This is a list of museums in Columbus, Ohio and non-profit and university art galleries.
The city's first museum was the Walcutt Museum, opened July 1851. At its opening, the museum had about six wax figures and a few paintings. It grew to have about 20 wax figures, several hundred animal specimens, and about 100 quality oil paintings. [1]
Name | Neighborhood | Type | Summary | Image |
---|---|---|---|---|
Beeler Gallery | Downtown | Contemporary art | Main gallery of the Columbus College of Art and Design [2] | |
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum | Ohio State University campus | Art | Collects cartoons, comic strips and graphic novels, including the collections of the National Cartoon Museum | |
Central Ohio Fire Museum | Downtown | Firefighting | Located in the restored 1908 Engine House No. 16 [3] | |
Columbus Historical Society | Franklinton | History and art | Displays historical artifacts and local art [4] [5] Expected to move to Engine House No. 6 in the near future. | |
Columbus Museum of Art | Downtown | Art | Displays European and American art and photography | |
COSI | Franklinton | Science, children's | Displays about 300 interactive exhibits | |
Hale Black Cultural Center | Ohio State University campus | African American culture and art | Features a large collection of Black art [6] Indefinitely closed. | |
Historic Costume & Textile Collection | Ohio State University campus | Textile | Exhibits permanent and changing exhibits in the Snowden Galleries [7] | |
Jack Nicklaus Museum | Ohio State University campus | Biographical | Museum about the life of golfer Jack Nicklaus | |
Kelton House Museum and Garden | Downtown | Historic house | Showcases Victorian life and the history of the Underground Railroad | |
Museum of Biological Diversity | Ohio State University campus | Natural history | Teaching collection, including insects, crustacea, fishes, molluscs, animal and plant specimens [8] | |
Museum of Classical Archaeology | Ohio State University campus | Archaeology | Includes prehistoric pottery from Cyprus, pottery from all periods, iron tools and weapons, examples of ancient writing, religious objects [9] | |
Museum of Catholic Art and History | Downtown | Religious | Displays Roman Catholic art and religious artifacts. Formerly known as the Jubilee Museum. [10] | |
National Veterans Memorial and Museum | Franklinton | Veterans, military history | Replaced the Franklin County Veterans Memorial | |
Ohio Craft Museum | Fifth by Northwest | Crafts | Operated by Ohio Designer Craftsmen, showcases fine crafts [11] | |
Ohio History Center | Ohio State Fairgrounds | History | Exhibits the history of Ohio, operated by the Ohio History Connection | |
Ohio Judicial Center Visitor Education Center | Downtown | Legal | Exhibits the history, role and responsibility of the Ohio court system [12] | |
Ohio Statehouse | Downtown | History | Includes the Ohio Statehouse Museum Education Center, with exhibits about the Statehouse, Columbus history, and the state government process | |
Ohio Village | Ohio State Fairgrounds | Living history | Mid-19th century village, operated by the Ohio History Connection | |
Orton Geological Museum | Ohio State University campus | Geology | Located in Orton Hall. Includes rocks, minerals and fossils from Ohio and around the world [13] | |
Pizzuti Collection | The Short North | Contemporary art | Temporary exhibitions of contemporary art from the collection of Ron and Ann Pizzuti [14] | |
Riffe Gallery | Downtown | Art | Showcases Ohio's artists and the collections of the state's museums and galleries, located in the Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts [15] | |
Thompson Library Gallery | Ohio State University campus | Literary | Exhibits the Ohio State University Libraries' special collections | |
Thurber House | Downtown | Biographical, literary | Museum home of author James Thurber and literary center | |
Wexner Center for the Arts | Ohio State University campus | Art | Contemporary performing and visual arts center | |
Name | Neighborhood | Type | Summary | Image |
---|---|---|---|---|
Eddie Rickenbacker and Driving Park museum | Driving Park | Biographical, historical | To be located in the Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker House [16] | |
Ohio Air & Space Hall of Fame and Museum | East Columbus | Aviation | Construction will begin in 2023 | |
Poindexter Village Museum and Cultural Center | King-Lincoln Bronzeville | African American history and culture |
Name | Neighborhood | Type | Summary | Image |
---|---|---|---|---|
Heritage Museum | Downtown | History | History of Kappa Kappa Gamma, located in the Victorian Snowden-Gray House, now an event space [17] | |
Santa Maria Ship & Museum | Downtown | Museum ship | Replica of Christopher Columbus's Santa María , taken apart, indefinitely pending refurbishment | |
Columbus is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, and the third-most populous U.S. state capital. Columbus is the county seat of Franklin County; it also extends into Delaware and Fairfield counties. It is the core city of the Columbus metropolitan area, which encompasses ten counties in central Ohio. It had a population of 2.139 million in 2020, making it the largest metropolitan area entirely in Ohio and 32nd-largest metro area in the U.S.
Kenneth Noland was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School movement. In 1977, he was honored with a major retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York that then traveled to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and Ohio's Toledo Museum of Art in 1978. In 2006, Noland's Stripe Paintings were exhibited at the Tate in London.
Thomas Cole was an English-born American artist and the founder of the Hudson River School art movement. Cole is widely regarded as the first significant American landscape painter. He was known for his romantic landscape and history paintings. Influenced by European painters, but with a strong American sensibility, he was prolific throughout his career and worked primarily with oil on canvas. His paintings are typically allegoric and often depict small figures or structures set against moody and evocative natural landscapes. They are usually escapist, framing the New World as a natural eden contrasting with the smog-filled cityscapes of Industrial Revolution-era Britain, in which he grew up. His works, often seen as conservative, criticize the contemporary trends of industrialism, urbanism, and westward expansion.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at Eakins Oval. The museum administers collections containing over 240,000 objects including major holdings of European, American and Asian origin. The various classes of artwork include sculpture, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, armor, and decorative arts.
The Wexner Center for the Arts is the Ohio State University's "multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art."
George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City. He became, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".
COSI, officially the Center of Science and Industry, is a science museum and research center in Columbus, Ohio. COSI was opened to the public on 29 March 1964 and remained there for 35 years. In 1999, COSI was moved to a 30000 m2 facility, designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki along a bend in the Scioto River in the Franklinton neighborhood. COSI features more than 300 interactive exhibits throughout themed exhibition areas.
Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is a botanical garden and conservatory located in Columbus, Ohio. It is open daily and an admission fee is charged. Today, it is a horticultural and educational institution showcasing exotic plant collections, special exhibitions, and Dale Chihuly artworks.
The Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area is a metropolitan area in Central Ohio surrounding the state capital of Columbus. As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, it includes the counties of Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Hocking, Licking, Madison, Morrow, Perry, Pickaway, and Union. At the 2020 census, the MSA had a population of 2,138,926, making it 32nd-most populous in the United States and the second largest in Ohio, behind the Cincinnati metropolitan area. The metro area, also known as Central Ohio or Greater Columbus, is one of the largest and fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the Midwestern United States.
Allan D'Arcangelo was an American artist and printmaker, best known for his paintings of highways and road signs that border on pop art and minimalism, precisionism and hard-edge painting, and also surrealism. His subject matter is distinctly American and evokes, at times, a cautious outlook on the future of this country.
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is a research library of American cartoons and comic art affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio. Formerly known as the Cartoon Research Library and the Cartoon Library & Museum, it holds the world's largest and most comprehensive academic research facility documenting and displaying original and printed comic strips, editorial cartoons, and cartoon art. The museum is named after the Ohio cartoonist Billy Ireland.
The culture of Columbus, Ohio, is particularly known for museums, performing arts, sporting events, seasonal fairs and festivals, and architecture of various styles from Greek Revival to modern architecture.
Mary Jo Bole, US, is a sculptor, printmaker, and artist-bookmaker who lives and works in Columbus. Bole has exhibited her works in the United States and Europe. She was a professor of art at Ohio State University.
Benny Alba is an artist who lives in Oakland, California.
Mary Whyte is an American watercolor artist, a traditionalist preferring a representational style, and the author of seven published books, who has earned awards for her large-scale watercolors.
The Main Library of the Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) system is located in Downtown Columbus, Ohio, United States. The public library is the largest in the library system and holds approximately 300,000 volumes. It includes numerous rooms, including separate spaces for children, teens, an adult reading room, newspaper room, auditorium, gallery, gift shop, and a cafe. The third floor includes a computer lab and houses the Franklin County Genealogical & Historical Society.
April Sunami is a mixed-media artist based in Columbus, Ohio. Her work has been exhibited in museums, galleries and private collections across the United States, and in both Ghana and Cuba, and is represented in the permanent collections of the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth, Ohio and the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio. She was described in the Columbus Dispatch by Columbus Museum of Art director Nannette Maciejunes as an heir to the legacy of Aminah Robinson. She has served in leadership roles in local arts organizations Creative Arts of Women, Mother Artists at Work and Creative Women of Color, served as assistant director at the William H. Thomas Gallery and was the first board president of All People Arts Incorporated. She is currently featured as part of the "Columbus Makes Art / Art Makes Columbus" tourism campaign as a face of Columbus art. She has a BA in Art History from Ohio State University and a MA in Art History from Ohio University. She is one of the current artists-in-residence at the Blockfort arts building. Her mentors in the world of art include Talle Bamazi, Stephanie Rond, Queen Brooks, and Bettye Stull.
Sandy Kessler Kaminski is an American painter and mixed-media artist who is also known for her public art murals. She currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where her work can be found in many places throughout the city and the surrounding area.