultural Icon," a hugely popular exploration of the doll's history and impact on fashion and popular culture. The gift shop has an excellent selection of MAD merch, housewares, jewelry, and other artful items. Free docent-led tours are offered Friday to Sunday at 11:30 and 2:30. The top floor houses Robert at MAD, a full-service restaurant with glorious views of Central Park through floor-to-ceiling windows.

Bordering the Stetson University campus, the museum's main hub houses five galleries that display rotating exhibits and a permanent collection that includes ceramics, watercolor, mixed media, and photography, including a haunting portrait by photographer Jack Mitchell of John Lennon and Yoko Ono taken just weeks before Lennon's death. Another satellite downtown location, just a mile away, has three more galleries and the museum store.

Although the collection here includes artists from around the world, more than 300 Georgia artists are represented in the space, which is housed in an arts center. More than 1,000 paintings, sculptures, and other works are part of the permanent collection.

"Contemporary" is generally defined here as work made in the past two or three decades. Curators constantly seek out new talent and underappreciated established photographers, which means that there are artists here you probably won't see elsewhere. Rotating exhibits have included explorations of infrastructure, crime, and American identity.

Right at home in this once-industrial neighborhood now bursting with creative energy, this small museum mounts temporary art and design exhibitions, rather than keeping a permanent collection. The focus might be rugs, metalwork, furniture, or jewelry, though it might also be sustainable architecture, the connection of scent and objects, or very on-trend subjects like robots. The beautifully curated shop is perfect for unique souvenirs and imagination-spurring items for the home office.