Here’s Baltimore’s happiest art fact: one of America’s finest art museums is completely free. The Baltimore Museum of Art, founded in 1914 and perched above Wyman Park at 10 Art Museum Drive, holds some 95,000 works — from ancient Antioch mosaics to the largest public collection of Matisse in the world — and charges nothing to walk in.
The neoclassical main building (designed by John Russell Pope, architect of the National Gallery in Washington) unfolds by centuries: the Cone Wing’s Matisses and Picassos, a beloved American collection with Maryland roots, African and Asian galleries, and contemporary wings that stay gloriously current. Outside, the sculpture gardens cascade down terraces toward Charles Street — a favorite picnic-with-art spot.
The BMA is open Wednesday through Sunday (until 9 p.m. on Thursdays) next to the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus. Exhibitions may be ticketed; the collection galleries are always free. Details at artbma.org.
