More Than 3,500 Art Museums in America; Wadsworth Atheneum Earns Top 20 Ranking

 The Washington Post has published its annual rankings of U.S. art museums with the Wadsworth Atheneum, located on Hartford’s Main Street, earning a place in the top 20, at number 18, just above the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the Dallas Museum of Art. 

The criteria were based on three components, as the Post described it, “on the depth and breadth of the museums’ collections, the quality of their exhibitions, and their history of public engagement.”

The description of the Wadsworth’s selection pointed out: “It has a splendid collection — not at all dusty (its long-running Matrix program for contemporary art has helped keep it current). Its baroque, surrealist and Hudson River School holdings are tremendous. It boasts the Serge Lifar collection of Ballets Russes drawings and costumes, the Samuel Colt firearms collection, a terrific “Wunderkammer” display, great costumes and textiles, and destination paintings by, among others, William Holman Hunt, Caravaggio, Joseph Wright of Derby and Norman Rockwell.”

For those unfamiliar with the museum, the Post introduces it with “The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, is open to the public only four days a week, from noon until 5 p.m. — presumably because of financial constraints. It’s a shame, because the Wadsworth, having opened in 1844, claims to be the oldest continually operating art museum in the United States and completed a major renovation as recently as 2015.”

Post arts columnists Philip Kennicott and Sebastian Smee compiled the rankings of the “heavyweights” among art museums across the country.  Topping the list were the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; Art Institute of Chicago; National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; Cleveland Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art in New York City; Detroit Institute of Art; and Getty Center in Los Angeles.

The descriptions of the museum highlights for each of the top 20 is accompanied by illustrations by Doug John Miller for The Washington Post.