Art Museums in New York City for Art Enthusiasts

Abraham Sanieoff & Charlet Sanieoff

New York City offers plenty of exciting sightseeing options both for tourists and locals.

For nature lovers, Central Park, Riverside Park, and the High Line are beautiful pockets of nature in the middle of the city’s concrete jungle. History buffs can visit Alexander Hamilton’s home in Harlem or the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan.

But at its core, the Big Apple is a melting pot of cultures. As a result, the city breeds art of all kinds, making it a perfect place for those who create and appreciate them. This is evident in the number of art galleries and museums around the city.

With that said, let’s explore the various art galleries and museums in NYC that every art enthusiast must see.

The Guggenheim

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum or, simply, The Guggenheim is an imposing circular structure on 5th Avenue.

The museum is perfect for architecture and modern art enthusiasts, and it is one of the top-visited museums in the city.

The Guggenheim houses an impressive collection of modern art, from Picasso to Pollock. But the pieces displayed aren’t the only thing of note at the museum.

The interior of the building itself is a work of art.

From the dome ceiling to the catwalk that spirals from the ground floor to the top, the Guggenheim is worth visiting for the structure alone.

MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art or MoMA is one of the most famous contemporary art museums in the U.S. Located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, the grandiose, modern-looking building is home to paintings, drawings, sculptures, photography, illustrated books, and other pieces of modern and contemporary art.

Some of the works that are a part of the permanent collection at MoMA are the 1963 pop art print Drowning Girl by Roy Lichenstein, Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror, and Dali’s surrealist The Persistence of Memory.

However, the most famous area in the 630,000-square-foot space is the fifth floor, where you can find Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

The Whitney

Whitney Museum of American Art, located in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan, lends its eight floors to a wide range of 20th century and contemporary American art, with a focus on pieces by living artists.

The museum’s permanent collection contains 21,000 paintings, sculptures, photographs, and other new forms of media by more than 3,000 artists. You can check out works by Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, and Mark Rothko when you visit.

The Whitney is also BTS-approved. The group’s leader and well-known art enthusiast, RM, visited in December of 2021 and even snapped a picture of Georgia O’Keefe’s Music, Pink and Blue No. 2, which he then shared on his art-filled Instagram account.

The MET

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most well-known art museums not just in New York or the U.S., but the world. The Gothic Revival-style building, located in Central Park, is home to over 2 million works, which attract more than 6 million visitors every year.

You can find some of the most well-known pieces of art in The Met, including Emanuel Leutze’s 1851 piece Washington Crossing Delaware, Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, and Relief Panel, a circa 883-859 BC stone slab with hand-carved cuneiform from the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Other Notable Museums to Visit

If you want to check out more art pieces, the Brooklyn Museum, El Museo del Barrio, and the Frick Collection showcase various forms of art from different cultures, making them worth checking out.

Forward: Charlet Sanieoff and Abraham Sanieoff