Best Art Museums You Need to Visit While in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Photo by Catherine Kerr on Unsplash

In need of an art fix while in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? Well, you’re in luck. The city has plenty of art museums where you can check out any type of art you are interested in. Here are some of the best.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Your first stop should undoubtedly be the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It’s not only one of the most famous art museums in the country but also in the whole wide world. Its collection has more than 240,000 objects, ranging from paintings and sculptures to decorative arts. Notable exhibits include Benjamin West’s “Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky,” Peter Paul Rubens’ “Prometheus Bound,” El Greco’s “Pieta,” and Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers, Arles.”

Barnes Foundation

Barnes Foundation is most famous for its collection of 900 paintings that highlights master painters from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Modernist periods. This includes 181 paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 59 works by Henri Matisse, and 46 paintings by Pablo Picasso. Visitors can also check out works from other notable European, American, and African artists.

Woodmere Art Museum

Woodmere Art Museum has an intriguing collection of paintings, sculptures, prints, and photographs that puts the focus on artists from Philadelphia and the city’s greater area. The list of notable artworks housed in the museum includes Alfred Thompson Bricher’s “Sailing before a Gale,” Benjamin West’s “The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney,” and Frederic Edwin Church’s “Sunset in the Berkshire Hills.”