General Information

Explore. Experience. Discover three centuries of art and architecture at the Portland Museum of Art.

Explore the Museum's extensive collection of fine and decorative arts dating from the 18th century to the present, housed in three architecturally significant buildings. Experience the rich artistic heritage of Maine and the United States through the work of world-class artists including Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley, Rockwell Kent, Louise Nevelson, and Andrew Wyeth. Learn about the story of American art before 1900, from Gilbert Stuart to Frederic Edwin Church, in the restored Federal-era McLellan House (1801) and Beaux-Arts L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries (1911). See Maine's finest collection of European art by masters such as Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Pablo Picasso. Visit the Museum's changing exhibitions and dynamic educational programs that include family festivals, lectures, art classes, musical performances, and much more.



  • Located in the downtown arts district in Portland, Maine

  • Maine's largest and oldest public art institution, founded in 1882

  • With more than 8,000 members, the Museum ranks second among America's 170 major art museums in per capita membership

  • Recognized as "one of the best medium-size museums in New England," by The Boston Globe

  • Largest collection of European art north of Boston

  • Comprehensive collection of Winslow Homer's graphics

  • More than 150,000 visitors per year

  • More than 13,000 schoolchildren per year

  • More than 17,000 objects of fine and decorative arts in the collection, dating from the 18th-century to the present

  • Approximately 15 changing exhibitions per year

  • Annual budget: $4.7 million




The Museum's collection is housed in three architecturally significant buildings





The collection
World-class artists such as Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley, Rockwell Kent, Louise Nevelson, and Andrew and N.C. Wyeth that showcases the rich artistic heritage of Maine and the United States. The Museum is also home to Maine's finest and largest collection of European art by masters such as Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Pablo Picasso.

Programs
Constantly changing educational programs, family festivals, lectures, art classes, musical concerts, bookgroups, art camps, gallery talks, and much more.

Mission Statement
The Portland Museum of Art preserves, documents, and interprets four significant architectural landmarks and a rich variety of art drawn from its collections and from loans to encourage its visitors and community to experience original work. The Museum will consistently create outstanding exhibitions, educational programs, and activities that inspire and enrich the lives of diverse audiences and serve as a vital cultural center for greater Portland, the state of Maine, and New England.

History
The Portland Museum of Art, founded in 1882, is Maine's largest public art institution. The Museum's three architecturally significant buildings unite three centuries that showcase the history of American art and culture. The Museum's collection of more than 17,000 objects includes decorative and fine arts dating from the 18th century to the present. The heart of the Museum's collection is the State of Maine Collection, which features works by artists such as Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Louise Nevelson, and Andrew Wyeth. The Museum has the largest European collection in Maine. The major European movements from Impressionism through Surrealism are represented by the Joan Whitney Payson, Albert Otten, and Scott M. Black collections, which include works by Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Rene Magritte, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, and Pierre-Auguste Rodin. The Elizabeth B. Noyce Collection, a bequest of 66 paintings and sculptures, has transformed the scope and quality of the American collection, bringing to the Museum its first paintings by George Bellows, Alfred Thompson Bricher, Abraham Walkowitz, and Jamie Wyeth, and adding masterpieces to the collection by Childe Hassam, Fitz Henry Lane, and N. C. Wyeth.

Originally founded as the Portland Society of Art, the Museum used a variety of exhibition spaces until 1908. That year Mrs. Margaret Jane Mussey Sweat bequeathed her three-story mansion, now known as the McLellan House, and sufficient funds to create a gallery in memory of her late husband, Lorenzo de Medici Sweat. Noted New England architect John Calvin Stevens designed the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries, which opened to the public in 1911.

Over the next 65 years, as the size and scope of the exhibitions expanded, the limitations of the Museum's galleries, storage, and support areas became apparent. In 1976, Maine native Charles Shipman Payson promised the Museum his collection of 17 paintings by Winslow Homer. Recognizing the Museum's physical limitations, he also gave $8 million toward the building of an addition to be designed by Henry Nichols Cobb of I. M. Pei & Partners. Construction began on the Charles Shipman Payson Building in 1981, and within two years the $8.2 million facility was opened to the public.

Mr. Payson's gift of the Homer paintings served as a catalyst for the Museum's expansion as well as for significant long-term loans and outright gifts to the Museum. In direct response to the Payson gift, the 1979 gift of the Hamilton Easter Field Art Foundation Collection added more than 50 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by American modernists to the collection. In 1991, the Joan Whitney Payson Collection of 20 impressionist and post-impressionist works of art was given to the Museum on permanent loan. In 1996, Elizabeth B. Noyce, art collector and Maine philanthropist, bequeathed 66 works of American art, which is the most extensive and diverse gift of American art ever presented to the Museum.

Since its opening in 1983, the Charles Shipman Payson Building has been the public face of the Museum. Although the original vision of both the architect and the Museum's strategic plan was to integrate all three buildings--the Charles Shipman Payson Building, the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries, and the McLellan House only recently has the Museum been positioned to achieve this goal. In January of 2000, the Museum launched a $13.5 million capital campaign to raise funds for the preservation and educational interpretation of its two historic structures. The project began in the fall of 2000 and was completed in October 2002. The McLellan House and L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries have an emphasis on 19th-century American art, and the Payson building houses European and American works from the 20th and 21st centuries. The project to "complete the Museum" returned the McLellan House to its original neoclassical elegance and the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries to their Beaux-Arts splendor, in the process creating distinctive spaces for the Museum's outstanding collection of 19th-century American art. The Museum's expanded space allows a more complete presentation of the permanent collection, which in recent years has grown in quality and historical importance.

The Museum purchased the Winslow Homer Studio in Prouts Neck, Maine, in January 2006. The Studio is where the great American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910) lived and painted many of his masterpieces from 1883 until his death. The Museum is currently engaged in a major capital campaign to raise $8.3 million for the acquisition, preservation, and endowment of the Studio. A National Historic Landmark, the restored Winslow Homer Studio will be used to celebrate the artist?s life, to encourage scholarship on Homer, and to educate audiences about the artistic heritage of Winslow Homer and Maine. The Studio and the surrounding grounds are closed to the public while construction and restoration projects take place. The Museum plans to complete this project in 2010.

Recently, the Museum purchased two adjacent properties on Spring Street. In July 2007, the Museum purchased 87 Spring Street and removed a building formerly owned by the YWCA. In February 2008, the Charles Quincy Clapp House, at 97 Spring Street, reverted back to the Museum from the Maine College of Art. Located next to the McLellan House, the Clapp House was built in 1832 by Portland businessman Charles Q. Clapp as a private residence. Cited as one of the America?s finest examples of Greek Revival architecture, the building is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Museum plans to restore this building to its original elegance and complete the Museum's campus.

Currently the Museum is visited by 150,000 visitors a year, approximately 13,000 of whom are schoolchildren. Museum membership is at an all-time high of 8,000 members and continues to grow. Now and into the future, the Museum is committed to serving as dynamic center for the visual arts and strives to be an essential resource for the people of Maine and New England.