4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
412-622-3172
Carnegie Museum of Art is one of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh founded in 1895 by AndrewCarnegie. Today these include the Carnegie Museum of Art and The Andy Warhol Museum as well as the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Science Center. The Carnegie Museum of Art offers a distinguished collection of contemporary art that includes film and video works. Other collections of note include works of American art from the late 19th century, French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, and European and American decorative arts from the late 17th century to the present. The Heinz Architectural Center, opened as part of the Museum in 1993, is dedicated to the collection, study, and exhibition of architectural drawings and models.
While most art museums founded at the turn of the century focused on collections of old masters, AndrewCarnegie envisioned a museum collection consisting of "the old masters of tomorrow." In 1896 he initiated a series of exhibitions of contemporary art and proposed that the museum's paintings collection be formed through purchases from this series. Carnegie, thereby, founded what is arguably the first museum of modern art in the United States. Early acquisitions of works by such artists as Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, and Camille Pissarro laid the foundation for a collection that today is distinguished in American art from the mid-19th century to the present, in French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, and in significant late 20th-century works.
Over the century, the museum has amplified its scope of interest to include European and American decorative arts from the late 17th century to the present. Architect-designed objects figure prominently among recent acquisitions and complement the museum's newest curatorial department, the Heinz Architectural Center, which is dedicated to the collection, study, and exhibition of architectural drawings and models. In addition, the museum's collection includes Asian art (notably Japanese prints) and African art. One of the first museums to include film and video in its collection, the Carnegie Museum of Art has an active program of presentations in the galleries and in its 200-seat theater.
Website: http://www.cmoa.org