Best Art Museum (2022)

The Booth Western Art Museum maintains the world’s largest permanent exhibition space for Western art – the building itself was designed to resemble a pueblo. The collection of paintings, sculpture, artifacts and photography focus on themes of the Civil War and American West, with works by American legends like Frederic Remington, Charles Russell and Andy Warhol.
Photo courtesy of Booth Western Art Museum

Located in downtown Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is America’s official national museum and education center for self-taught and intuitive artistry. Created with materials from roots to toothpicks, farmers, homemakers, the homeless, and others have donated their art to this museum, transforming dreams and loss into works of art. 10Best Contributor Jacky Runice remarks, “Ten years after visiting this museum that preserves, displays and studies the work of artists who aren’t influenced by the mainstream art world, I still think about the non-traditional folk art, outsider, and visionary art.”
Photo courtesy of Catherine Smith

Housed in a 1972 masterpiece by famed architect Louis Kahn, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth showcases a small collection – fewer than 350 pieces – of exceptional quality representing the period from antiquity to the 20th century. Highlights include works by Michelangelo, El Greco, Cézanne and Matisse, and many consider the building itself to be a work of art.
Photo courtesy of Visit Fort Worth

The Heard Museum showcases both artifacts and contemporary modern art of American Indian people, particularly those with roots in the Southwest. The museum's extensive collection, as well as its annual Hoop Dance Contest and celebrated Indian Fair and Market, keep visitors coming back for more.
Photo courtesy of Heard Museum

Housed within a Beaux-Arts building, the Detroit Institute of Arts maintains a collection of some 65,000 works – among the largest and most comprehensive in the United States. Visitors can explore human creativity from across the globe as they explore more than 100 galleries, including the Center for African American Art, one of the first collections devoted to African American art at a major museum.
Photo courtesy of Eric Wheeler/Detroit Institute of Arts

Santa Fe’s IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts specializes in progressive works by contemporary Native artists with a collection of some 9,000 pieces created from 1962 to the present. The museum is housed within the restored 1922 Pueblo Revival-style former Federal Building.
Photo courtesy of Photo by Robert Bruce

At the center of University Circle, the Cleveland Museum of Art encompasses some 70 galleries with art spanning from Mediterranean antiquity to the modern day. There's a little bit of everything here, including works by Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh and Michelangelo. Even non-art lovers will have something to look at – Egyptian mummies, African masks and a collection of medieval weaponry.
Photo courtesy of Cleveland Museum of Art

This museum in Rochester, New York occupies the former estate of George Eastman, a pioneer of the motion picture film. It ranks among the world’s oldest photography museums and maintains one of the oldest film archives. Facilities include the 500-seat Dryden Theatre which screens more than 300 films each year, as well as three temporary exhibitions on photography and cinema at any given time.
Photo courtesy of George Eastman Museum

Located in Santa Fe, this museum offers a home to “the art of the handmade,” as exemplified through the artistry and diversity of the world’s folk artists and traditions. The Museum of International Folk Art holds the world’s most extensive collection of its kind, with over 130,000 objects from over one hundred nations and six continents, including textiles, toys, ceramics, and carvings. Other diverse collections include artworks from Spanish colonial times, plus contemporary Hispanic and Latino offerings.
Photo courtesy of dani3315 // Getty Images

10Best Contributor Deborah Fallows recommends this family-developed and curated art museum of the Downeast Maine area. Located on the U.S./Canada border, the Tides Institute & Museum of Art offers collections that focus on the art of the northeast coast and include interests in architecture and history. During the pandemic crisis, the museum’s online program has continued to make cultural resources and links available, providing access to artifacts from their extensive collections.
Photo courtesy of Alex Sholom // Getty Images