World > U.S. > Georgia > The Atlanta Area

High Museum of Art

A 2005 expansion by Renzo Piano—not to mention a subsequent partnership with the Louvre in Paris—has brought the southeastern U.S.'s preeminent art museum to a whole new level in the past few years. Part of the Woodruff Arts Center (which also houses the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta College of Art, and several smaller performance venues), the High's permanent collection includes some 11,000 works of art, with a particular emphasis on 19th- and 20th-century American painting and decorative arts. There's also a significant collection by European masters, including Monet and Toulouse-Lautrec; a contemporary collection housing paintings by Chuck Close and Ellsworth Kelly; and growing collections of photography, African art, and American folk art. The Louvre partnership allows the High to exhibit a rotating series of works on loan from the Paris museum; the current installations (through September 2008) include a spectacular collection of statuary, ceramics, and works on paper from ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt.

Tip: Every third Friday of the month, the High hosts Friday Jazz, with evening live music performances and live costumed models for visiting artists to sketch (pads and drawing boards are provided).

Admission: $18 adults; $15 students and seniors; $11 children (6–17); free for children 5 and under

AS FEATURED IN...

From Travel + Leisure , DEC 2005

When the High Museum of Art opened in its present location in 1983, few in Atlanta would have imagined that 22 years later its building, designed by Richard Meier with the curves of a grand piano and a skin of white-enamel squares, would end up on a U.S. postage stamp in the series Masterworks of Modern American Architecture, alongside the Chrysler Building and Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum....MORE>>

– Raul Barreneche Sky High

Last updated December 2005