The Columbus Museum of Art was the first art museum in America to register its collection as a public trust — a museum literally owned by its city — and it has behaved like it ever since: doors open, ideas welcome, creativity treated as a civic right.
Its collections balance American and European modernism — hometown masters like George Bellows and Elijah Pierce anchor galleries beside Monet, Picasso and the museum’s superb photography holdings. The Margaret M. Walter Wing’s glassy modern galleries flow into the Russell Page sculpture garden, and the Center for Creativity turns looking into making for visitors of every age.
Sunday admission is free — the city’s standing invitation to its own collection.
Some museums display a city. This one belongs to it.
