Current Exhibitions
The Baltimore Museum of Art’s outstanding collection encompasses 90,000 works of art, including the largest holding of works by Henri Matisse in the world, as well as masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, and Vincent van Gogh.
A summertime oasis, the BMA’s Sculpture Gardens feature a 100-year survey of modern and contemporary sculpture on nearly three landscaped acres in the heart of the city. Admission to the collection is free to everyone, every day.
If you are traveling to see a particular work of art, please call ahead to 443-573-1730 to make sure it is on view.
On View
Candida Höfer: Interior Worlds
November 16, 2011 - February 26, 2012
Free exhibition
"She opens our eyes… to a Baltimore in which learning and the arts remain activities vital to the life well lived." -Baltimore Sun, January 2, 2012
Thirteen works by the internationally acclaimed contemporary German photographer Candida Höfer are presented in this intimate exhibition. Known for her large-scale, intensely detailed images of grand architectural spaces such as the Louvre and Paris Opera, Höfer spent several days in Baltimore in 2010 creating spectacular photographs of the George Peabody Library and The Walters Art Museum. These works, as well as others loaned from private collectors and from the artist, are installed in two neoclassical galleries adjacent to the BMA’s collection of 16th- and 17th-century European paintings.
Don't miss Candida Höfer and the Poetry of Architecture on February 25 - a lecture and reception with acclaimed art historian Michael Fried!
Print by Print: From Dürer to Lichtenstein
October 30, 2011 – March 25, 2012
Free exhibition
The BMA’s world-class print collection is the inspiration for an unprecedented exhibition of works spanning 500 years of printmaking. Discover more than 350 prints by Canaletto, Pablo Picasso, Ed Ruscha, and other European and American artists who created series covering a wide range of topics— places, imagination, narrative, design, appropriation, and war. Also represented are two voices for a new generation of printmakers, Daniel Heyman and Andrew Raftery, who will speak at the BMA on Saturday, December 3. More»
Hand Held: Personal Arts from Africa
September 25, 2011 – February 5, 2012
Free exhibition
Discover more than 80 visually engaging objects used in daily life in Africa that brilliantly merge artistry and utility. Late 19th- and early 20th-century hats, combs, vessels, baskets, seats, blankets, and wearable textiles drawn from the BMA’s outstanding African collection include several major recent acquisitions being shown for the first time. These beautiful works represent 21 African countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Malawi, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, and Zambia. The exhibition is installed in galleries adjacent to the museum’s African collection, providing a more expansive view of the BMA’s remarkable holdings. A selection of videos and photographs will show how the objects were created and used.
The exhibition also looks forward to the dramatic reinstallation of the BMA’s African collection by 2014. The new display will showcase a greater variety of objects and thematic groupings that encourage visitors to make personal connections with African artworks.
During peak times, there may be a wait to enter this free exhibition.
Embroidered Treasures: Textiles from Central Asia
November 13, 2011- May 13, 2012
Free exhibition
Approximately 14 bold, colorful embroidered textiles from Central Asia are being presented for the first time at the BMA. These stunning late 19th- to early 20th-century textiles include wall hangings, covers, a wedding canopy, and saddle cover made in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. They represent both city cultures and those of formerly nomadic peoples such as the Lakai. Primarily made of cotton with multicolored silk thread embroidery by young women and their female relatives, many of these textiles were used as part of their dowries and family treasures that were reluctantly parted with during periods of political and economic hardship.
This exhibition is supported by the BMA’s Jean and Allan Berman Textile Endowment Fund.
The Cone Collection
Ongoing
Visit your favorite Matisse, Picasso, Pissarro, Courbet, and Degas in the world-class Cone Collection. See incredible 3D technology in the a groundbreaking study of Matisse’s creative process and the culmination of the first technical study of Matisse’s sculpture by BMA experts. By combining art historical research with 3D laser scanning, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, and other methods, they uncovered how Matisse created works in series. Don’t miss this groundbreaking view of Matisse’s sculpture on view in this exciting multimedia display.
Paul Gauguin. Vahine no te Vi (Woman of the Mango). 1892. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, BMA 1950.213.
A Grand Legacy: Five Centuries of European Art
European Art Galleries
Ongoing
A Grand Legacy: Five Centuries of European Art features the monumental Rinaldo and Armida, one of the world's finest paintings by Sir Anthony van Dyck, as well as masterpieces by Frans Hals, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin.
Sir Anthony van Dyck. Rinaldo and Armida. 1629. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Jacob Epstein Collection, BMA 1951.103
Collection Highlights
Paint!
American Decorative Arts Gallery
Ongoing
Discover a dazzling sample of japanned, ebonized, grained, and polychromed American and European furniture. These delicate and bold 18th- and 19th-century clocks, cabinets, tables, and chairs are gathered from Baltimore, Boston, and beyond.
