One of America’s oldest art museums (founded 1894) has one of its freshest missions. The Minnesota Museum of American Art — everyone calls it The M — fills the light-washed galleries of downtown St. Paul’s Pioneer Endicott building with American art in the broadest sense: Ojibwe beadwork and Hmong textiles beside modernist painting and contemporary photography.
Its collection of 5,500+ works leans into Minnesota and the craft traditions other museums overlook, and its exhibitions — often co-created with community artists — treat “American art” as a conversation the whole country gets to join. The soaring skyway-level galleries are free to wander.
The M survived closures and a nomadic decade to land in this luminous home. St. Paul’s art heart beats here — diverse, craft-proud and wide open.
