Southeastern New England's only comprehensive art museum, the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design—also known as the RISD Museum of Art—was established in 1877. Its permanent collection of more than 86,000 objects includes paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, costume, furniture, and other works of art from every part of the world— including objects from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and art of all periods from Asia, Europe, and the Americas, up to the latest in contemporary art. The RISD Museum also offers a wide array of educational and public programs to more than 100,000 visitors annually.

Inside the RISD Museum is RISD Works, a gift shop with merchandise designed and made by Rhode Island School of Design alumni and faculty.

During your visit, use our mobile website to explore the galleries and listen to audio perspectives on the objects. Point your mobile browser to m.risdmuseum.org.

Becoming a Member of The RISD Museum offers you much more than free admission—it also gives you access to a wealth of special events and openings, discounts on classes and shopping, and more. There are three Membership levels with a range of categories organized to suit your needs. Alumni and gift Memberships are also available at all levels. If you have questions or want additional information, please call the Membership Office at 401 454-6322

The development of the Rhode Island School of Design and its museum is tied to Rhode Island’s emergence after the Civil War as the most heavily industrialized state in the Union and to the growing desire for better design in manufacturing. With the region’s prosperity based on the production of silverware, jewelry, machine tools, steam engines, files, screws, and textiles, leading manufacturers as well as civic leaders felt the need for industrial-arts education and exposure to examples of fine art. Even before the war, the Rhode Island Art Association, chartered in 1854, determined “to establish in Providence a permanent Art Museum and Gallery of the Arts and Design.” In the absence of either state funding or private donations, however, the creation of a design school and art museum in Rhode Island did not occur until 1877. Faced with a choice between erecting a drinking fountain in Roger Williams Park or founding a school of design—the latter proposed by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf (1830-1895)—the Rhode Island Women’s Centennial Commission in that year voted to establish the Rhode Island School of Design by allocating to it the modest $1,675 remaining from its fund-raising for the Women’s Pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.