Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Minneapolis Institute of Art is an art museum in Minneapolis that presents around ninety thousand works in a Beaux-Arts building and spans six curatorial departments. The collections range from ancient objects to contemporary pieces and cover cultures from all continents.

The museum opened after a fundraising effort by the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, which gathered land donations and money for construction. Doors opened to visitors in the early twentieth century.

European paintings hang in galleries with high ceilings and wooden floors, while African sculptures stand in rooms lit by natural light from skylights. Visitors move through halls where Asian ceramics and American decorative pieces show how people across millennia worked with form, color and material.

Entry to the permanent collection is free every day, and on Thursdays and Fridays the doors stay open until evening. The galleries spread across several floors, so plan time for orientation and walking between sections.

The museum also maintains the Purcell-Cutts House, a Prairie School residence that opens for guided tours each second weekend of the month. This house sits away from the main site and shows architectural details from the early modern period.

Location: Minneapolis

Inception: 1883

Architects: McKim, Mead & White, Kenzō Tange, Michael Graves

Official opening: 1883

Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible

Address: 2400 Third Avenue South

Opening Hours: Holidays Tuesday-Sunday open "except Christmas eve, Christmas, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving"; Tuesday-Saturday 10:00-17:00; Thursday-Friday 10:00-21:00; Sunday 11:00-17:00; July 04 closed; December 24,25 closed; November Thursday[4] closed "US Thanksgiving"

Phone: +16128703000

Website: http://artsmia.org

GPS coordinates: 44.95861,-93.27417

Latest update: December 20, 2025 16:20