Where the art is

Museums, art galleries and sculpture parks to travel to, and magazines, channels, podcasts and databases to continue with at home. A selection, with an emphasis on Sweden and the Nordic countries.

Museums

• Nationalmuseum (Stockholm): Sweden's museum of art and design: painting, sculpture, prints and applied arts from the Middle Ages to the present, with Rembrandt, Boucher, Larsson and Zorn.
• Moderna Museet (Stockholm and Malmö): Modern and contemporary art since 1900: Picasso, Duchamp, Dalí, Warhol, Hilma af Klint and a large Swedish collection. Branch in Malmö.
• Thielska galleriet (Stockholm): The banker Ernest Thiel's home on Djurgården, filled with Munch, Liljefors, Josephson and Swedish painting from around 1900.
• Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde (Stockholm): The Painter Prince's villa and studio, with his own landscapes and his collection of Nordic painting from around 1900.
• Millesgården (Lidingö): Carl Milles's home and sculpture park on terraces above Lilla Värtan.
• Hallwylska museet (Stockholm): A palace from the 1890s with Countess von Hallwyl's collections left untouched: paintings, porcelain, weapons and silver.
• Sven-Harrys konstmuseum (Stockholm): The builder Sven-Harry Karlsson's collection of 20th-century Swedish art, with his home recreated on the roof.
• Nordiska museet (Stockholm): Cultural history, costume, furniture and folk art – essential for anyone who wants to understand Swedish design and peasant art.
• Historiska museet (Stockholm): Prehistory and the Middle Ages: the Gold Room, picture stones and one of the world's finest collections of medieval church art.
• Östasiatiska museet (Stockholm): Chinese Neolithic pottery, bronzes, porcelain and painting, as well as Japanese and Korean art. Founded on Johan Gunnar Andersson's finds.
• Göteborgs konstmuseum (Gothenburg): The Fürstenberg Gallery, with the finest collection of Nordic fin-de-siècle painting, plus Rubens, Rembrandt and the French Impressionists.
• Röhsska museet (Gothenburg): Sweden's museum of design and applied arts, with a significant collection of East Asian ceramics.
• Malmö konstmuseum (Malmö): In Malmöhus Castle: 20th-century Nordic art, art from Skåne and a large collection of applied arts.
• Skissernas museum (Lund): The world's only museum of sketches for public art – from Matisse and Léger to Siri Derkert.
• Zornmuseet (Mora): Anders Zorn's work in his home town, with Zorngården, where he and Emma lived.
• Carl Larsson-gården (Sundborn): Lilla Hyttnäs: the home that Carl and Karin Larsson furnished and that became a model for Swedish interiors.
• Kalmar konstmuseum (Kalmar): Swedish art from the 19th century to the present in an acclaimed timber and glass building in the City Park.
• Norrköpings konstmuseum (Norrköping): A strong collection of Swedish modernism and Nordic prints.
• Bildmuseet (Umeå): Contemporary art, design and visual culture at the Umeå Arts Campus.
• Bror Hjorths hus (Uppsala): The home and studio of the sculptor and painter Bror Hjorth, with reliefs and paintings inspired by folk art.
• Artipelag (Värmdö): Art gallery and museum set in the archipelago landscape, with large thematic exhibitions.
• Fotografiska (Stockholm): Photography exhibitions in an old customs house at Stadsgården.
• Statens Museum for Kunst (Copenhagen): Denmark's national gallery: Golden Age painting, Hammershøi and European art.
• Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebæk): Modern and contemporary art in a park on the Øresund. Also publishes the Louisiana Channel film series.
• Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen): Ancient sculpture, Rodin, Degas and French painting, beneath a palm house.
• Den Hirschsprungske Samling (Copenhagen): Danish 19th-century art, from the Golden Age to the Skagen Painters.
• Skagens Museum (Skagen): The light of the Skagen Painters: P.S. Krøyer, Anna and Michael Ancher.
• ARoS (Aarhus): Contemporary art beneath Olafur Eliasson's rainbow walkway on the roof.
• Nasjonalmuseet (Oslo): Norway's great museum of art, architecture and design, with Munch's The Scream and Madonna.
• MUNCH (Oslo): Edvard Munch's estate: thousands of paintings, drawings and prints.
• Astrup Fearnley Museet (Oslo): Contemporary art in Renzo Piano's building by the fjord.
• Ateneum (Helsinki): Finland's art museum: Gallen-Kallela, Schjerfbeck, Edelfelt and the Finnish Golden Age.
• Kiasma (Helsinki): The museum of contemporary art, in Steven Holl's building.
• Musée du Louvre (Paris): The world's most visited museum: from Egypt and antiquity to the 19th century, with the Mona Lisa and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
• Musée d’Orsay (Paris): Art from 1848–1914 in a former railway station: Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.
• Musée de l’Orangerie (Paris): Monet's great Water Lilies in two oval rooms.
• Centre Pompidou (Paris): Europe's largest collection of modern art, in a building with its pipes on the outside.
• Musée Rodin (Paris): Rodin's sculptures in his house and garden, with The Thinker and The Gates of Hell.
• Musée Guimet (Paris): France's national museum of Asian art.
• Museo del Prado (Madrid): Velázquez, Goya, El Greco, Bosch, Titian and Rubens – one of the world's finest collections of paintings.
• Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid): Spanish modernism, with Picasso's Guernica.
• Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid): A private collection spanning seven centuries, from the Italian primitives to Pop Art.
• Guggenheim Bilbao (Bilbao): Frank Gehry's titanium-clad building, with Richard Serra's steel spirals.
• Gallerie degli Uffizi (Florence): The heart of the Renaissance: Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Caravaggio.
• Musei Vaticani (Vatican City): The popes' collections, the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel.
• Galleria Borghese (Rome): Bernini's sculptures and Caravaggio's paintings in a cardinal's villa.
• Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan): Northern Italian painting: Mantegna, Bellini, Raphael and Caravaggio.
• Gallerie dell’Accademia (Venice): Venetian painting from Bellini to Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.
• Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice): Surrealism and abstract art in a palazzo on the Grand Canal.
• National Gallery (London): Western painting from 1250–1900, with free admission: van Eyck, Velázquez, Turner and van Gogh.
• Tate (London and elsewhere): Tate Britain for British art, Tate Modern for modern and contemporary art, plus Liverpool and St Ives.
• British Museum (London): World cultures from prehistory to the present: the Parthenon sculptures, the Rosetta Stone and major Asian collections.
• Victoria and Albert Museum (London): The world's largest museum of applied arts and design – Morris, ceramics, textiles, jewellery and fashion.
• The Courtauld Gallery (London): Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in Somerset House: Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère and van Gogh's self-portrait.
• The Wallace Collection (London): French 18th-century art, Fragonard's The Swing and a large collection of arms and armour.
• Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam): The Dutch Golden Age: Rembrandt's The Night Watch and Vermeer's The Milkmaid.
• Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam): The world's largest collection of van Gogh, with his letters to his brother Theo.
• Mauritshuis (The Hague): A small palace with Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft.
• Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam): Modern art and design: Malevich, De Stijl and Rietveld.
• Groeningemuseum (Bruges): The Flemish Primitives: van Eyck, Memling and van der Weyden, in the city where the first two worked.
• KMSKA (Antwerp): Rubens, Flemish painting and the world's largest Ensor collection.
• Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna): The Habsburg collections, with the world's largest collection of Bruegel.
• Belvedere (Vienna): Klimt's The Kiss and Viennese modernism in a Baroque palace.
• Albertina (Vienna): Prints and drawings, with Dürer's Young Hare, as well as modern art.
• Leopold Museum (Vienna): The world's largest collection of Egon Schiele.
• Gemäldegalerie (Berlin): European painting from 1200–1800 among Berlin's state museums.
• Pinakotheken (Munich): The Alte, Neue and Pinakothek der Moderne: from Dürer and Rubens to Beckmann.
• Städel Museum (Frankfurt): 700 years of European art under one roof.
• Museum Ludwig (Cologne): Pop Art, the Russian avant-garde and Picasso.
• Bauhaus-Archiv (Berlin): The Bauhaus archive and museum: furniture, textiles, ceramics and teaching.
• Kunsthaus Zürich (Zurich): Switzerland's largest art museum, with Giacometti, Munch and Monet.
• Fondation Beyeler (Riehen, near Basel): Classic modernism in a Renzo Piano building with large windows onto the landscape.
• Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel): The world's oldest public art collection, with Holbein and Böcklin.
• Ermitaget (St Petersburg): The tsars' collections in the Winter Palace: Rembrandt, Matisse and antiquity.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York): Five thousand years of art from all over the world, with large collections of Chinese and Japanese art.
• MoMA (New York): The Museum of Modern Art: van Gogh's The Starry Night, Picasso's Demoiselles and design.
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York): Frank Lloyd Wright's spiral – and the museum that showed Hilma af Klint to 600,000 visitors in 2018.
• Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago): Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon, Hopper's Nighthawks and a large collection of Japanese woodblock prints.
• National Gallery of Art (Washington): The only painting by Leonardo in the Americas, and free admission.
• J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles): European art, photography and manuscripts on a hilltop above the city.
• Museum of Fine Arts (Boston): One of the largest collections of Japanese art outside Japan.
• National Museum of Asian Art (Washington): The Smithsonian's museum of Asian art, with Whistler's Peacock Room.
• Tokyo National Museum (Tokyo): Japan's oldest and largest museum: national treasures, swords, armour and painting.
• Kyoto National Museum (Kyoto): Art from the temples and court of Kyoto.
• Mori Art Museum (Tokyo): Contemporary art at the top of a skyscraper in Roppongi.
• Palatsmuseet (Beijing): The Forbidden City, with the emperors' collections.
• National Palace Museum (Taipei): The heart of the Chinese emperors' collections, taken to Taiwan in 1948–49: painting, calligraphy, jade and porcelain.
• Shanghai Museum (Shanghai): Bronzes, ceramics, painting and calligraphy in a building shaped like a ding.
• M+ (Hong Kong): Visual culture, design and contemporary art from Asia.

Art galleries and biennales

• Liljevalchs konsthall (Stockholm): Stockholm's public art gallery since 1916, known for the open Spring Salon.
• Bonniers konsthall (Stockholm): International contemporary art in a glass building at Sankt Eriksplan.
• Magasin III (Stockholm): A private museum of contemporary art in Frihamnen, with its own collection and large installations.
• Marabouparken konsthall (Sundbyberg): Contemporary art and a sculpture park in the chocolate factory's old park.
• Malmö Konsthall (Malmö): One of Europe's largest exhibition halls, a light-filled space from 1975 for contemporary art.
• Lunds konsthall (Lund): Contemporary art on Mårtenstorget since 1957.
• Göteborgs konsthall (Gothenburg): Contemporary art at Götaplatsen, in the same building as the art museum.
• Tensta konsthall (Stockholm): Contemporary art in the suburbs, with exhibitions that often deal with place and society.
• Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen): One of the largest exhibition halls in the Nordic countries, on Nyhavn.
• Serpentine Galleries (London): Contemporary art in Hyde Park and the annual pavilion by a new architect.
• Whitechapel Gallery (London): The gallery that showed Picasso's Guernica in 1939 and Pollock in London.
• Palais de Tokyo (Paris): Europe's largest centre for contemporary art.
• Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna): Contemporary art in the MuseumsQuartier.
• Kunsthal Rotterdam (Rotterdam): An exhibition hall without a collection of its own, in a building by Rem Koolhaas.
• La Biennale di Venezia (Venice): The world's oldest art biennale (1895), with national pavilions – including a Nordic one.
• documenta (Kassel): The major contemporary art exhibition held every five years.

Sculpture parks

• Wanås konst (Knislinge): Site-specific contemporary art in the grounds of a castle in Skåne, with works by Yoko Ono, Ann Hamilton and Marina Abramović.
• Vigelandsparken (Oslo): Gustav Vigeland's more than 200 sculptures on the cycle of life, with the Monolith at the centre.
• Kistefos (Jevnaker): A sculpture park and The Twist gallery, a twisted building spanning a river.
• Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo): A van Gogh collection and one of Europe's largest sculpture gardens, in the middle of a national park.
• Yorkshire Sculpture Park (Wakefield): Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and contemporary sculpture in an English parkland landscape.
• Storm King Art Center (New York State): Monumental sculpture in a rolling landscape in the Hudson Valley.
• Benesse Art Site Naoshima (Naoshima): Islands in Japan's Inland Sea with museums by Tadao Ando, Yayoi Kusama's pumpkins and Monet's Water Lilies in daylight.

Magazines

• Paletten (Gothenburg): One of Sweden's oldest art magazines, published since 1940.
• Kunstkritikk (Nordic region): Nordic online journal of art criticism, in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.
• Omkonst: Online magazine with reviews of exhibitions all over Sweden.
• Konsthistorisk tidskrift: Sweden's scholarly journal of art history, published since 1932.
• The Art Newspaper (London): News from the art world: museums, the market and heritage.
• The Burlington Magazine (London): The leading journal of historical art since 1903.
• Apollo (London): Art, antiques and collecting, from antiquity to the present.
• Artforum (New York): The influential magazine of contemporary art and criticism.
• frieze (London): Contemporary art and culture; also the art fairs of the same name.
• ARTnews (New York): One of the oldest art magazines, founded in 1902.
• Hyperallergic (New York): A free, critical and often funny online art magazine.
• e-flux: Journal and news service for contemporary art and theory.
• Kunstforum International: German magazine with themed issues on contemporary art.
• Dezeen: The world's most widely read online magazine on architecture and design.

YouTube and film

• Smarthistory: Hundreds of short conversations between art historians in front of the works. Free, reliable and at university level.
• Great Art Explained: James Payne explains one work at a time in fifteen minutes, with history, technique and context.
• The Art Assignment: Sarah Urist Green on art history and art you can make yourself (PBS).
• The National Gallery: Lectures, conservation and short films about individual paintings.
• Tate: Artist portraits and the “The Art of …” series on modern and contemporary artists.
• The Met: The “The Met Unframed” and “Met Expert Talks” series on objects in the collection.
• Louisiana Channel: Hundreds of interviews with artists, architects and writers about their work.
• ZCZ Films: Waldemar Januszczak's witty and knowledgeable documentaries, from the Baroque to Impressionism.
• Art Prof: Techniques and materials from a former RISD teacher: drawing, painting and sculpture.
• Proko: Figure drawing: anatomy, proportions and gesture.
• Sotheby’s: Experts on individual works and the art market.
• Nationalmuseum: Tours, conservation and talks about Swedish art and design.
• Moderna Museet: Artist talks and films about the exhibitions.
• UR Play: Swedish Educational Broadcasting's programmes on art and art history (on urplay.se).

Podcasts and radio

• The Week in Art: The Art Newspaper's weekly podcast on exhibitions and news.
• The Lonely Palette: Tamar Avishai takes one work at a time, with voices from museum visitors.
• The Great Women Artists: Katy Hessel in conversation about women artists in history and today.
• Talk Art: Russell Tovey and Robert Diament interview artists, gallerists and collectors.
• Getty Art + Ideas: Conversations with artists and scholars from the Getty.
• BBC Sounds: konst: BBC programmes on art and art history, such as “Free Thinking” and “In Our Time”.
• Sveriges Radio: konst: Swedish Radio's arts desk programmes on art, for example in P1 Kultur and Kulturnytt.

Databases and reference works

• Wikimedia Commons: Millions of free images, including most of those in Cultured Eye.
• Wikidata: Structured data on artists and works – the source of the catalogue in Cultured Eye.
• Europeana: Europe's shared gateway to the collections of museums, archives and libraries.
• Google Arts & Culture: High-resolution images in which you can zoom right in to the brushstrokes.
• Rijksstudio: The Rijksmuseum's entire collection, free to download in high resolution.
• The Met Collection: More than 400,000 images in the public domain.
• Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: The Met's timeline and essays covering the whole of art history.
• Art Institute of Chicago: samlingen: A freely searchable collection with open-access images.
• Smarthistory: A free art history resource with texts and videos by hundreds of scholars.
• Web Gallery of Art: A classic image database of European art from 1000–1900.
• RKD: The Netherlands Institute for Art History: databases of artists and works.
• Getty ULAN: Union List of Artist Names: names, variants and biographical data for hundreds of thousands of artists.
• DigitaltMuseum: The collections of Swedish and Norwegian museums in one place.
• Kringla: Search the collections of Swedish museums, archives and heritage registers.
• Alvin: Digitised manuscripts, maps, pictures and prints from Swedish libraries.
• Lexikonett Amanda: A dictionary of Swedish artists, with biographies and images.
• Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon: Biographies of Swedish women, including many artists.
• Svenskt biografiskt lexikon: The National Archives' major biographical dictionary.
• ColBase: The collections of Japan's national museums in a shared database.
• Ukiyo-e.org: A search engine for Japanese woodblock prints in museums around the world.
• National Palace Museum Open Data: Open-access images of Chinese painting, calligraphy and porcelain from Taipei.
• V&A Collections: Search the V&A's collection of over a million objects of design and applied art.
• Cooper Hewitt Collection: The Smithsonian's design museum, with an open collection.