The Museum is open Wednesday - Saturday 11 - 4, Sunday 12 - 4.
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Founded in 1912, the Newport Art Museum is one of the oldest continuously operating and most highly regarded art museums and schools of its kind in the country.
The Newport Art Museum’s collection consists of approximately 3,000 works of art in a range of media including works on paper (prints, drawings, watercolors, and photographs), paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, installation works, and textiles and is expanding to include new media. Concentrated on American art and contemporary art, the Museum’s collection includes works of art from the 18th century to present.
As a valued Newport Art Museum member you're entitled to free admission, are invited to members' only events and exhibition tours, receive discounts on Museum School class tuition and public program tickets, and will be supporting the Museum's mission to share a diversity of art and experiences to our Newport community and beyond.
By supporting the Newport Art Museum Annual Fund at any level, you help make a positive difference in the lives of many. Our exhibitions, public programs, education, and community outreach, which includes a diversity of artistic voices, would not be possible without you. Help the Newport Art Museum continue to spark reflection, inspiration, discovery and build lasting connections by making your tax-deductible contribution today. We thank you for believing in the transformative power of art and allowing us to make art accessible to all for generations to come. Help the Newport Art Museum continue to spark reflection, inspiration, discovery, and build connections by making your tax-deductible contribution TODAY!
Are you a business owner who is looking for new ways to engage and connect with local Newport customers on a year round basis? We have the perfect opportunity. Sponsor a Newport tradition - The Newport Art Museum - Make NAM part of your marketing plan in 2025. We have an array of events and exhibits to offer you. Our first exciting event is the 2025 Winter Speaker Series in its 97th Year.
The Newport Art Museum gratefully acknowledges the Narragansett Nation upon whose ancestral homelands the Museum is situated. In 1638, Narragansett Nation sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi agreed to allow European colonists to settle and utilize their sovereign Aquidneck Island lands. This agreement, made by William Coddington with Roger Williams in attendance, was to share the land with the Indigenous peoples, but subsequent laws written by colonists continually sought to dispossess them of the land.
As traditional stewards of this land for hundreds of generations, we honor and respect all Indigenous peoples, whose histories are woven into the waterways, ocean, wildlife, and fabric of the land of Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island. The Museum is grateful for the ongoing contributions of the Native populations who continue to make this land their home today. Please join us in recognizing and honoring their ancestors, descendants, elders, and all other members of their communities.
The Art Association of Newport, now the Newport Art Museum, was founded in 1912 on the belief that art is a civilizing influence and an essential component to creating vibrant communities. Charter members included Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Pulitzer-Prize winning author Maud Howe Elliott, Louisa Sturtevant, and other artists and intellectuals. The first exhibition featured art works from local artists, as well as those with an international reputation, including George Bellows, Mary Cassatt, and Childe Hassam.
By 1915, the organization’s enterprising leaders had purchased a suitable building for their art classes and showings—the former John N.A. Griswold House on Bellevue Avenue. This exceptional example of “stick-style” architecture was the architect Richard Morris Hunt’s first commission in Newport and was completed in 1864 for the Griswold family. Art classes for people of all ages, backgrounds and experience levels were held in the Griswold House, as were temporary art exhibitions and public programs.
In 1919, a second gallery building designed by the New York architectural firm, Delano and Aldrich and dedicated to the memory of artist Howard Gardiner Cushing, opened just to the south of the Griswold House. The Sarah Rives lobby and Morris Gallery were added in 1990 providing the Museum additional gallery space as well as a climate-controlled collection storage area.
In 2005, the Art Museum embarked on a decade-long renovation of the historically significant Hunt building. Today, the Art Museum’s beautiful 3-acre campus includes the Griswold house, the Morris / Cushing Gallery and the Museum’s School, the Coleman Center for Creative Studies. Nearly 1,500 members and over 18,000 visitors from around the world enjoy the Art Museum and its rotating exhibitions, art classes, public programs and special events each year.
The Art Museum is a nonprofit organization with a Board of Trustees numbering 21 and is fully accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, a distinction only six percent of the country’s Museums have earned.
The permanent collection includes over 3,000 fine art and archival objects and includes works by Gilbert Stuart, William Trost Richards, Fitz Henry Lane, John Frederick Kensett, Winslow Homer, Lilla Cabot Perry, Howard Gardiner Cushing, John LaFarge, and George Bellows, as well as works by Aaron Siskind, Corita Kent, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Philip Guston, Dale Chihuly, Toots Zynsky, James Baker, Rita Rogers, Hugh Townley, Sue McNally, Bob Dilworth, Richard Benson, Christopher Benson, Allison Newsome, and Jesse Burke.
Nearly twenty temporary exhibitions are installed annually and over the years have included artists as diverse as J. McNeill Whistler, William Trost Richards, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, and Andy Warhol. Dedicated Museum docents are available to offer guided tours of the campus and educate visitors on the architecture, artwork and history of the Museum.
The Art Museum’s School offers art classes and workshops in a variety of mediums for all ages and experience levels. In addition to classes, the Museum’s experienced teaching artists provide arts instruction in public schools, community centers and hospitals across the state of Rhode of Island. Over 700 students with special needs who attend Lifespan Hospital’s Bradley Schools are provided arts engagement activities year round. The Artful Elders program serves the community’s seniors. A home school arts program subscribed to by many of Newport’s military families continues to add new participants each semester. Additionally, the Museum education staff manages a nationally recognized Museum Studies program for area high-school students.
While many aspects of the Art Museum have changed over the past 100 years, the initial reasons for establishing the organization have remained constant – a passionate belief in the power of art to inspire imagination, conversation, self-expression, and innovation. The arts contribute to the vibrancy of communities and have the potential to transform lives.