virtual tours of art museums for students

• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

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20 Famous Art Museums You Can Visit from Your Living Room

Art from around the world has never been closer to home.

Did you know that you can access art museum virtual field trips, tours, and resources from around the world for free ? Why not take your students on virtual museum tours to the lavish Louvre in Paris? Or the majestic Metropolitan Museum of Art? Or any one of these historic art museums from around the world? Check out the list below to get started!

1. Benaki Museum

Located in Greece, the Benaki Museum features European and Asian pieces of artwork dating all the way back to prehistoric ages. In addition to having a massive collection of art you can explore virtually, the Benaki also offers audio tours for several of their larger exhibits. Our favorites include Chinese and Korean Art, Historic Heirlooms, and Childhood, Toys, and Games.

2. The Frick Collection

Frick, yeah! Click your way through this interactive map for a tour of the beautiful building and collections of art from the likes of Bellini, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and more.

3. The J. Paul Getty Museum

Explore thousands of items in the Getty’s collection  with help from Google Arts & Culture. The J. Paul Getty Museum specifically has several interactive options for exploring their collection: a “museum view” virtual tour, three ebook-style online exhibits, and the library of over 15,000 collected pieces of art.

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4. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

The largest art museum in the western United States is offering art museum virtual field trips. Watch videos and museum walkthroughs, listen to soundtracks and live recordings, learn with online teaching resources and courses, browse their art collection, and more on LACMA’s redesigned website.

5. The Louvre

One of our favorite art museum virtual field trips—and the world’s large museum—is the Louvre with options for some of their best exhibition rooms and galleries. Explore rare Egyptian artifacts, iconic paintings, the beautiful structure of the building, and much more through their 360-degree viewing feature.

(NOTE: Several of these virtual tours require Flash Player.)

6. Metropolitan Museum of Art’s #MetKids

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka the Met) developed #MetKids for, with, and by kids—but we think parents and teachers will have just as much fun using it. Our favorite features include a fun and highly interactive map, a “time machine” search function, informational and how-to videos, and so much more.

7. Musée d’Orsay

Instantly transport to the middle of Paris with the Musée d’Orsay and their online tours and art collection. Here you can explore art history with the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces from renowned artists such as Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, and many more.

8. Museo Frida Kahlo

Also known as La Casa Azúl (the Blue House), this historic art museum was developed where renowned artist Frida Kahlo lived and created masterpieces. While there, you can learn about her life, her art, and more as you take a virtual tour through her former residence.

9. The Museum of the World

The British Museum and Google Cultural Institute teamed up to create one of our favorite interactive projects: The Museum of the World. The British Museum’s digital art collection lets users travel through time—starting with 2,000,000 BC—while seeing how each historical piece in their collection connects with others. Wow!

10. The National Gallery

Click and scroll your way around the National Gallery in London with their three interactive virtual tour options. The National Gallery has hundreds of paintings in its collection ready to be viewed online, many of which are from the Renaissance period.

11. The National Gallery of Art

Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art has a wide variety of great educational resources,  including video tours of their exhibitions, in-depth looks at the best pieces of their collection, downloadable learning resources and exercises, pre-recorded lectures by artists and curators, and more.

12. Pergamon Museum

One of Germany’s largest museums, Pergamon is home to a variety of ancient artifacts, including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and the Pergamon Altar.

13. Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum is the museum of the Netherlands and contains an online collection of well over 160,000 items. Not only is their digital collection incredibly stocked, but it’s also one of the more immersive collections online today. In addition, we highly recommend you try their “stories” feature (shown above), which walks users through the story and emotions behind the artwork created.

14. San Diego Museum of Art

Step inside the San Diego Museum of Art from anywhere! Enjoy 360-degree scans of your favorite galleries, zoom in to see art details, and read full label text in both English and Spanish, all from the comfort of home.

15. San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts

The San Francisco MoMA offers exclusive content featuring artists and their work online. Watch videos, read articles, and more right on their website.

16. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has several art museums around the world, which means more history to absorb virtually! Their Collection Online has over 1,700 diverse artworks by over renowned 600 artists—and it is definitely worth checking out as one of our top art museum virtual field trips!

17. Tate Modern: Andy Warhol Exhibit

The Tate Modern put together this video tour of their famous Andy Warhol exhibit. Museum curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran talk in-depth about Andy Warhol and his work through the lens of the immigrant story, his LGBTQ identity, and more.

18. Uffizi Gallery

Here you’ll find the art collection of one of Florence, Italy’s most famous families, the de’Medicis. Wander the halls from any classroom!

19. The Van Gogh Museum

With an obvious focus on Vincent van Gogh, the Van Gogh Museum is home to the largest collection of van Gogh pieces in the world. The museum, virtual tours, ebook “stories,” and online collection dive into the life of van Gogh and the inspiration behind his art. Moreover, we think teachers everywhere will appreciate how big a fan he was of reading books!

20. The Vatican Museums

You can finally say you’ve seen the Sistine Chapel thanks to this online program! And, you can also virtually visit the Raphael Rooms, the Chiaramonti Museum, and more historic sites through these virtual tours by the Vatican Museums.

Did we miss one of your favorite art museum virtual field trips? Share them with us, and we might just add it to this list!

Also, check out the best field trip ideas for every age and interest (virtual options too).

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The 75 Best Virtual Museum Tours Around the World [Art, History, Science, and Technology]

Jarrod West

Senior Content Contributor

439 Published Articles 1 Edited Article

Countries Visited: 21 U.S. States Visited: 24

Keri Stooksbury

Editor-in-Chief

32 Published Articles 3130 Edited Articles

Countries Visited: 47 U.S. States Visited: 28

Google Arts and Culture

1. the albertina museum (vienna, austria), 2. art institute of chicago (chicago, illinois), 3. benaki museum (athens, greece), 4. the broad (los angeles, california), 5. centre pompidou (paris, france), 6. the dalí theatre-museum (figueres, spain), 7. detroit institute of arts (detroit, michigan), 8. frick collection (new york city, new york), 9. galleria dell’accademia (florence, italy), 10. georgia o’keeffe museum (sante fe, new mexico), 11. grand palais (paris, france), 12. hermitage museum (saint petersburg, russia), 13. high museum of art (atlanta, georgia), 14. the j. paul getty museum (los angeles, california), 15. kunsthaus zürich (zürich, switzerland), 16. la galleria nazionale (rome, italy), 17. los angeles county museum of art (lacma) (los angeles, california), 18. mauritshuis (the hague, netherlands), 19. the metropolitan museum of art (new york city, new york), 20. musée du louvre (paris, france), 21. musée d’orsay (paris, france), 22. museo nacional del prado (madrid, spain), 23. museo frida kahlo (mexico city, mexico), 24. museo nacional centro de arte reina sofía (madrid, spain), 25. museu de arte de são paulo (são paulo, brazil), 26. museum of broken relationships (los angeles, california and zagreb, croatia), 27. museum of fine arts, boston (boston, massachusetts), 28. museum of fine arts, houston (houston, texas), 29. the museum of modern art (moma) (new york city, new york), 30. national gallery (london, england), 31. national gallery of art (washington, d.c.), 32. national gallery of victoria (victoria, melbourne, australia), 33. national museum of china (beijing, china), 34. national museum of korea (seoul, south korea), 35. national museum, new delhi (new delhi, india), 36. national museum of modern and contemporary art (seoul, south korea), 37. national palace museum (taipei, taiwan), 38. national portrait gallery (washington, d.c.), 39. pergamonmuseum (berlin, germany), 40. picasso museum (barcelona, spain), 41. rijksmuseum (amsterdam, netherlands), 42. san francisco museum of modern art (san francisco, california), 43. sistine chapel at the vatican museums (vatican city), 44. solomon r. guggenheim museum (new york city, new york), 45. tate modern (london, england), 46. thyssen-bornemisza museum (madrid, spain), 47. tokyo national museum (tokyo, japan), 48. uffizi gallery (florence, italy), 49. van gogh museum (amsterdam, netherlands), 50. victoria and albert museum (london, england), 1. american museum of natural history (new york city, new york), 2. the british museum (london, england), 3. national museum of anthropology (mexico city, mexico), 4. national museum of natural history (washington, d.c.), 5. natural history museum (london, england), 1. london science museum (london, england), 2. museo galileo (florence, italy), 3. the museum of flight (seattle, washington), 4. the museum of natural sciences of belgium (brussels, belgium), 5. museum of science, boston (boston, massachusetts), 6. national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) (washington, d.c.), 7. national air and space museum (washington, d.c.), 8. national museum of computing (bletchley park, england), 9. national museum of the united states air force (riverside, ohio), 10. oxford university’s history of science museum (oxford, england), 1. acropolis museum (athens, greece), 2. american battlefield trust virtual battlefield tours, 3. anne frank house (amsterdam, netherlands), 4. franklin d. roosevelt presidential library and museum (hyde park, new york), 5. national museum of african american history and culture (washington, d.c.), 6. national museum of american history (washington, d.c.), 7. national museum of scotland (edinburgh, scotland), 8. national women’s history museum (alexandria, virginia), 9. terra cotta warriors of xi’an at emperor qinshihuang’s mausoleum site museum (xi’an, china), 10. u.s. holocaust memorial museum (washington, d.c.), final thoughts.

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You can now access collections from many of the world’s top museums without ever leaving home! We’ve put together an ultimate list of 75 world-class museums that offer virtual tours you can visit from the comfort of your couch.

Many of the virtual tours include exhibit walk-throughs and the ability to examine some of the world’s best paintings, sculptures, and other pieces up close and personal. These virtual tours are jam-packed with enough details to make you feel like you’re really visiting the museum. The experiences are sure to entertain the whole family, an art or history buff, or even those who want to imagine the joys of travel!

We’ve broken our list into 4 easy-to-review sections, including art, natural history, science and technology, and history museums. So whether you prefer to take in a painting at the Van Gogh Museum, check out an SR-71 Blackbird at the Museum of Flight, or gaze upon the Rosetta Stone, this list has it all!

Many of the virtual exhibits in this article are offered through a collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. If you’re not familiar, Google Arts and Culture is an online platform that showcases high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from more than 2,000 museums throughout the world. You can zoom in and out of images in great detail and view some of the best pieces of artwork ever created without leaving your couch.

The platform is available in 18 languages and has been praised internationally for increasing access to art to those who may have not had the opportunity otherwise. It’s available for web , iOS , and Android .

50 Art Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened:  1805

The Albertina Museum features one of the most important European collections of international modern art and houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and 1 million old master prints. Hundreds of the works housed in the museum, like “Study for the Last Supper” by Da Vinci and “The Water Lily Pond” by Monet, can be viewed online thanks to a partnership with Google Arts and Culture.

To view the online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1879

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the U.S., hosting approximately 1.5 million people annually. Its collection features more than 5,000 years of human expression from cultures around the world and contains more than 300,000 works of art in 11 curatorial departments.

The online tour allows you to view major pieces from the museum’s collection, such as “American Gothic,” “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte,” and “Nighthawks.” The site also offers projects to get creative at home, educator resources, and JourneyMaker, a digital tool that allows visitors to create unique, personalized tours of the museum.

To view the online tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1930

Established in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, the Benaki Museum houses Greek works of art from prehistoric to modern times and an extensive collection of Asian art. It also hosts periodic exhibitions and maintains a state-of-the-art restoration and conservation workshop.

The entire museum can be viewed virtually in great detail.

To view the online virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 2015

The Broad is a contemporary art museum named for philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. The Broad houses a nearly 2,000-piece collection of contemporary art, featuring 200 artists including works by Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, and Andy Warhol. Notable installations include Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Mirrored Room” (pictured above) and Ragnar Kjartansson’s expansive 9-screen video “The Visitors.”

The Broad has put together a series of YouTube videos to give you a first-hand look at the museum.

Year Opened : 1977

The Centre Pompidou, named after the president of France from 1969 to 1974, is the largest museum for modern and contemporary art in Europe and the second-largest in the world. The museum has more than 12,000 pieces of artwork on display, including works by Kandinsky, Dalí, and Valadon.

The Centre has dozens of videos available on its YouTube channel that provide walk-throughs of the museum and explanations of its most important works.

To view the video tours, click here .

Year Opened : 1974

Dedicated to the life and work of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, the Dalí Theatre-Museum displays the single largest and most diverse collection of works by the artist. In addition to Dalí paintings from all decades of his career, there are Dalí sculptures, 3-dimensional collages, mechanical devices, and other curiosities from Dalí’s imagination. Through the website, guests can take a virtual tour in 360-degree of the entire museum.

To view the virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1885

With more than 100 galleries covering over 658,000 square feet, the Detroit Institute of Arts has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the U.S. Its collection features works spanning from ancient Egypt and Europe all the way to modern contemporary art.

The museum has put together “ At Home With DIA ” to offer school field trips from home, weekly film screenings, senior resources, and home projects. DIA also has a partnership with Google Arts and Culture to provide online exhibits including:

• Frida Kahlo in Detroit
• Ordinary People by Extraordinary Artists
• Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry
• Self Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States

Year Opened: 1935

Located in the Henry Clay Frick House, the Frick Collection houses the art collection of industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection features some of the best-known paintings by major European artists, including Bellini, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, as well as numerous works of sculpture and porcelain.

The entire museum can be viewed virtually.

Year Opened : 1784

The Galleria dell’Accademia, while small compared to other museums featured, is still the second most visited museum in Italy. Its command of visitors is in large part due to its display of perhaps the most famous sculpture in history — Michaelangelo’s statue of David.

You can view a short, video-guided tour of the museum, which includes 360-degree viewing, allowing you to get a close look at the museum’s offerings.

To view the video tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1997

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe and her contributions to American Modernism. The museum’s collection includes many of O’Keeffe’s key works, ranging from her innovative abstractions to her iconic large-format flower, skull, and landscape paintings, to paintings of architectural forms, rocks, shells, and trees. Initially, the collection was made of 140 O’Keeffe paintings, watercolors, pastels, and sculptures, but now includes nearly 1,200 objects.

The museum website offers creative activities, stories, and education about Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, along with several virtual exhibits available through Google Arts and Culture, including:

• Georgia O’Keeffe
• American Modernism
• United States

Year Opened : 1900

The Grand Palais is a large historic site, exhibition hall, and museum dedicated to the organization of exhibitions, publishing books, art workshops, photographic agency, and hosting major fairs and events. The museum receives 2.5 million visitors each year. The partnership with Google Arts and Culture brings extensive online exhibits to life, from the construction of the building to the masterpieces that lie within it.

Year Opened : 1764

The Hermitage Museum is the second-largest and eighth-most visited art museum in the world. The Hermitage has more than 60,000 pieces of artwork on display, including the “Peacock Clock” by James Cox, “Madonna Litta” by Leonardo Da Vinci, and works by Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Antonio Canova.

The online tour is extremely comprehensive and allows you to virtually walk through all 6 buildings in the main complex, treasure gallery, and several exhibition projects.

Year Opened : 1905

The High Museum of Art offers over 15,000 works of art in its collection and is the leading art museum in the southeastern U.S. The museum focuses on 19th- and 20th-century American art, historic and contemporary decorative arts and design, European paintings, modern and contemporary art, photography, folk and self-taught art, and African art.

The museum’s partnership with Google Arts and Culture also offers online exhibits for viewing including:

• Bill Traylor’s Drawings of People, Animals, and Events
• How Iris van Herpen Transformed Fashion
• Incredible, Innovative, and Unexpected Contemporary Furniture Designs
• Photos From the Civil Rights Movement

Year Opened: 1953

The J. Paul Getty Museum is made up of 2 campuses — the Getty Center and Getty Villa — that receive more than 2 million visitors per year. The Getty Center features pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts and photographs from the 1830s through present-day from all over the world. The Getty Villa displays art from Ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria.

The museum has put together online resources like art books, online exhibitions, podcasts, and videos, all viewable on its website .

It has also partnered with Google Arts and Culture to showcase online exhibits including:

• 18th Century Pastel Portraits
• The Art of Three Faiths: Torah, Bible, Qur’an
• Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
• Getty Museum Acquisitions 2019
• Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well

To view the online galleries, click here .

Year Opened : 1910

The Kunsthaus Zürich features one of Switzerland’s most important art collections from the 13th century to the present day. While the museum places an emphasis on Swiss artists, including Alberto Giacometti, you’ll also find work from the likes of Monet, Picasso, and Warhol.

The museum’s partnership with Google Arts and Culture has digitized several of the museum’s best collections for viewing.

Year Opened: 1883

La Galleria Nazionale displays about 1,100 paintings and sculptures from the 19th and 20th centuries — the largest collection in Italy. It features work from famous Italian artists including Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Alberto Burri, and foreign artists including Cézanne, Monet, Pollock, Rodin, and Van Gogh.

It has teamed up with Google to offer 16 virtual exhibits for online viewing.

Year Opened: 1910

LACMA is the largest art museum in the western U.S., attracts nearly a million visitors annually, and holds more than 150,000 works spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present.

The website (click LACMA @ Home ) includes exhibition walkthroughs, soundtracks and live recordings, online teaching resources, and courses.

To view the LACMA’s online virtual tour from Google Arts & Culture, click here .

Year Opened : 1822

The Mauritshuis is home to some of the best Dutch paintings from the Golden Age of Art. The museum consists of 854 works by artists like Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt Van Rijn, and Jan Steen. Famous works include “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (pictured above) and “View of Delft” by Vermeer, and “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” by Rembrandt.

The museum has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring several of its best works to life for virtual viewing.

To view the Mauritshuis’ online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1870

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, also known as “The Met,” is the largest art museum in the U.S. and the fourth most visited museum in the world with more than 6 million visitors each year. The permanent collection contains more than 2 million works from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all of the European masters (including Monet’s Water Lillies), and an extensive collection of American and modern art. It also has extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, and Islamic art.

The museum has extensive different online exhibits available for viewing through Google and its own Art at Home website .

Year Opened:  1793

The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, began as a fortress under Philip II in the 12th century to protect the city from English soldiers that were in Normandy. It wasn’t repurposed as a museum until 1793. Now, the Louvre is easily one of the most historic art museums in the world. Not only is the Louvre the largest art museum in the world at 782,910 square feet (72,735 square meters), but it also had 9.6 million visitors in 2019, making it the most visited museum in the world as well. Featured masterpieces include “Mona Lisa,” “Winged Victory of Samothrace,” “Venus de Milo,” and “Hammurabi’s Code.”

The Louvre has several virtual galleries on display, including:

• The Advent of the Artist, including works from Delacroix, Rembrandt, and Tintoretto
• Egyptian Antiquities, featuring collections from the Pharaonic period
• Remains of the Louvre’s Moat — visitors can walk around the original perimeter moat and view the piers that supported the drawbridge dating back to 1190
• Galerie d’Apollon, destroyed by fire in 1661 and recently rebuilt for viewing

To view the Louvre’s virtual tour page, click here .

Year Opened: 1986

The Musée d’Orsay is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe and had more than 3.6 million visitors in 2019. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, including works by Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Seurat, Sisley, and Van Gogh.

The museum allows you to virtually walk through one of its popular galleries, featuring hundreds of paintings from French artists.

To view the Musée d’Orsay online gallery, click here .

Year Opened : 1819

The Museo Nacional del Prado is considered to have one of the greatest collections of European art in the world and offers guests the single largest collection of Spanish art. The collection currently comprises around 8,200 drawings, 7,600 paintings, 4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures. Well-known works include “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez, “The Third of May 1808” by Francisco De Goya, and “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch.

The museum’s online gallery allows you to get a close look at over 10,000 different pieces of art. The Prado also offers a 1-hour live show on Instagram every morning at 4 a.m. EST.

To view the online gallery, click here .

Year Opened: 1958

The Frida Kahlo Museum, also known as the Blue House due to its blue walls, is a historic museum dedicated to the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The building was Kahlo’s birthplace, the home where she grew up, lived with her husband Diego Rivera for many years, and where she later died in a room on the upper floor. The museum contains a collection of artwork by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and other artists, along with the couple’s Mexican folk art, pre-Hispanic artifacts, photographs, memorabilia, personal items, and more. Find out more in our guide to the best museums in Mexico City .

Year Opened: 1990

The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, also called the Museo Reina Sofía, is one of the most popular art museums in the world. The museum includes large collections of Spain’s 2 most popular artists, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Famous works on display include “Guernica” and “Woman in Blue” by Picasso and “Cubist Self Portrait” by Dalí.

You can view collections of artwork at the Reina Sofía through its partnership with Google Arts and Culture.

Year Opened: 1947

The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is Brazil’s first modern art museum. The museum is internationally recognized for its collection of European art, as it’s considered the finest museum in Latin America and all of the Southern Hemisphere. The museum primarily features Brazilian art, prints, and drawings, as well as smaller collections of African and Asian art, antiquities, decorative arts, and others, amounting to more than 8,000 pieces. MASP also has one of the largest art libraries in the country.

You can now take a virtual tour of online galleries the museum has to offer, including:

• Art from Brazil until 1900
• Art from Italy: Rafael to Titian
• Art from France: from Delacroix to Cézanne
• Art in Fashion
• Histories of Madness: The Drawings of Juquery
• Picture Gallery in Transformation

Year Opened: 2010

The Museum of Broken Relationships is dedicated to failed love relationships. Its exhibits include personal objects left over from former lovers, accompanied by brief descriptions. The museum was founded by 2 Zagreb-based artists, film producer Olinka Vištica and sculptor Dražen Grubišić, after their 4-year relationship came to an end.

The virtual tour includes a close-up collection of dozens of the museum’s most interesting pieces.

The 17th largest art museum in the world, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) hosts one of the most extensive art collections in the U.S. It houses over 8,000 paintings, surpassed only by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and exceeds 1 million visitors each year. Pieces by world-renowned artists like Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Monet are featured alongside sculptures, mummies, ceramics, and other artifacts from ancient civilizations.

There are currently 16 online exhibits available for viewing.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) is one of the largest museums in the U.S., and its collection features over 64,000 works from 6 continents. The collection places emphasis on pre-Columbian and African gold, Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture, 19th- and 20th-century art, photography, and Latin American art. Read our guide to the best museums in Houston for more information.

The museum has 14 online exhibits available for viewing in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture.

Year Opened: 1929

Regarded as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world, MoMA’s art collection features an overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books, and artist’s books, film, and electronic media. MoMA’s holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces including Andy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” and Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” in addition to approximately 22,000 films and 4 million film stills.

MoMA’s website offers 86,000 works of art that can be viewed online, along with a partnership with Google Arts and Culture to create a virtual display of its Sophie Taeber-Arp exhibit.

To view the website’s collection, click here . To view the Google exhibit, click here .

Year Opened : 1824

The National Gallery features more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900, including works such as “Sunflowers” by Van Gogh, “The Virgin on the Rocks” by Da Vinci, and “The Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan Van Eyck.

Its website offers a few virtual tours, showcasing many rooms in the museum, the Sainsbury Wing, and a Google Virtual tour.

Year Opened: 1937

The National Gallery of Art and its attached Sculpture Garden are located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and are open to the public free of charge. The museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress.

The National Gallery is widely considered to be one of the greatest museums in the U.S. It ranks second in total visitors of all American museums, 10th in the world, and features incredible pieces including Jackson Pollock’s “Number 1,” Leonardo da Vinci’s “Ginevra de’ Benci,” and Degas’ “Little Dancer Aged 14.”

The museum has put together a collection of educational resources on its website for teachers, families, and children. It also features online exhibits through Google Arts and Culture including:

• American Fashion — highlights from 1740 to 1895
• Johannes Vermeer — Dutch Baroque painter

To view the National Gallery of Art online collection page, click here .

Year Opened: 1861

The National Gallery of Victoria is Australia’s oldest, largest, and most visited art museum. The museum offers a wide variety of international and Australian art in its collection, including paintings, drawings, photography, and sculptures.

The online tour includes walk-throughs of exhibits, including highlights from the NGV Triennial 2020 and Chinese Collection, as well as exhibits featuring Goya and KAWS.

Year Opened : 2003

The National Museum of China covers Chinese history from 1.7 million years ago to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Notable works include the “Houmuwu” Rectangle Ding, a rectangular bronze sacrificial vessel made in the late Shang Dynasty, the heaviest piece of ancient bronze ware in the world, and a Han Dynasty jade burial suit laced with gold thread. It is one of the largest museums in the world, and the second most visited art museum in the world, just after the Louvre.

The museum has virtual exhibits available for 360-degree viewing including:

• Resplendence of the Tang Dynasty
• Sunken Silver

Year Opened : 1909

The National Museum of Korea is the top museum of Korean history and art and has been committed to various studies and research activities in the fields of archaeology, history, and art, continuously developing a variety of exhibitions and education programs.

The museum’s virtual tour provides a 3D walk-through of exhibits, including 1,000 years of Korean design and 500 years of the Joseon Dynasty.

Year Opened: 1949

The National Museum, New Delhi is one of the largest museums in India. The museum has around 200,000 works of art, both of Indian and foreign origin, including paintings, sculptures, jewelry, ancient texts, armor, and decorative arts ranging from the pre-historic era to modern works — covering over 5,000 years.

The museum has partnered with Google to bring its online exhibits to life, including:

• Art of Caligraphy
• Cadence and Counterpoint
• Indian Bronzes
• Nauras: The Many Arts of the Deccan
• Pottery from Ancient Peru
• Treasures of National Museum, India
• Radha and Krishna in the Boat of Love

Year Opened: 1969

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art was first established in 1969 as the only national art museum in South Korea, accommodating modern and contemporary art of Korea and international art of different time periods. The museum features over 7,000 pieces of artwork, including works of contemporary Korean artists such as Go Hui-dong, Ku Bon-ung, Park Su-geun, and Kim Whan-ki.

Google’s virtual tour takes you through 6 floors of contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.

Year Opened : 1965

The National Palace Museum has a collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of ancient Chinese imperial artifacts and artworks. The collection encompasses 8,000 years of history of Chinese art, including jade, paintings, bronzes, and porcelain that were formerly held in the Forbidden City of Peking.

The museum offers 360-degree virtual tours of many different exhibits.

To view the virtual tours, click here .

Year Opened : 1962

The National Portrait Gallery has a collection of over 21,000 works of art. The collection focuses on images of famous Americans and how they’ve shaped U.S. culture. A major attraction of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection is the Hall of Presidents, which contains portraits of nearly all American presidents. It is the largest and most complete collection in the world, except for the White House collection itself.

The museum has several collections featured on Google Arts and Culture, but also offers digital workshops, and distance learning resources for children and teachers.

To view the online resources, click here .

The Pergamonmuseum houses monumental buildings, such as the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, and the Market Gate of Miletus reconstructed from the ruins found in Anatolia, as well as the Mshatta Facade. The museum is subdivided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic art. It is visited by over 1 million people every year.

The museum has dozens of structures and other artifacts that can be viewed online.

Year Opened: 1963

The Picasso Museum, located in the heart of Barcelona’s Latin Quarter, is visited by millions every year. They come to marvel at the best works of Picasso, perhaps the most famous painter of all, but stay to marvel at the best-preserved medieval architecture in Barcelona. With 4,251 works by the painter exhibited, the museum has one of the most complete permanent collections of his works.

The online tour offers a large selection of Picasso’s finest works, as well as virtual tours of the museum’s beautiful courtyards.

Year Opened: 1798

The Rijksmuseum was founded in The Hague in 1798 and moved to Amsterdam in 1808, where it was first located in the Royal Palace. The current main building was designed by Pierre Cuypers and first opened in 1885. The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history from the years 1200 to 2000, and a total collection of 1 million objects. The museum features masterpieces including Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” and “The Jewish Bride,” plus works by Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer, who are known to have been major contributors to the Golden Age of Dutch art.

Google offers a street view tour of some excellent art pieces located in the museum, and the museum has put together an entire virtual tour of all of the museum’s masterpieces viewable on its website.

To view the Google street view tour, click here . You can also view the museum’s From Home microsite and masterpieces tour .

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is composed of over 33,000 works of art spread throughout 7 gallery floors and 45,000 square feet of space. Following a 3-year closure for expansion, the museum reopened in 2016 and is now one of San Francisco’s must-see destinations.

SFMOMA’s website is updated regularly with videos and articles regarding current exhibits, projects, and artist showcases and provides behind-the-scenes looks of the museum. 

To view the museum’s multimedia features, click here .

Read our guide to the best museums in San Francisco to find out more.

Year Opened: 1483

The Sistine Chapel, located inside of the Apostolic Palace (the official residence of the pope in Vatican City), is easily the most popular chapel in the world. The chapel is famous for its magnificent ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, and is considered to be one of the best artworks to come out of the Italian Renaissance. The primary panels of the ceiling showcase 9 scenes from the Book of Genesis, of which “The Creation of Adam” (pictured above) is the best known and most recognized.

Its website offers a virtual tour of the chapel’s most stunning sites, including the ability to marvel at Michelangelo’s ceiling from the comfort of your couch.

Year Opened: 1939

The Guggenheim Museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year.

Google’s  Street View feature lets you tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase and some of its art pieces. It also offers a handful of online collections on its website .

Year Opened: 2000

Tate Modern is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the world, consisting of art dating from 1900 until today. The gallery receives over 5 million visitors a year, making it the sixth most visited art museum in the world and the most visited in the U.K.

The Tate Modern has published dozens of videos on its YouTube channel that give you an in-depth look at many of its exhibits, including the Andy Warhol exhibit and the Aubrey Beardsley exhibit.

To view the Tate Modern’s YouTube channel, click here .

Year Opened: 1992

Located in Madrid, the Thyssen has over 1,600 paintings inside its walls and was once the second-largest private collection in the world after the British Royal Collection. It includes works from the Italian primitives, the English, Dutch, and German schools, Impressionists, Expressionists, and European and American paintings from the 20th century. It also features pieces from the continent’s most celebrated artists including Rembrandt and Dalí.

The virtual tour includes a detailed look at the permanent collection, along with exhibits including the Rembrandt and Impressionist galleries.

Year Opened : 1872

The Tokyo National Museum is the oldest and largest art museum in Japan, and one of the largest art museums in the world. At the museum, you’ll find a collection of artwork and cultural objects from Asia, ancient and medieval Japanese art, and Asian art along the Silk Road.

The museum has teamed up with Google’s Arts and Culture to provide an inside look at what the museum has to offer.

Year Opened: 1581

The Uffizi was designed by Giorgio Vasari for Cosimo I de’ Medici, whose family members were by far the largest patrons of art in Renaissance Italy. The museum now spans over 139,000 square feet with 101 different rooms that house its art pieces, including famous pieces such as “The Birth of Venus.” Over 2 million people visit the Uffizi each year, making it the most viewed art museum in Italy.

The museum has teamed up with Google to showcase online galleries including:

• Piero di Cosimo, Perseus Freeing Andromeda
• The Santa Trinita Maestà, Cimabue
• The Creative Process Behind Federico Barocci’s Drawings
• Drawings by Amico Aspertini and other Bolognese artists

Year Opened: 1973

The Van Gogh Museum is dedicated to perhaps one of the most famous artists of all time — Vincent Van Gogh. The museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings in the world, including over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and over 750 personal letters. The museum has over 2 million visitors each year and is the 23rd most visited art museum in the world. Find out more in our review to the best museums in Amsterdam .

The museum has teamed up with Google to create online exhibits on Vincent Van Gogh’s love life and the books he loved to read. You can also visit the museum’s website for a selection of things to do for young children, including school lessons and coloring pages.

Year Opened : 1852

The Victoria and Albert Museum collection spans 5,000 years of art from Europe, North America, Asia, and North Africa. The collection of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewelry, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings, and photographs is among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

The virtual tour, in partnership with Google Arts and Culture, offers several online exhibits ranging from fashion to surrealism.

5 Natural History Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 1869

One of the largest natural history museums in the world, the American Museum of Natural History contains 34 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts.

The museum’s 360-degree virtual tours offer an up-close look at permanent exhibits, current exhibits, past exhibits, and research stations.

Year Opened: 1759

The British Museum is one of the largest in the world and houses over 8 million works within its walls. Established in 1759, it was the first public national museum in the world. Visitors can tour the great court and view some of the most famous objects in history, like the Elgin Marbles of Greece and the Rosetta Stone of Egypt.

The Museum is the world’s largest indoor space on Google Street View and you can go on a virtual visit to more than 60 galleries.

The British Museum also has virtual galleries on display, including:

• Prints and Drawings

To visit the British Museum’s virtual tour page, click here .

Year Opened: 1964

The National Museum of Anthropology is the largest and most visited museum in all of Mexico. The museum contains significant archaeological and anthropological artifacts from Mexico’s pre-Columbian heritage, such as the Stone of the Sun (or the Aztec calendar stone) and the Aztec Xochipilli statue.

The museum has made more than 100 items available for Google visitors to explore from home.

To view the museum’s online collection, click here .

Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is the 11th most visited museum in the world and the most visited natural history museum in the world. With over 325,000 square feet of exhibition space, the museum’s collections contain over 145 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts — the largest natural history collection in the world. Highlights of the collection include the Hope Diamond and the Star of Asia Sapphire.

You can view all of these specimens from the comfort of your home as the museum has dozens of different online exhibits that can all be accessed on its website.

To view the museum’s virtual tour, click here .

Year Opened: 1881

Undoubtably one of the best Museums in London , the Natural History Museum in London showcases 80 million life and earth science specimens of great historical and scientific value, even housing pieces collected by Charles Darwin. There are 5 categories within the museum: botany , entomology , mineralogy , paleontology , and zoology . Over 5 million people visit this museum each year, making it the most visited natural history museum in Europe.

One of the museum’s most prominent displays is the skeleton of an 82-foot long blue whale named Hope, which you can learn more about through a self-guided virtual tour, along with several other galleries. 

10 Science and Technology Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 1857

The London Science Museum holds a collection of over 300,000 items, including famous items such as Stephenson’s Rocket, Puffing Billy (the oldest surviving steam locomotive), the first jet engine, some of the earliest remaining steam engines, and documentation of the first typewriter.

Thanks to Google Street View, guests can take a virtual tour of the entire museum, or watch curator gallery guides on the museum’s YouTube channel.

To view the virtual tour or videos, click here .

Dedicated to the scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, the Museo Galilei is housed in an 11th-century palace known as the Palazzo Castellini. The museum has a collection of over 5,000 ancient scientific instruments dating back to the 13th century, and among its most notable items is the telescope Galileo used to discover the satellites of Jupiter.

Visitors from around the world have the opportunity to explore the inside of the museum and can access more than 1,000 permanent exhibition objects through the online catalog.

Year Opened: 1965

The Museum of Flight is the largest private air and space museum in the world and attracts over 500,000 visitors every year. The museum has more than 150 aircraft in its collection, including the Lockheed Model 10-E Electra (the aircraft Amelia Earhart was piloting when she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean), Boeing 747s, and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird (pictured above).

The museum offers 360-degree tours that let you step inside dozens of these iconic aircraft.

Year Opened: 1846

The Museum of Natural Sciences of Belgium is dedicated to natural history and is part of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. The dinosaur hall of the museum is the world’s largest museum hall completely dedicated to dinosaurs, and its most important pieces are 30 fossilized Iguanodon skeletons, which were discovered in 1878 in Bernissart.

It has partnered with Google to set up virtual exhibits for viewing, including:

• 360-degree guided tour
• The Bernissart Iguanodons
• From Salehanthropus to Homo Sapiens
• Over 250 Years of Natural Sciences
• Past, Present, Future: The Marvels of Evolution

To view the museum’s online exhibits, click here .

Year Opened: 1830

The Museum of Science, Boston, receiving over 1.5 million visitors annually, is a museum and indoor zoo with more than 700 interactive exhibits and over 100 animals, many of which have been rescued and rehabilitated.

The museum offers a phenomenal virtual tour full of digital exhibits, videos, and audio presentations.

NASA, founded in 1958, was created by the federal government to develop the civilian space program, as well as to conduct aeronautics, space, and astrophysics research. Since its inception, NASA has been responsible for historic space missions including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the space shuttle.

NASA has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring many online exhibits to life to showcase the beauty of space exploration.

Year Opened : 1946

The National Air and Space Museum is a center for the history and science of aviation, spaceflight, planetary science, terrestrial geology, and geophysics. It is the fifth most visited museum in the world (the second most visited in the U.S.), and contains the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia, the Friendship 7 capsule, the Wright brothers’ Wright Flyer airplane, and Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.

The virtual tour offers a 360-degree walk-through of the entire museum.

Year Opened: 2007

The National Museum of Computing is dedicated to collecting and restoring historic computer systems. The museum is home to the world’s largest collection of working historic computers dating back to the 1940s, including a rebuilt Mark 2 Colossus computer, alongside an exhibition of the most complex code-cracking activities performed at the Park.

In the 3D virtual tour, viewers can move around the galleries looking at the machines and their descriptions with the added bonus of hyperlinks to video and text explanations providing further detail and history of the exhibits.

Year Opened: 1923

Located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Riverside, Ohio, the National Museum of the United States Air Force is the oldest and largest military aviation museum in the world, with more than 360 aircraft and missiles on display.

The virtual tour allows visitors to take a virtual, 360-degree, self-guided tour of the entire museum by navigating from gallery to gallery.

Year Opened: 1683

Oxford’s History of Science Museum holds a leading collection of scientific instruments from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.

The museum, ever ahead of the times, has offered virtual tours since 1995. You’ll get to explore the fantastic exhibits and artifacts of some of the most important scientific discoveries in science history.

10 History Museums With Virtual Tours

Year Opened : 2009

The Acropolis Museum is centered around the archaeological findings at the site of Athens’ most important structure — the Acropolis. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece.

The museum has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to bring the museum to life virtually. Now you can view rock, marble, and sculptures certificates, all of which are thousands of years old, all from the comfort of your couch!

The American Battlefield Trust Virtual Battlefield Tours offers the incredible opportunity to experience 360-degree virtual tours of more than 20 American Revolution and Civil War battlefields. You can explore Gettysburg, with 15 different stops, each of which features icons that discuss in great detail the history and significance of the battle.

Year Opened: 1957

What was once the house where Anne Frank went into hiding during WWII is now a museum dedicated to increasing awareness of Anne’s story and life in the attic. The Anne Frank House was established in cooperation with Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, and now welcomes over 1 million visitors from around the world each year.

The museum’s website offers a virtual reality tour of the annex, along with other educational resources about Anne’s life.

Year Opened: 1941

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum holds the records of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd U.S. president (1933 to 1945). The museum showcases the history behind FDR’s story, his presidency, New Deal policies, assassination attempt, and wartime decisions.

The 360-degree online tour gives you a close look at original documents, artifacts, and videos from FDR’s life.

Year Opened: 2003

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African-American life, history, and culture. It was established by an Act of Congress in 2003, following decades of efforts to promote and highlight the contributions of African-Americans. To date, the Museum has collected more than 36,000 artifacts.

The museum website offers more than 15 different online exhibits covering African American history and culture.

Check out its online virtual tour  and digital resources guide .

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has more than 1.8 million objects that highlight the history of the U.S — including the original Star-Spangled Banner, Julia Child’s kitchen, Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, Indiana Jones’ fedora and whip, and more!

The museum offers about 100 online exhibits from its encyclopedic collections, each with a mix of photos, video, graphics, and text on topics ranging through the nation’s entire history.

Year Opened : 1866

The National Museum of Scotland is dedicated to Scottish antiquities, culture, and history. The museum contains artifacts from around the world, encompassing geology, archaeology, natural history, science, technology, art, and world cultures. Popular items from the collections include Dolly the Sheep, the Arthur’s Seat coffins, and the Cramond Lioness sculpture.

The Museum’s galleries have been captured digitally in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, along with a virtual walk-through thanks to Google Street View.

Year Opened: 1996

Founded in 1996 by Karen Staser, the National Women’s History Museum researches, collects, and exhibits the contributions of women to the social, cultural, economic, and political life of our nation in the context of world history.

Its website currently features 29 different online exhibits!

Year Opened: 1974 (created third century B.C.)

The Terracotta Army at Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210 to 209 B.C. to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The sculptures include warriors, chariots, and horses. Estimates from 2007 were that the 3 pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses, and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits near Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum.

The online experience allows you to get up close and personal with the sculptures in a full 360-degree experience!

To view the online virtual experience, click here .

Year Opened: 1980

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is the country’s official memorial to the Holocaust. It is located on the National Mall alongside other monuments dedicated to freedom. Each year, the museum encourages its 1.6 million visitors to promote human dignity, confront hatred, prevent genocide, and strengthen democratic values. The museum’s collection includes millions of archival documents, artifacts, photographs, footage, and a list of over 200,000 registered survivors and their families, among other historical items.

Its website offers a wide selection of educational resources, including a virtual tour, and is available in 16 languages.

There you have it — 75 amazing #MuseumsAtHome options filled with one-of-a-kind artifacts covering art, science, history, and natural history, all of which can be “visited” virtually while you lounge in your pajamas! So whether you’re a massive fan of art, looking for an educational experience for your children, or simply need a way to keep yourself entertained, you can’t go wrong with a virtual tour of any of these world-class museums.

Frequently Asked Questions

What museums have virtual tours.

There are dozens of museums worldwide offering virtual tours — we have 75 on this list alone! But some of our favorites are the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum!

How much do virtual tours cost?

Every single virtual tour included on our list is completely free of charge!

What is a virtual museum tour?

A virtual museum tour is, in essence, a simulation of what you might experience when visiting the museum in person. Virtual tours are usually comprised of a collection of videos, still images, 3D walkthroughs, and narration that help you feel as though you’re visiting the museum — without actually doing so!

How do you do a virtual tour?

Doing a virtual tour is easy! Often, the museum will have a dedicated website page allowing you to view all of their virtual resources on 1 page.

In the case of museums that have a 3D walkthrough, you can “walk” yourself through the museum by clicking from artwork to artwork, and exhibit to exhibit, as if you were actually visiting the museum in person!

Are virtual tours worth it?

Absolutely! If you’re currently not able to visit a museum in person, but want to experience all it has to offer, a virtual tour allows you to do just that — all from the comforts of your home!

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ChatGPT for Teachers

Trauma-informed practices in schools, teacher well-being, cultivating diversity, equity, & inclusion, integrating technology in the classroom, social-emotional development, covid-19 resources, invest in resilience: summer toolkit, civics & resilience, all toolkits, degree programs, trauma-informed professional development, teacher licensure & certification, how to become - career information, classroom management, instructional design, lifestyle & self-care, online higher ed teaching, current events, virtual museum tours for students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessarily prevented students from visiting physical destinations like museums and having the enhanced learning experiences that these field trips provide. Fortunately, there are still opportunities to gain enriching experiences from ‘virtual’ travel. Many museums feature world-class websites with online tours that students can attend right from their classroom or home if they’re learning remotely. The following ten museums feature collections that will not only inspire students but are conveniently accessible online.

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History features multiple virtual tours, including narrated tours and online visits to some of the museum’s most popular exhibits. What’s great about this museum is that there are so many meaningful exhibits for students to enjoy, no matter their grade level. Students will enjoy these online tours, including the Hall of Fossils, Insect Zoo, Seamonsters Unearthed, and Objects of Wonder exhibits.

The Art Institute of Chicago

As one of the oldest art museums in the U.S., the Art Institute of Chicago features exceptional permanent and temporary exhibits. More than a million people have visited the institute (pre-COVID) to witness its celebrated attractions like Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” and Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” Along with online tours, the Art Institute of Chicago provides art activities to do at home and creative lesson plans for teachers.

The Hermitage Museum

The Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, Russia, is one of the most illustrious museums on the planet. Its collection includes over 60,000 works of art by many of the world’s greatest artists, such as Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and da Vinci. The online tour is extensive, which makes this online visit suitable for older students. Or, teachers may want to confine their visit to just one of the tour’s galleries.

British Museum

Located in London, the British Museum is one of the most renowned museums in the world. Its collections hold more than eight million objects from all over the globe, from nearly every epoch of human existence. When visiting the museum online, students can witness virtually some of the most incredible artifacts ever discovered, such as the Rosetta Stone, the Standard of Ur, and Elgin Marbles. Of course, teachers can really impress students by encouraging them to visit the museum’s Harry Potter exhibit!

Virginia Air & Space Center

The Virginia Air & Space Center is the official visitor center for NASA. As such, it’s a venue that brims with wow factor. The center displays exhibits that chronicle more than 100 years of flight and incredible space flight artifacts. One of the center’s most famous holdings is its Apollo 12 Command Module. For science and technology students, this center is a definite must-visit attraction. Pair your online visit with specific class lessons about the history of flight or the first space explorations.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

As one of the most renowned museums in the world, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has invested considerably in its online platforms, making it easy for people to enjoy its collections from virtually anywhere. Students can explore the Met’s outstanding collections of paintings, fashions, musical instruments, and more. Teachers should check out its “MetKids” online platform to find out more about its online features. The Met’s holdings are substantial. Consequently, teachers can pair a virtual visit to this venue with a wide range of curriculum subject matter.

Home to the “Mona Lisa,” the Louvre is filled with world treasures. As it’s located in Paris, it’s not easily accessible at any time unless you happen to be traveling to France. The Louvre features online tours and collections that virtual visitors can explore. From Egyptian antiquities to Renaissance art, the collections span centuries. Be sure to encourage students to check out Hammurabi’s Code and the Lamassu.

National Museum of China

Students don’t need to know Chinese to enjoy a virtual visit to the National Museum of China. The Museum’s information is also presented in English. Students can visit it virtually to learn about China’s vast history, its emperors, its incredible cultural achievements, and everyday life for the Chinese throughout the centuries. Teachers can find many ways to relate artifacts in the collections with topics that students are currently studying.

Museo Galileo

Located in Florence, Italy, the Museo Galileo features a highly notable online platform where students can learn about one of history’s most celebrated scientists and astronomers. The museum features exhibits devoted to Galileo showcasing over 5,000 ancient scientific artifacts and instruments, including Galileo’s telescope. This museum visit is perfect for complementing studies in astronomy, science, and history.

Anne Frank House

Anne Frank, one of the best-known young writers of the last century, is also tragically known for her death at the hands of the Nazis. The Anne Frank Museum pays homage to this young girl, her family, and all the victims of the Holocaust. The museum offers a virtual tour as well as many online resources for anyone interested in learning more about this tragic period in time.

Your students will be blown away by the online exhibits. When your class can’t visit in person, visiting online from the comfort of home is the next best thing.

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The CMA has a new ticketing system!

Spoiler alert: it’s much easier to use. You'll be able to buy event tickets and renew your membership just like always, and now you'll also be able to reserve general admission tickets in advance if you'd like.

We hope you love this new system as much as we do. If you want a little help, reach out to us at 803-799-2810 or [email protected].

Virtual Field Trips

Bring the cma to your students.

The 21 st -century museum, much like the 21 st -century classroom, is a dynamic space that is changing constantly. Whether welcoming your students into our physical space, or providing online options, CMA school programs are developed to align with classroom goals and meet standards across the curriculum to ensure a well-rounded, engaging learning experience. 

CMA virtual field trip options include:

• in-gallery pre-recorded video tours
• live experiences with trained educators

Read more below, or reach out to us at 803-343-2163 or [email protected] .

Title 1 Schools

The Art for All program is designed to offer Title I schools the opportunity to enjoy a field trip to the Columbia Museum of Art free of charge, whether in-person or virtually. In 2021-2022, Title I schools are eligible to take advantage of this opportunity while funds remain.

This program is supported by the Lipscomb Family Foundation, the Coles Family Foundation of Central Carolina Community Foundation, and the Sonoco Foundation.

Pre-Recorded Video Gallery Tours

These 30-minute videos follow an educator through the galleries, replicating a CMA visit experience. The educator will incorporate inquiry-based discussion techniques that allow the teacher to further the conversation by pausing the video and facilitating discussion. Each purchase includes a video link and an introduction for teachers on how to facilitate image-based discussion.

$25 per video.

Studio Kit Add-On These kits can be added on to any virtual field trip option for an additional charge. These sets include materials for students to complete the studio lesson that connects with their virtual discussion. $3 per student. Kits can be mailed out for an additional $10 fee or picked up from the CMA for no additional charge. 

Book Yours Today

Program Choices

Animal Nature Come with us on an animal safari! We’ll be on the lookout for creatures of all kinds and learning about the natural environments they inhabit. In the studios we’ll make our own artful animals and habitats. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Sense-ational Art In this tour we’ll be using our senses to make discoveries about the art we see and the world around us. Join us as we explore texture, sound, and smell throughout the galleries and create multimedia masterpieces in the studios. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Rock, Paper, Silver In this tour we’ll explore natural resources and how they make up the materials used in works of art. We’ll use scientific and mathematical skills to discuss three-dimensional works of art from sculpture to architecture. In the studios we’ll create our own 3D creations. Download Pre-Visit Guide

How Art Works From a hammer and chisel to a well-oiled machine, art can be created with all sorts of things. In the studios we’ll learn the ins and outs of how art is made and the impact that art has in society. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Visions of the United States American life has been shaped by so many forces, from Native American tribes and African cultures to European fashions and popular culture. In the galleries we will discuss how art reflects American values and changing ways of life. In the studios students will create their own interpretation of Americana. Download Pre-Visit Guide

The Imaginative Worlds of M.C. Escher February 6 – June 6, 2021 Get a closer look at one of the most masterful printmakers of all time in The Imaginative Worlds of M.C. Escher. On this tour we’ll explore geometry, perspective, world cultures, and more as we delve into to the intricate and intriguing work of this graphic artist. Download the Pre-Visit Guide

30 Americans Explore some of the most dynamic and thought-provoking works from major Black artists from the last four decades. The varied works in this exhibition touch on historical events, identity, media, and materiality. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Ways of Life Art doesn’t just tell us about the artist’s own ideas; it can tell us about what life is like in a certain time and place. In this tour we’ll explore art spanning from ancient Mesopotamia to the modern-day United States as we discuss how art shapes our understanding of cultures around the world. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Visions from India Was on view October 16, 2020 – January 10, 2021 Explore the diverse and incredibly varied works of 20 contemporary Indian artists, ranging from the meticulously detailed to soaring installations. The tour delves into Indian politics and history as well as current cultural touch points. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Balance of Power Art is one of many ways people have demonstrated prestige and privilege over time. In the galleries we’ll examine figures and symbols in works of art from the powerful to the powerless, discussing who is and is not being depicted and why. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Making a Modern World Being modern has meant different things in different eras. In this tour we’ll explore the notion of modernity through both history and art, from the Renaissance up to the present day. In the studios students will explore modernity and what it means in their daily lives through their own creations. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Pre-Recorded Video Gallery Tour: Black Is Beautiful

Please enjoy this free video tour of the exhibition Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite .

In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite used photography to popularize the political slogan “Black Is Beautiful.” This exhibition—the first ever dedicated to Brathwaite’s remarkable career—tells the story of a key figure of the second Harlem Renaissance.

This discussion of Black Is Beautiful is an example of what you'll see in a recorded video tour.

Live Virtual Field Trips

These 40-minute live virtual field trips provide access to high-resolution images of objects in the CMA collection along with live discussions facilitated by trained educators. Supplemental images are included, and in some cases video or audio components. Each virtual discussion comes with a cross-curricular studio art lesson plan that teachers can use to further enhance their classroom experience and reinforce the big ideas of the virtual discussion. 

Virtual discussions with a CMA educator cost $75.

Show Me a Story Art can tell all sorts of stories. Join us in the galleries to unravel these tales, discovering stories about famous figures and everyday events. Along the way we’ll explore ways artists use shape, color, and other elements of art to create new worlds before creating our own in the studios. Download Pre-Visit Guide

All Around Our State While art can tell us about cultures around the world, it can also give vital information about our own region. In this tour we’ll span centuries of South Carolina history and culture, from one of the first Colonial artists to Native American art all the way up to the 21st century. In the studios students will explore how art and the written word intersect to inform historical understanding by creating their own periodicals. Supported by the South Carolina Arts Commission . Download Pre-Visit Guide

Balance of Power Art is one of many ways people have demonstrated prestige and privilege over time. In the galleries we’ll examine figures and symbols in works of art from the powerful to the powerless, discussing who is and is not being depicted. Download Pre-Visit Guide

AP Art History: East/Central Asia This super-sized session (1 hour 15 minutes, or two 35 minute sessions) will cover a range of art from China, Tibet, and Afghanistan. Join us for an interactive discussion as students examine works from the 250 and the CMA collection while also gaining an understanding of Buddhism, the Silk Road, and how politics impact art. Download Pre-Visit Guide

Image Sets and Lesson Plans

These pre-existing image sets and editable lesson plans provide teachers with resources they can use to build their own options.

See Them Here

50 World Class Museums To Enjoy Virtually Online For Free

Scoping out some museums for art-inspired travel? Here’s my guide to the best virtual museums you can visit online at home from the comfort of your couch or computer.

Many world class museums have released some or all of their collections online. Or they’ve partnered with Google Arts & Culture to make collections accessible in high resolution.

Some museums have used the technology that powers Google Street View to let you zoom in to see floor plans or specific art works.

If you can’t travel for any reason, this is a splendid time to travel virtually to a museum of your choice. There’s an almost dizzying array of virtual options.

It’s not quite like walking through a museum. But it has its own strange pleasures.

World Class Museums With Online Collections and Virtual Tours For At Home Viewing

Here’s my list of virtual tours for 50 amazing museums:

1. Uffizi Gallery, Florence Italy

Art lovers are rushing to the Virtual Uffizi Gallery Facebook page. Launched in 2020, the page already has over 50,000 followers.

The Uffizi is one of Europe’s best museums, housing priceless treasures of Italian Renaissance art collected by the powerful Medici family. The Uffizi has the world’s best collection of Gothic and Renaissance art.

This is where you can admire Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Primavera , Laocoön and his Sons , and Raphael’s Portrait of Pope Leo X with Two Cardinals .

Install the Google Arts & Culture App to explore the entire collection .

Here’s my comprehensive guide to the Uffizi Gallery and my must know Uffizi tips to prepare for your museum visit.

2. British Museum, London England

In London’s artsy Bloomsbury area is one the world’s foremost museums, the British Museum . Opened in 1753, it’s a universal museum, holding a massive collection of the world’s most important historic artifacts. It seeks to provide a cross cultural understanding of art owned by “humanity.”

But it’s owned by humanity in name only. Many of the goodies on display date from England’s reign as a major world super power.

It’s utterly amazing how much stuff the Brits gobbled up, with their obsessive fervor for quirky collecting. Like the hotly disputed Elgin Marbles taken from the Pantheon.

The British Museum allows virtual visitors 360 views of the Great Court, the ancient Rosetta Stone, and the Egyptian mummies. You can also find hundreds of artifacts on the museum’s virtual tour that can be enlarged, with links to curator descriptions of the pieces.

Here’s my complete guide to the British Museum .

3. Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City

Google’s Street View feature lets visitors virtually tour the Guggenheim’s famous spiral staircase designed by Frank Lloyd Wright . From there, you can see incredible masterpieces from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary art periods.

Visit the museum’s popular online collection . There, you’ll find some of the Guggenheim’s most famous works, including Vasily Kandinsky’s Composition 8 (the most popular piece in 2019), Jackson Pollack’s Alchemy , and Edouard Manet’s Before the Mirror .

You can also check out the Guggenheim’s blog , with in-depth analyses of artists and art works.

4. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The National Gallery of Art is home to some of the most amazing paintings in the world. Plus, as a Smithsonian branch, it’s free to visitors.

But since you can’t visit right now, the museum features two online exhibits through Google. The first is an exhibit of American fashion from 1740 to 1895. The second is a collection of works from Johannes Vermeer, the famous Dutch Baroque painter.

The museum also has a rotating collection of museum highlights online. The most famous pieces will wow you — Pablo Picasso’s Family of Saltimbanques , da Vinci’s Portriat of Ginerva de’ Benci , Vincent Van Gogh’s Roses , Claude Monet’s Woman with a Parasol, and Mary Cassat’s The Boating Party.

For more information, here’s my complete guide to the National Gallery .

5. Musée d’Orsay, Paris France

Ah, this is one of my favorite museums in Paris , housed in a beautiful converted railway station.

If you can’t visit the museum, you can virtually see dozens of famous works from French and European artists who toiled in Paris between 1848 and 1914. You’ll see artworks from Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin, and so many other artists.

In particular, the d’Orsay is a Van Gogh treasure trove. You can inspect his Self Portrait, Starry Night, Dr. Gachet , The Church at Auvers , and The Siesta .

Other masterpieces at the d’Orsay include Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia, Paul Cezanne’s Card Players , Claude Monet’s Houses of Parliament , and Auguste Renoir’s Moulin de la Galette .

Here’s my comprehensive guide to masterpieces of the Orsay and must know tips for visiting the Orsay .

6. Louvre, Paris France

The Louvre is Paris’ iconic landmark and the world’s most visited museum. This treasure trove of history is closed right now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an arrangement with Google Arts & Culture.

But the Louvre does offer free virtual tours of some of its important exhibits, like the Egyptian Antiquities, Napoleon’s Rooms, the Medieval Louvre, and works by Michelangelo.

Via my blog, you can also explore the Louvre’s underrated masterpieces or take my virtual tour of the Louvre . I think the best painting in the Louvre , Theodore Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa .

If you’re a Beyonce fan, her recent music video featured pieces from the Louvre. Now, you can follow the Beyonce Louvre Trail .

READ : Louvre Survival Tips

7. Paris Museums Collections

In a collective effort, Paris museums have made 100,000 images of artworks from Paris museum collections freely available to the public.

This includes digital downloads of masterpieces by artists including Rembrandt, Gustave Courbet, and Eugène Delacroix.

Here’s the digital collections portal .

8. The Spy Museum, Washington D.C.

The Spy Museum is always a crowd pleaser. But if you’d like to avoid crowds, you can just visit online.

The Spy Museum gives you 360 degrees views of every room. It’s also got an amazing Pinterest account , featuring photos of its precious artifacts.

The Spy Museum even has a list online of the 10 most important pieces in its collection, including the Enigma Machine that Germany used in WWII to secretly communicate.

9. The Vatican Museums, Vatican City

I recently visited the Vatican Museums twice during a trip to Rome . The Vatican Museums are the public art and sculpture museums in the Vatican City complex.

The works in the Vatican are invaluable crowning glories of Western art. They tell stories of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the history of the Catholic Church, and the birth of the Renaissance.

You can take an online virtual tour of the Vatican Museums, including the Sistine Chapel , the Pio Clementino Museum, and the Raphael Rooms .

I’ve also quite a few pieces on in which you can check out the art work.

• Vatican’s must see masterpieces
• Raphael Rooms  
• Hidden gems of the Vatican
• Best sculptures in the Vatican
• Sistine Chapel in the Vatican

10. The Dali Theater Museum, Figueres Spain

This is a delightfully eccentric single artist museum in Salvador Dali’s hometown of Figueres Spain. Designed by Dali himself, the pink bread encrusted museum is a surrealistic object itself.

I’ve written a complete guide to the Dali Museum . But you can also see some of its most famous pieces online .

Check out the Mae West Room, the Labyrinth, the Rain Taxi, the courtyard of golden Oscar statues, and the painting of Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea (a clever double image).

11. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam Netherlands

The Van Gogh Museum boasts the largest collection of paintings by the Post-Impressions master Vincent Van Gogh .

He’s an artist known for his colorful sunflowers, vivid landscapes, and searing portraits. Online, you can see panoramic views of the museum rooms.

The museum offers almost 1500 images of paintings to inspect. There’s also a 360 virtual tour of its Sunflower Gallery , with paintings from five international museums.

12. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Netherlands

If you love Dutch art, this is your chance to check out the preeminent source. The Rijksmuseum is well represented on Google Arts & Culture, with 150,000 items on display.

You’ll find masterpieces by Rembrandt ( The Night Watch , The Jewish Bride ), Vermeer ( The Milk Maid) , and Franz Hals ( The Wedding Portrait ) on their virtual tours . There’s also a Google Streets View of its grounds.

13. J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, Los Angeles

Designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Richard Meier, the world famous Getty Center in southern California opened to the public in 1997.

The Getty Museum has an outstanding online virtual tour with Google Arts & Culture. It even has an outdoor virtual tour , which uses photography and time-lapse videos to enliven the experience.

There are 15,000 paintings and artifacts to see with accompanying audio explanations. Check out the Getty’s most famous pieces — Van Gogh’s Irises and Rembrandt Laughing , Renoir’s La Promenade , and the Lansdowne Herakles sculpture from Roman antiquity.

For more information, you can check out my guide to the Getty Center .

14. Museum of Modern Art, New York City US

The venerable MOMA boasts one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of modern and contemporary art in the world. A $450 million expansion in 2019 added 45,000 square feet of space.

It was the first museum solely dedicated to modern art. It has 84,000 pieces art on display online .

It’s seminal masterpieces include works by Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, and the ever popular Impressionists. MOMA’s most famous piece is Van Gogh’s Starry Night .

15. Tate Modern, London England

The Tate Modern is my favorite museum in London, a city overflowing with marvelous free museums . Opened in 2000, it’s housed in the former Bankside Power Station. The industrial look seems fitting for its cutting edge art.

Among other modern art masterpieces , you can clap your eyes on Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych , Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain , Amadeo Modigliani’s Peasant Boy , Pablo Picasso’s Nude Woman in a Red Armchair, Georgio de Chirico’s the Uncertainty of the Poet , and Henri Matisse’s The Snail, and Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone .

You can navigate the Tate Modern via Google Street View or explore its digitized masterpieces online . The Tate is to launch free online film tours of Andy Warhol (April 6) and Aubrey Beardsley (April 13) exhibitions on their YouTube channel .

16. National Gallery, London England

London’s National Gallery is an incredibly diverse museum, featuring 2,000 European paintings from the 13th to the 19th centuries.

You’ll find familiar names like Rembrandt, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, J.M.W. Turner, Monet, and Van Gogh.

READ : The Monet Guide To Paris

The most famous painting on display is Leonardo da Vinci’s The Virgin of the Rocks. But Van Gogh’s Sunflowers also draws hordes of admirers. Wherever you are, you can take a virtual tour .

Here’s my complete guide to the National Gallery .

17. The Prado Museum, Madrid Spain

The Prado Museum in Madrid is Spain’s cultural jewel. It boasts one of Europe’s finest and most sensuous painting collections.

The artistic anchors of the Prado are Francisco Goya, Diego Velázquez, and Peter Paul Rubens. But there are also masterpieces by Titian, Bosch, and El Greco.

Now you can Prado in your PJs. If you want to take a virtual tour of the Prado, you can. The Prado recently broadcast a live video in which its director, Miguel Falomir, gave a 20 minute talk on Tintoretto’s famed Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet .

The Prado also has a 360 virtual tour of its Rubens exhibition and an impressive online collection of over 10,000 works of art. Smarthistory has a large cache of YouTube videos exploring many of the Prado’s best works. The Prado also does a live one hour show on Instagram, also posted on Facebook, every morning at 10:00 am.

Here’s my complete guide to visting the Prado .

18. The Reina Sofia, Madrid Spain

Opened in 1992, the Reina Sofia is Madrid’s modern art museum. Its collection is comprised entirely of art work from 1900 to the present.

There’s a special focus on Spain’s favorite sons, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali , and their respective schools of Cubism and Surrealism.

The star of the Reina Sofia is Guernica , Picasso’s grim depiction of the seemingly casual Nazi bombing of Guernica Spain in 1937.

The Reina Sofia recently tweeted a video showing the array of content it has online .

19. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid Spain

Housed in the Villahermosa Palace, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum is named after art collector Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.

The museum covers every major period in Western art, from 13th century Italian Renaissance to 20th century Pop Art. It also has an important collection of 19th century American paintings not found elsewhere in Europe.

The museum offers virtual visits to both its permanent collection and temporary exhibits. You can also browse through thematic tours that center on fashion, food, love, and wine.

READ : Best Art Museums in Spain

20. Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. US

Washington D.C.’s Museum of Natural History is one of the most visited museums in the world. You can inspect some of its wonderful treasures with an online virtual tour of the entire grounds.

Viewers head into its rotunda and receive a comprehensive 360 room by room walking tour of its most exceptional exhibits, including the Hall of Mammals, Insect Zoo, and Dinosaurs and Hall of Paleobiology.

In general, the Smithsonian museums have also released 2.8 million images into the public domain. They’re searchable, shareable, and downloadable via the museum’s Open Access platform . The Smithsonian will continue to digitize and publish their collections.

21. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg Russia

The State Hermitage is one of the world’s best museums. It’s the second largest museum in the world. It’s so large that it’s impossible to tackle in one real life visit anyway. Instead, you can explore its artsy endless halls with the Google Art Project guide.

Alternatively, check out the Hermitage website , which boasts a large digital archive with very convenient navigation. In the Highlights section, you’ll find the Hermitage’s most significant pieces: Faberge eggs, sculptures, and jewelry.

Some of its world class paintings include Rembrant’s Danae and The Return of the Prodigal Son , Henri Matisse’s Dance , Titian’s Danae , and Kandinsky’s Composition VI . Other Russian museums with significant online collections can be found here .

22. Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon Portugal

If you’re pining for Portugal , Lisbon’s Calouste Gulbenkian Museum has excellent online viewing options.

Thanks to a wealthy oil magnate, this gem of a museum is stuffed with a stunning range of treasures spanning 4,000 years. It’s one of the world’s largest and best private art collections, compiled over 40 years.

The museum has a 360 tour of the Founder’s Collection and the Modern Collection galleries. It also has an extensive online collection .

READ : 4 Day Itinerary for Lisbon

23. Tate Britain, London England

The Tate Britain may be London’s most beautiful museum. It boasts a domed rotunda, beautiful spiral staircase, terrazzo floors, and Victorian details. Built in the late 19th century, the Tate Britain underwent an extensive renovation completed in 2013. The result is an ultra pretty museum experience.

The Tate Britain is home to J. M. W. Turner’s watercolors and Francis Bacon’s abstract religious triptychs and screaming popes. Some of Tate Britain’s most famous paintings are here, including Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia , John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott , and John Constable’s Flatford Mill.

Of special note, there are 8 rooms dedicated to Turner, one of Britian’s greatest and most famous artists.

And you can enjoy it all online with Google Arts & Culture. And you can check out my guide to the Tate Britain , with must see masterpieces.

24. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City US

The Met is the largest museum in the United States. It has an extremely good online collection . There are over 200,000 works on Google Arts & Culture.

The Met also offers a 360 tour , consisting of 6 videos. The tour showcases different spaces inside the Met from unique angles.

Check out the Met’s best pieces — Georgia O’Keefe’s Cow’s Skull , Van Gogh’s Self Portrait with a Straw Hat , Monet’s Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies , Jacques Louis David’s The Death of Socrates , and Antonio Canova’s famous sculpture Venus Italica .

25. The Capitoline Museums, Rome Italy

If you love ancient Greco-Roman sculpture, the Capitoline Museums have a virtual tour of its floorplans and collections. You can also examine its exhibits on Google Arts & Culture .

The Capitoline Museums is Rome’s oldest museum complex, sitting atop a beautiful Michelangelo-designed square, the Piazza dei Campidoglio on Capitoline Hill. It gives you a unique look at Rome’s ancient imperial history. If you’re a history or archaeology buff, this is a must see site in Rome .

READ : 5 Day Itinerary For Rome

The Capitoline Museum boasts an enormous array of ancient Roman, medieval, and Renaissance art — statuary, paintings, and relics. The most famous pieces are the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius , Dying Gaul , Medusa , Capitoline Venus , Spinario , and Bust of Commodus .

Here’s my complete guide to the Capitoline Museums .

26. Raffaello Exhibit, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome Italy

2020 marked the 500 year anniversary of the death of the Renaissance master Raphael . In honor of the great artist, Rome planned a landmark exhibition.

200 paintings had been gathered from all over Italy, from the Vatican Museums, and on loan from major museums worldwide.

Titled RAFFAELLO, the exhibition was planned to run from March 5th – June 2nd. But it was closed after several days. Fortunately a free virtual tour is now available. It’s narrated in Italian. But you can still admire the beauty of the art works.

27. Ara Pacis | Museum of the Altar of Peace, Rome Italy

The Ara Pacis Museum is dedicated to a single item — an ancient arch dedicated to the gods.

The arch was built by soon-to-be emperor Augustus, who had just pacified the barbarians. This victory marked the beginning of the Pax Roman, a 200 year golden age where arts and architecture flourished.

Opened in 2006, the altar-museum is housed in a modern pavilion designed by American architect Richard Meier. Examine all the intricacies of the altar with the museum’s virtual tour here .

28. The Acropolis Museum, Athens Greece

In 2009, Athens opened a gorgeous new museum, the Acropolis Museum.

Designed by French-Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, it’s a $200 million state of the art rebuttal to the British Museum’s claim that Athens had nowhere to properly store and display the Elgin Marbles , disputed statuary from the Parthenon’s frieze.

The Acropolis Museum recreated the Parthenon friezes for display. It’s also home to 5,0000 year old artifacts excavated from the Acropolis, home to the Parthenon. Both the ruins and the neighboring museum are free to explore virtually on Google Maps .

READ : One Day In Athens Itinerary

29. Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples Italy

Located in the Capodimonte Palace, the Capodimonte Museum houses a collection of fine and decorative arts mostly from Naples. The core of its collection was compiled by the powerful Farnese and Bourbon families.

The Capodimonte Museum has works by Caravaggio, Masaccio, Titian, Raphael, El Greco, Bruegel, and Sebastiano del Piombo (who also decorated the Villa Farnesina in Rome). The museum’s most famous painting is probably The Gypsy Madonna by Correggio. You can visit the museum’s online collection here .

Thanks to the museum’s collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, the cultural and artistic gems of the Capodimonte Museum can be admired online from home.

The online Google Art & Culture platform contains over 536 works of art. The Google Street View tool allows visitors to enjoy 14 themed stories and virtual tours of museum masterpieces.

30. Picasso Museum, Barcelona Spain

Founded in 1963, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona was launched with a donation of 574 works by Picasso’s secretary, Jaime Sabartés. In 1970, Picasso himself donated 800 more pieces to the museum.

In this museum, you’ll find one of the most extensive collections of his work, 4000 pieces, certainly the best collection in Spain. The best part of the museum is where it’s housed — in five glorious adjoining medieval palaces.

You can browse the highlights of the museum’s online collection here , though the images are rather small. You can take a virtual tour of the palaces here . The palace tour takes you on a private guided tour of the museum’s architectural elements.

If you’d like more Picasso, here’s my guide to the Picasso museums in Europe and my guide to the Picasso Museum in Paris .

31. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston MA

Ah, this is one of my favorite museums in the United States. If you’re a museum or art lover, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is a must see site in Boston Massachusetts . I just adored it.

The museum houses gorgeous paintings from the Italian Renaissance and Dutch Golden Age in an exquisite Venetian-style palazzo. The collection was assembled by Gardner herself, who was a wealthy maverick and avid art collector.

Gardner carefully curated and installed her collection amid the three floors of intimate gallery spaces and the interior courtyard with a skylit roof. Each room is named and sumptuously decorated.

In effect, the museum is a total work of art with Gardner as the installation artist. You’ll find pieces by John Singer Sargent, Rembrandt, Francisco Zurburan, Titian, and Sandro Botticelli.

Here’s my guide to the Gardner Museum . You can also take a virtual tour through Google Arts & Culture . If you’ve never watched the fascinating introductory video on the museum’s homepage , now’s the perfect time.

32. Musee de L’Orangerie, Paris France

Paris’ Musée de l’Orangerie, or the Orangerie Museum, is one of the best small museums in Paris . It’s a quick 10 minute walk from its more popular sister museum the Musée D’Orsay. And it’s completely worth the detour, a hidden gem in Paris just waiting for avid fans of the Impressionist painter Claude Monet.

The Orangerie’s main claim to fame is its famed collection of Monet’s water lilies, some of which can also be found at the equally stunning Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris’ 16th arrondissement.

In 1927, the water lilies were set in massive curved panels and installed in two adjoining oval shaped rooms in the new museum. Some art historians call the Orangerie the world’s first “art installation” because the space was designed specifically for Monet’s water lilies.

Here’s my complete guide to the Orangerie . You can also visit the museum masterpieces virtually on Google Arts & Culture.

33. Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao Spain

Who can argue with the emblematic Guggenheim Museum ? Inaugurated in 1997, Frank Gehry’s twisting shimmering museum is the star of the underrated city of Bilbao Spain .

The space age building is an awe-inspiring blend of titanium, glass, and limestone. The scaly exterior evokes a silvery fish and the wings of the building the wind-filled sails of a ship.

Outside, there’s a veritable sculpture museum. Inside, the Guggenheim’s modern art collection is on par with Europe’s best modern art museums. You’ll find works by Robert Motherwell, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Eduardo Chillada, and Anselm Kiefer.

Via Google Arts & Culture, you can explore the Guggenheim Bilbao. The online offering includes cinematographic photos, videos, and guided tours of masterpieces from the collection.

READ : 2 Day Itinerary for Bilbao

34. Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh PA

This wonderful single artist museum celebrates Pittsburgh’s hippest native son, who made himself a world famous Pop artist. As the Prince of Pop, Andy Warhol was a hugely significant artist of the second half of the 20th century. Warhol cannily merged superficial commerce and fine art, popularizing robotic everyday images.

Opened in 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum is a chic urban venue. It’s an immersive and well curated museum. The museum has 7 floors in chronological order. You’ll see seminal works from the 1940s to Warhol’s death in 1987, with explanations of Warhol’s creative process.

The Warhol Museum has some of its art and archives online here . You can read about Warhol’s life here .

If you want to see more Warhol work, you can read my guide to the Warhol Museum and find other Warhol’s pieces on Google Arts & Culture .

35. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the best, and incredibly diverse, museums in the United States. It has the best collection of Impressionist paintings outside Paris and a spectacular modern art section.

The museum’s standout masterpieces include Grant Wood’s American Gothic , Georges Seurat’s Sunday on La Grand Jatte , Andy Warhol’s Liz #3 , Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks , Joan Mitchell’s City Landscape 1955, and Monet’s Stacks of Wheat.

You can now tour the renowned museum on Google Arts & Culture . If you’re interested in interiors, take a virtual tour of the Thorne Miniature Rooms.

If you want to explore ancient Roman ruins, there are over a 1,000 pieces online , including a noseless bust of Emperor Hadrian.

36. Museo Napoleonico, Rome Italy

Housed in the Palazzo Primoli, this Roman museum is dedicated to the period of Napoleon and his connection to Italy. Located just north of the Piazza Navona, the museum contains the collections of Count Giuseppe Primoli. He was the great grandson of Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte.

Primoli’s aim was to present the imperial family from his own private point of view. The museum is still arranged as he envisioned it.

You’ll find painting, artifacts, sculptures, Napoleon’s outfits, books, memorabilia, etc. If you’re a history buff, this museum is for you.

The Museo Napoleonico has an excellent multimedia virtual tour . You can take a 360 tour of the collection. Or you can go to the photo gallery, click on a specific photo, and get a wealth of information.

37. The Doge’s Palace, Venice Italy

Set in St. Mark’s Square, the Doge’s Palace or Palazzo Ducale is the very symbol of Venice and a must see site in the city .

This pink and white marble Gothic-Renaissance building was the official residence of the doges who ruled Venice for more than 1,000 years. It was held Casanova in a cell, but he dramatically escaped

Aside from the gorgeous rooms and staircases, there’s some fantastic works of art on display: Veronese’s Rape of Europe and The Triumph of Venice, many paintings and ceilings by Tintoretto, and Tiepolo’s Neptune Bestowing Gifts upon Venice .

You can tour the Doge’s Palace virtually on Google Arts & Culture , take a 360 tour of the exterior, or take a 360 tour of the city of Venice itself.

READ : 2 Day Itinerary for Venice

38. The Belvedere Palace, Vienna Austria

The Belvedere Palace is one of Vienna’s most visited tourist spots and an important UNESCO site for its showy architectural ensemble. The Belvedere is also one of Europe’s most important museums.

The Belvedere’s a haven of Baroque and Austrian art from the 19th and 20th centuries. Its main claim to fame is the world’s largest collection of Gustav Klimt paintings, including the world famous The Kiss . It also boasts masterworks by Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, two important Expressionist painters.

Here’s my complete guide to visiting the Belvedere Palace . You can also tour it virtually on Google Arts & Culture . There’s also an online exhibit dedicated to The Kiss . If you like Klimt’s gold toned art nouveau pieces, I also have a guide on where to find Klimt art work in Vienna .

39. Alte Pinakothek, Munich Germany

Munich’s most touted museum is the Alte Pinakothek . The museum shows off a collection of European masterpieces from the 14th to 19th centuries.

You’ll see a goodly number of paintings from the Italian Renaissance, including works by da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli, and Titian. You’ll also find Albrecht Durer’s mysterious Self Portrait, and other old master treasures.

You can virtually tour the Alte Pinakothek online at Google Arts & Culture , where they have a massive collection. I also like this Rick Steve’s video about the museum.

READ : 4 Day Itinerary for Munich

40 . Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, Seville Spain

The Museo de Bellas Artes , or Museum of Fine Arts, is a smashing museum, quite lovely. It’s known, after the Prado, as the “second art gallery in Spain.” It’s housed in a salmon colored former convent in Seville Spain .

The museum has art from the middle ages to the 20th century. But it’s most known for its collection of 17th century art from Spain’s Golden Age, featuring Spain’s top painters Zurbarán, Murillo, El Greco, and Velazquez. You’ll see a lot of monks, balding saints, cherubs, and depictions of Christ.

You can take a virtual tour of the Seville Museum of Fine Arts’ masterpieces on Google Arts & Culture . There are excellent online exhibits on Baroque masters and on the museum’s superstar Murillo .

41. Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao Virtual Tour, Bilbao Spain

Often overshadowed by the famous Guggenheim Bilbao, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao is nonetheless one of Spain’s best museums. If you’re an art lover, you should definitely visit in person one day.

Located in Bilbao’s Abando neighborhood, the museum boasts over 10,000 art works, arranged chronologically from the 12th century to the present. It has works by Spanish artists Picasso , Goya , El Greco, Zurbaran, and Chillada, as well as many international artists.

You can explore the collection of the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts on Google Arts & Culture .

42. Musee Rodin, Rodin Museum, Paris France

Opened in 1919, the Rodin Museum is a shrine to the complex life and oeuvre of one of France’s most revered artists, Auguste Rodin . Rodin is considered the father of modern sculpture. Rodin’s titular museum is housed in the 18th century Hotel Biron, a romantic mansion where Rodin created some of his greatest works.

The museum’s permanent collection includes many iconic Rodin sculptures and works from Rodin’s brilliant student Camille Claudel . The Rodin Museum also has a vast and verdant sculpture garden. In it, Rodin hand placed some of his favorite and most iconic sculptures.

The Rodin Museum has added some online audio tours. You can take a virtual tour of his famous sculpture The Thinker , read stories about Rodin’s life, and view and learn about 40 of the figures in his masterpiece The Gates of Hell .

You can also explore over 300 Rodin sculptures on Google Arts & Culture . Here’s my complete guide to the Rodin Museum , if you want to know more.

43. Musée National Picasso, Picasso Museum, Paris France

Paris’ Picasso Museum is a fantastic single artist museum. It holds one of Paris’ most treasured art collections, shown off in an elegant private mansion in the Marais.

What I love most about the Picasso Museum is that it houses all the art that Picasso himself couldn’t part with. It’s a personal collection that he created, curated, lived with, and kept nearby his entire life. The museum showcases all the artistic periods of his long life, all the women he romanced, and reveals his extraordinary range and talent.

Here’s an excellent series of audio tours of Picasso Museum masterpieces. The museum itself doesn’t yet have a very good online collection.

But you can check out virtual tours of the museum on YouTube here and here . Smarthistory offers 13 virtual tours of seminal Picasso works. And you get explore Picasso paintings on Google Arts & Culture .

Here’s my complete guide to visiting the Picasso Museum in Paris .

44. The Palace of Versailles, Versailles France

The Palace of Versailles has opened its digital doors. Built by the Sun King Louis XIV, the Palace of Versailles is the most ornate and famous royal chateau in France, located just outside Paris. Once behind closed doors, the 17th century palace is now yours for digital viewing at home.

The palace has partnered with Google Arts & Culture to present virtual exhibits online. Google takes users on a journey of the palace’s rich decor and art collection of over 22,000 pieces.

You can also take a plethora of amazing virtual tours on the Palace of Versailles’ website . Nothing is left out! You can see the Hall of Mirrors, the royal apartments, tour the famous Le Notre gardens, etc.

For the full scoop on everything you can see and read online, here’s my guide to taking a digital tour of the Palace of Versailles .

45. Bernardo Museum | Museu Colecção Berardo, Lisbon Portugal

The Bernardo Museum is Lisbon’s modern art museum. Located in the Belem district, it’s a fabulous museum with over 1,000 works from the 20th and 21st centuries.

The ultra-white, minimalist gallery displays billionaire José Berardo’s eye-popping collection of abstract, surrealist and pop art.

It includes art work by such luminaries as David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon, and Willem de Kooning. Picasso’s early Tete de Femme from 1909 and Warhol’s iconic Brillo Box are highlights.

You can take virtually visit the museum on Google Arts & Culture. And here’s a 360 virtual tour where you can admire the art up close.

46. Cluny Museum, the National Museum of the Middle Ages, Paris France

Are you a history buff who wants to be transported back to the late Middle Ages? Or are you, like everyone else it seems, just crazy for mythical unicorns? If so, the Musée Cluny is a must see site in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

It’s truly one of my favorite museums in Paris. The museum’s housed in the Hotel de Cluny, built in the 14th century and adjacent to an extant Roman bath.

The Cluny Museum is dedicated to all things from the Middle Ages. Its centerpiece is the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. They’re considered the Mona Lisa of tapestries and one of the greatest surviving medieval relics.

You can take a virtual YouTube tour of the museum here . And here’s a 360 tour of the beautiful museum. You can also check out my guide to the Cluny .

47. The Petit Palais, Paris France

Like its sister palace the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais was built for Paris’ 1900 World Fair. It became a museum in 1902. Designed in the Beaux-Arts style by famous architect Charles Girault, the Petit Palais is a charming small museum.

It houses French paintings, sculpture, and artifacts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Petit Palais collection includes artists as diverse as Rembrandt, Fragonard, Delacroix, Cézanne, Courbot, Corot, Monet, Rodin, Sisley, Pissarro, and many others. There’s also a section dedicated to Roman and Greek art.

Though the museum isn’t on Google Arts & Culture, it has a very good online collection for you to explore. You can also virtually visit its current temporary exhibition, In the Drawing Room , featuring Masterpieces of the Prat Collection. And here’s a YouTube video of the museum’s collection.

For more information, here’s my guide to the Petit Palais .

48. Palazzo Barberini | Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome Italy

Palazzo Barberini is an underrated museum in Rome. But it’s definitely an art lover’s art gallery. Recent restorations give it an unapologetically grand wow factor. The museum holds some of Europe’s classic paintings by the great masters.

The Barberini Palace is 12,000 square meters and has 187 rooms. It has beautiful staircases by Borromini and Bernini.

It’s home to one of Raphael’s most famous paintings, La Fornarina . It’s a painting of the “baker’s daughter,” whom Raphael had fallen in love with while fresco painting in the Villa Farnesina.

Other master works include Caravaggio’s Narcissus and Judith and Holofernes , Holbein’s Henry VIII , and the ceiling fresco by Pietro da Cortona.

You can take a live tour with a museum guide here , a virtual tour with a museum curator on YouTube here , and get a 360 view of the current exhibit on Claude Monet here .

You can also check out my guide to the Palazzo Barberini .

READ : Secret Palace Museums in Rome

49. Louis Vuitton Foundation

Inaugurated in 2014, the Louis Vuitton Foundation houses the collection of Bernard Arnault. It’s a chic little museum tucked into a stunning Frank Gehry designed glass building located in the Bois de Bologne. The Foundation houses modern and contemporary art from the 1960s to the present.

The museum’s permanent collection showcases Pop, Expressionistic, and Contemplative pieces. You’ll find masterpieces by the likes of Egon Schiele, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Henri Matisse, and Ellsworth Kelly. The foundation hosts temporary exhibits as well.

You can take a virtual tour here . Or read my guide to the Louis Vuitton Fondation .

50. NASA Headquarters

If you geek out on science, you’ll be pleased to know that NASA offers virtual tours of its research centers. Their extensive virtual tours combine videos, text, and 360 degree views. You may feel like you’re on a school field trip.

Here are some virtual tours from NASA worth exploring:

NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, USA

NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia

The Space Telescope Operations Control Center at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

* * * * * * *

This is just a sampling of world class museums to enjoy virtually from home. There are over 2500 virtual tours on Google Arts & Culture. If you’d like to explore more online travel and culture sites, here are my other virtual tour guides:

• Virtual Rome
• Virtual Lisbon
• Virtual London
• Virtual Barcelona
• Virtual Paris
• Virtual Versailles
• Virtual Venice
• Virtual France
• Virtual Andalusia
• Virtual French Chateaux
• Virtual Paris Museums
• Virtual Italian Museums

Virtual Spanish Museums

If you’d like to tour world class museums online, pin it for later.

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Last Updated on March 30, 2023 by Leslie Livingston

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These 12 Famous Museums Offer Virtual Tours You Can Take on Your Couch

Experience the best museums — from London to Seoul — from the comfort of your own home.

While there's nothing like setting foot inside an iconic museum and laying eyes on a world-famous sculpture created by a renowned artist centuries ago, it's not always possible to hop on a plane to New York City , Paris , or Florence to tour the gallery halls in person.

But there is a way to get a little culture and education while you're at home, gaining inspiration and intel for future trips as well. Google Arts & Culture has teamed up with more than 1,200 museums and galleries around the world to bring anyone and everyone virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world.

You get to "go to the museum" and never have to leave your couch.

Google Arts & Culture's collection includes The British Museum in London, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Guggenheim in New York City, and literally hundreds more places where you can gain knowledge about art, history, and science.

Take a look at just some of Google's top museums that are offering online tours and exhibits. And if you're seeking more thoughtful inspiration from the comfort of your own home, museums around the world are sharing their most zen art on social media . Or, for a dose of nature, you can go "outside" with incredible virtual tours of some of America's best national parks .

The British Museum, London

This iconic museum located in the heart of London allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies. You can also find hundreds of artifacts on The Museum of the World interactive website, a collaboration between The British Museum and Google Cultural Institute.

Guggenheim, New York

Google's Street View feature lets visitors tour the Guggenheim's famous spiral staircase without ever leaving home. From there, you can discover incredible works of art from the impressionist, post-impressionist, modern, and contemporary eras.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

This famous American art museum features two online exhibits through Google. The first is an exhibit of American fashion from 1740 to 1895, including many renderings of clothes from the colonial and Revolutionary eras. The second is a collection of works from Dutch baroque painter Johannes Vermeer.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

You can virtually walk through this popular gallery that houses dozens of famous works from French artists who worked and lived between 1848 and 1914. Get a peek at artworks from Monet, Cézanne, and Gauguin, among others.

Don Eim/Travel + Leisure

National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul

One of Korea's popular museums can be accessed from anywhere around the world. Google's virtual tour takes you through six floors of contemporary art from Korea and all over the globe.

Pergamon Museum, Berlin

As one of Germany's largest museums, Pergamon has a lot to offer — even if you can't physically be there . This historical museum is home to plenty of ancient artifacts including the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and, of course, the Pergamon Altar.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Explore masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age, including works from Vermeer and Rembrandt. Google offers a Street View tour of this iconic museum, so you can feel as if you're actually wandering its halls.

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Anyone who's a fan of this tragic, ingenious painter can see his works up close (or, almost up close ) by virtually visiting this museum, home to the largest collection of artworks by Vincent van Gogh, including more than 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 750 personal letters.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

European artworks from as far back as the eighth century can be found in this California art museum. Take a Street View tour to discover a huge collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, and photographs.

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

This less well-known gallery houses the art collection of one of Florence's most famous families, the de' Medicis. The building was designed by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 specifically for Cosimo I de' Medici, but anyone can wander its halls from anywhere in the world .

MASP, São Paulo

The Museu de Arte de São Paulo is a nonprofit and Brazil's first modern museum. Artworks placed on clear, raised frames make it seem like they're hovering in midair. Take a virtual tour to experience the wondrous display for yourself.

National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

Built in 1964, this museum is dedicated to the archaeology and history of Mexico's pre-Hispanic heritage. There are 22 exhibit rooms filled with ancient artifacts, including some from the Maya civilization.

Not all popular art museums and galleries are included in Google Arts & Culture's collection, but some have taken it upon themselves to offer online visits. For example, the Louvre offers virtual tours on its website .

To see more of Google Arts & Culture's collection of museums, visit its website . There are thousands of museum Street Views on Google as well. Google Arts & Culture also has an online experience for exploring famous historic and cultural heritage sites .

Virtual reality tours

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Virtual Tours

Adult and College Virtual Tours are an immersive way to experience the Walters Art Museum and to engage with our collection, exhibitions, and installations from the comfort of your home, classroom, or wherever you may be.

Registration is required . Virtual tours are 60 minutes and take place on the museum’s Zoom account led by docent educators. We ask that your group have a minimum of 5 and maximum of 30 participants per tour.

Accessibility resources and accommodations are available for tours and you can request them via our registration form or you can email [email protected] . Please note, we ask for 2 weeks advance notice for ASL Interpretation requests and 3 weeks for Spanish Language Interpretation requests. Visit our accessibility webpage for more information on accessibility across the museum.

Questions? Please contact [email protected] with your request.

Discover our Virtual Tour Themes

Ethiopia at the Crossroads

Opening December 2023, the Walters Art Museum presents an extraordinary exhibition celebrating the artistic traditions of Ethiopia from their origins to the present day. Ethiopia at the Crossroads will be the first major art exhibition in America to examine Ethiopian art in a global context. Tours begin December 6, 2023. Check back here for more information on tour offerings.

Across Asia – Hand of the Artist

Across Asia features stunning objects that highlight the skill of artists and artisans spanning centuries and vast geographies. Examine the metal work, enameling techniques, wooden joinery, or intricate jeweling displayed in this exhibit as you learn more about the stories of the people and cultures that created them.

Across Asia – Face of the Divine

Objects of devotion, especially those featuring deities, holy individuals, and sacred spaces, have touched the heights of human artistic achievement. Explore the ways that different cultures and spiritual traditions across Asia have given form and shape to beings beyond earthly experience.

The Art of Looking

How do we look at a work of art? Practice your skill at close looking to gain a deeper understanding of works from the Walters collection. What will you notice? And, what does it mean?

Highlights of the Walters Collection

The Walters Art Museum is among America’s most distinctive museums, with a collection spanning seven millennia. Choose from one of the below themes through which to explore the unique collection of the Walters.

• The Walters Art Museum Collection Overview
• Japanese Art
• Chinese Art
• Renaissance & Baroque Art
• European Landscapes
• Art of the Ancient Americas
• Gems and Jewelry

Virtual tours from the Walters are free. Please consider supporting the mission of the Walters to connect the community with art with a suggested donation of $7 per participant

Ready to register?

Please email [email protected] .

Cancellation

Please cancel your registration at least 48 hours prior to your scheduled tour by emailing [email protected] .

Ready to Register?

Sign up for a virtual tour of the Walters Art Museum.

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World-Class Museum Tours and Exhibits to Visit Online

With the world currently practicing social distancing measures, online exhibits have become an excellent way to bring much needed culture to your day and enhance your online art school endeavors.

Virtual tours are a great option, thanks to today’s technology. This means that some of the most prestigious art collections and learning events are available to you straight to the comforts of your home, regardless of your location, regardless of your timezone.

The Rise of Virtual Art Exhibits

Virtual reality projects offer an interesting way to engage the audience and bring the artwork to life for today’s viewer. Academy of Art University students, for example, developed a Norman Rockwell VR Project that was exhibited to members of congress . This touring exhibit will eventually reside at the Rockwell Museum. The Rockwell exhibit showcased the brilliant collaborative work of the students in the Academy’s School of Game Development. It’s exciting to see the merging of the many disciplines of art to build new creative experiences.

While some VR exhibits need to be experienced at a location, there are many world-class museums and institutions hosting exhibits that you can attend online. We recommend these experiences to fine arts degree students to enhance their ability to view and experience artwork that might not be geographically available. They’re also a great benefit to anyone who loves art and would like to experience these exhibits. 

We’ve compiled our top twelve list of world-renowned museums that have virtual tours. We encourage you to take some time to view as many as you can.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA)

In response to the current COVID-19 restrictions, SFMoMA has started the #museumfromhome movement. The museum’s website opens with a video put together by the museum’s curator. You can also scroll down the website to find links to collections, artist studio tours, and more. The museum has done a tremendous job of bringing educational and inspirational digital pieces together for their viewers.

The Guggenheim Museum in New York

The Guggenheim structure, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is a piece of art in its own right. While a physical visit is not possible at this time, the museum offers a Guggenheim from Home experience that’s impressive in its scope and variety. There, you can find online programs for all ages, a tour of the building, and virtual exhibit tours. There are artist profile videos here, as well. You could spend a whole day at the museum without leaving your computer.

The Getty Galleries in Los Angeles

The Getty offers a wealth of amazing exhibits, podcasts, and even a full library that can be downloaded from the website. Some of the current exhibits include Michelangelo and Kathe Kollwitz. They have podcasts with current artists, educational offerings for every type of art research, and videos that range from artistic technique tutorials to art history lessons. 

The Louvre in Paris

The Louvre has virtual tours available on their website. These include a virtual reality experience of Leonardo DaVinci’s Mona Lisa and a virtual tour of the art of chivalry between the east and west. There are numerous resources available on the website itself. The actual structure of the Louvre and the way that the work is exhibited is something amazing to behold. Luckily, viewers can take a virtual tour of the Louvre on YouTube, for those who can’t travel all the way to Paris to see it in person.

Tate Modern in London

Tate Modern Museum in London offers an amazingly interactive online experience for all of the budding artists and art aficionados who can’t make an in-person visit. The website includes a full array of the galleries’ collections, resources for artists to learn new skills and help put together their portfolio. This is a must-visit website for any art school student. 

The Picasso Museum in Barcelona

The Picasso Museum website is worth the extra time just for the fantastic resources, especially considering that cameras are strictly prohibited on-site. This virtual experience, which includes virtual seminars, full journals on the collections, and a section devoted just to Picasso portraits, is therefore as rare a treat as any for those who can’t physically visit the museum in Barcelona. For any art student, the inner workings of Picasso’s work should be a mandatory stop. 

The Tokyo National Museum

The Tokyo National Museum offers a full range of digital content for viewers to access. This includes images from their exhibits and collections as well as education and research material. The website itself is easy to navigate and very user-friendly. Of course, the website design here is secondary to the massive amount of artwork and resources you can access on the website.

Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

The Van Gogh Museum has an amazing, ‘we bring the museum to you’ page that offers a wealth of information. There are links for school-aged children, research for professional artists and art students, and resources to impress visitors. Some great aspects of the digital offerings include Van Gogh’s letters and the Unravel Van Gogh app. 

The Vatican Museum

The Vatican Museum virtual tours are something that everyone should see, especially if they won’t have the chance to visit in person. These include virtual tours of the Pio Clementino Museum, the Sistine Chapel, and the Chiaramonti Museum.

The Broad in Los Angeles

The Broad from Home is offering family workshops, art, and poetry, as well as a drone series. They have an interesting and eclectic digital presence. Definitely one for the cutting edge art students to check out. 

Uffizi Gallery in Florence

The Uffizi Gallery itself is one of the most beautiful and historic museums in the world. You can find a wealth of exhibits, digital images of their massive collection of art throughout the ages, and world-class resources on the website, as well.

National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne

The  NGV has a wide selection of virtual tours available to the public on its website. The resources include virtual school and other digital learning opportunities.

It may take a while before any of these venues will be open for the public, so in the meantime, these will have to do. We hope this will tide you over, looking for creative inspiration for your art.

Academy of Art University remains open for registration throughout the rest of the academic year, with all classes being moved exclusively online.  Request information  from our admissions representatives to learn more about our online education program.  Apply now  for our summer or fall semesters if you’re ready to continue your journey.

Hero image courtesy of Flickr.

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DETAILS & SCHEDULING

Registration.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is excited to offer three virtual tour topics developed specifically to be a live, interactive online experience for students. Live Virtual Tour experiences are available for students grades 3-12 and strongly aligned with district, state, and national learning standards.

Tour Requests for the Fall Semester, 2021, will open beginning September 1, 2021

• Each tour is 45 minutes, in Central Standard Time & through Zoom
• Students will participate through the chat function and/or spoken discussion
• Maximum of 1 class/30 students per virtual school tour
• Minimum of 10 students required for tour
• Available Mon, Tue, Wed & Fri 9 am & 1 pm; Thur 2 pm
• FREE– must be scheduled at least three weeks in advance
• After submitting your request, you’ll receive a request acknowledgment email. NOTE: the Live Virtual School Tours are not confirmed until a confirmation email is received
• The Zoom link and password to your confirmed Live Virtual Tour will be sent in an email 7 days prior to your event

Museum Unframed: Behind the Scenes at the Nelson-Atkins

Grades 3-12

Go behind the scenes of an art museum to learn about the people and processes involved in caring for and displaying works of art. Students will consider the function and purpose of museums, the science of art conservation, and the choices that go into preparing and presenting works of art to the public.

Find tour details and pre-/post-tour resources by clicking below.

Bringing History Alive: Exploring Primary Sources

Discover how primary sources are an eye-witness account of the time and place in which they were made. Students will explore objects in two of the following collections: Ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Native American. If you have a preference of which two collections are presented in your tour, please indicate that in the notes on your request. Ancient Egyptian and Native American collections will be presented if no preference is indicated . IMPORTANT: Please review featured objects listed on the MORE INFO page before submitting a request for this tour.

Being Seen: Art for Social Change

Grades 8-12

“The role of the artist is to make revolution irresistible,” said writer Toni Cade Bambara. How have artists inspired, aided, and engaged with social movements? Together, we will consider how contemporary artists are challenging the narratives that make up our cultural history. Students will explore works of art that served as catalysts for social change and continue to spark discussions about justice and equality today. Students are invited to choose as a class between three social issues on this tour. If you would like to pre-select the social issue discussed, please see the MORE INFO page below and indicate your preference in the notes section on your tour request form.

What can a portrait tell us about a person? How do artists depict the stories of an individual or a community through portraiture? Students in grades 3 through 6 are invited to explore identity through examining portraits. Students will learn to “read” a portrait, compare historical and contemporary portraits through interactive discussions, and consider the power of representation. Students are invited to choose as a class between two works of art on this tour. If you would like to pre-select the artwork discussed, please see the MORE INFO page and indicate your preference in the notes section on your request form.

To register, please click on the following and read our guidelines.

Virtual Tour Guidelines & Registration

• Each teacher needs to register for their own class, please do not schedule for others.
• Encourage students to participate! The experience is best when students engage with museum educators and one another through the chat function and/or through spoken discussion.
• Be respectful of yourself and others, both when speaking aloud and typing in the chat.
• Students will enter the tour on mute.

Group Size Due to the interactive nature of this experience, virtual school tours are intended for classes of 30 or fewer students watching together, on individual devices, or remotely from their homes. Please email [email protected] for more information or questions about virtual capacity.

• Minimum of one adult chaperone is required for your Virtual Field Trip.
• Chaperones may be a teacher, para-professional, parent, or other school staff member.
• Chaperones help monitor chat appropriateness, assist students with technology issues, and encourage participation and respectful behavior.
• Ask chaperones to identify themselves by hovering over their displayed name in the participants list and clicking “Rename”. Example: Name, chaperone.

Technical Requirements for Live Virtual Tour Experiences

Option 1 In-person class with a smartboard or digital projector including a computer with camera, microphone, and internet connection. It’s best if computer audio is connected to speakers to allow the entire classroom to hear the museum’s educators.

Option 2 In-person class with individual devices connected to the internet and headsets for each student.

Option 3 Remote (at home) each student will need a device connected to the internet to participate via Zoom’s chat feature and/or through audio/video conversation.

How We Connect Virtual Tours are shared via Zoom. Other platforms will be considered but must be requested in the notes of your initial order and require additional steps to arrange.

One week before your scheduled Live Virtual Tour: A Zoom link and password will be included in an email with information about how to connect with us via Zoom at the scheduled date and time.

Day of scheduled Live Virtual Tour: Click the Zoom link to connect 5-10 minutes before the scheduled start time of the Live Virtual Tour:

If students are working remotely, share the link with each of them and all chaperones. If this is the first time using the Zoom platform, a link will prompt you to install the free software. Installation should take less than two minutes and does not require the creation of a zoom account. If students are working remotely please have them login earlier to allow time for download if needed.

Projecting the Virtual Tour to Students On-Site in the Classroom

• Please have the camera set so the docents/educators may see the students.
• Some computer microphones are more sensitive than others, the docents/educators may or may not be able to hear verbal responses from your students. If the docents are unable to hear the students, please position yourself closer to the computer to help call on students and relay their comments verbally.
• Each tour has sections that allow students to choose the objects they wish to discuss. Students will be asked to vote on the objects they want to investigate by raising their hands for each option. Teachers will need to count the number of hands and tell the docent which objects receive the majority of votes.

Test Calls/Event A test call is not required if you have used Zoom. If you are a new user or would prefer a test call, please check the box on the request form. The test call will be scheduled separately via email and should take no more than 3-5 minutes. Test calls are scheduled at 3:45 pm.

Late Starts Due to scheduled events we may not be able to extend your Live Virtual Tour. Please have everyone ready to begin 3-5 minutes before your confirmed, scheduled time.

Cancellations and Changes To cancel or make a change to your scheduled Live Virtual Tour, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, phone number, order number, name of school, and date and time of your scheduled tour. Cancellations are requested at least 48 hours before your scheduled event.

All changes to date, time and tour will require the cancellation of your scheduled event and a new request to be submitted via the Virtual Tour Request form, requiring at least three weeks advance submittal for a new date.

Questions? For additional information please email [email protected] We look forward to meeting and learning with you!

By clicking “REGISTER” you acknowledge you have read and agree to the guidelines above. Registration will begin on the next page.

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Education During Coronavirus

A Smithsonian magazine special report

The World’s First Entirely Virtual Art Museum Is Open for Visitors

VOMA—the Virtual Online Museum of Art—is a free and fully immersive art experience

Jennifer Nalewicki

Travel Correspondent

As museums have been forced to close their doors in the midst of Covid-19, many of these cultural institutions have proven just how nimble they can be, temporarily shifting their exhibitions from in-person events to online-only experiences. However, one museum in particular is waging its bets that virtual programming will be the new way of presenting art to a wide audience.

Launched just last week, the Virtual Online Museum of Art (VOMA) is the world’s first museum of its kind. More than just an online gallery, VOMA is 100 percent virtual, from the paintings and drawings hanging on the walls to the museum’s computer-generated building itself, giving viewers an entirely new way of experiencing art that transports them to an art space without having to leave their computers.

The idea for VOMA came about during the early stages of the internet—1999 to be exact—when Stuart Semple, the museum’s creator and an artist himself, dreamt up the concept to create an online museum. “When I was a teenager, I decided to make an online gallery,” Semple says, quickly admitting that the idea soon failed, chalking it up to the fact that his vision was a little bit too early for its time. Plus, back in the late '90s virtual technology was nothing like it is today.

Born in Bournemouth, England, Semple grew up having an eye for art. He studied fine arts at Bretton Hall College at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and built a successful career as an artist, showing his body of work, which contains paintings, drawings, multimedia and print, in 15 international solo exhibitions and more than 40 group shows . Now, at the age of 40, he's shifting his focus back to where he started 20 years ago by giving hi s idea for a virtual museum a second go.

“I was thinking about how art should be accessible online, but was disappointed with what I was seeing,” he says. “Because of Covid-19, I was seeing artwork grabbing onto tech in different ways, like taking a virtual walk in a park. I started thinking about putting my original idea back out there. And with CGI, I can make an experience you can live right now.”

This isn’t the first time one of Semple’s wild ideas has made headlines. In 2016, he made waves by creating a paint pigment dubbed “the world’s pinkest pink.” Teaming up with Emily Mann, an architect, and Lee Cavaliere, an art consultant and former curator of the London Art Fair, the trio built VOMA from the ground up in about six months’ time with the help of a team of programmers, architects and video game designers.

“We were seeing all these museums uploading their offerings to digital spaces, such as the [ Google Arts & Culture project],” he says. “I don’t want to be rude, but it didn’t feel like it was really there. I’d be looking at a Monet and the head would be chopped off. I was inspired, because I think we could do better.”

The result is a cultural experience unlike anything else online today. VOMA's creating some media buzz, with Cat Olley of Elle Decoration describing it as a space with “ a grounded, familiar feel ” that can “ hold [its] own alongside conventional cultural centers. ” Gabrielle Leung of Hypebeast commends VOMA for “not only [addressing] the problems of attending museums with social distancing measures in place, but also more complex issues about who has access to major cultural institutions in the first place.”

Visiting VOMA is simple. First viewers must install the free VOMA program onto their computers. From there, they can explore two galleries featuring works by nearly two dozen artists, including Henri Matisse, Édouard Manet, Li Wei, Paula Rego, Luiz Zerbini, Lygia Clark, Jasper Johns and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Cavaliere, the museum’s director and curator, worked closely with some of the world’s most prestigious museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Using high-res images provided by each institution, the VOMA team made 3-D reproductions of each piece. “We don't need to transport any paintings [on loan],” Semple says. “We're literally taking the photos and using computers to create 3-D reproductions, which adds in depth and lets viewers see [the reproduction] from all angles.”

The result is a 360-degree, fully immersive experience that lets museumgoers get as close as they want to, say, Manet’s Olympia or Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights . Using a computer's arrow buttons, a visitor can virtually “walk” around the museum, zooming in on different works of art. The user-friendly setup feels much like a computer game.

VOMA is one of the latest examples of how museum content is going digital, joining the likes of other popular sites and apps like Smartify . Dubbed the “Shazam for the art world,” Smartify offers free audio tours from a database of more than two million artworks from some of the world's most esteemed museums and cultural institutions. Anna Lowe, the app's co-founder, says that being able to access art digitally is important, especially when it comes to reaching a global audience.

“ The advantage of something like VOMA or [other virtual museum experiences] is the reach and engagement you can have with a global audience, ” Lowe says. “ But I think the key thing about physical museums, and the main reason that people go to museums, isn't for a learning experience, but to be social. I think that's the biggest challenge for [virtual visits] is how do you move people through a space without it feeling like you're just scrolling through a site. ”

This point is one of the things that VOMA's creative team took into account when building its user experience, making it as lifelike as possible.

“[VOMA’s] zoom functionality is crazy,” Semple says. “Normally, you can’t get your nose right up to the canvas, because there’s a line of tape and a security guard watching you. We recreate each artwork so that it’s 3-D. You can look around and see the sides of each work, which you can’t do [in other online art galleries].”

Not only are the displays interactive and provide in-depth information about each artwork, but the museum building and its waterfront surroundings change.

“[Architect Emily Mann] built VOMA so that the museum experience changes depending on the weather and the time of day,” he says. “VOMA is her vision of what a space for an art museum should look like. Every single tree leaf she created from scratch, and the light of each gallery changes throughout the day and plays into the space. It’s fantasy, but it’s also real.”

Another aspect that makes VOMA stand out from other museums is its mission to be more inclusive. While many museums have been accused of a severe lack in representation of work by women and BIPOC artists, VOMA intends to feature a diverse group of artists on a regular basis.

“We want to highlight voices that haven’t been heard and seen,” he says. “We are featuring artists from around the world, and not just Western artists.”

As the months progress, VOMA plans to open additional galleries to help accommodate such a diversity of artists. The museum, which boasts a permanent collection of more than 20 works, will also feature temporary exhibitions, such as the current “ Degenerate Art ,” which, according to the museum, “is a recreation of an exhibition held by the Nazis in Munich in 1937 denouncing the work of ‘degenerate’ artists.” It features pieces by Otto Dix, George Grosz and Max Beckmann, to name a few, shining a light on the lingering effects of oppression in the art world.

VOMA’s new take on the art experience has proven so popular that, during the September 4 launch, the website’s servers completely crashed while the first visitors tried “entering” the museum.

“At one point there were over 130,000 people trying to access it at the same time,” Semple says, “and we had to make the sad decision to take it down.”

Luckily, the kinks were worked out and VOMA is up and running again.

Semple believes that VOMA is just a taste of the future of art museums. “We are at an unprecedented moment in time,” he writes on VOMA's Kickstarter page. “Due to [Covid-19], we have seen the art world have to adjust, and as a result, we are able to enjoy online viewing rooms, zoom visits to artist studios and see a plethora of museums bringing images of their collections to their websites.” While he admits these changes have been exciting, Semple feels the need for a whole new kind of museum—“one that is born digitally,” he adds.

“VOMA has been designed from the ground up to work in a digital future,” he writes. “A future that is open and accessible to all.”

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Jennifer Nalewicki | | READ MORE

Jennifer Nalewicki is a Brooklyn-based journalist. Her articles have been published in The New York Times , Scientific American , Popular Mechanics , United Hemispheres and more. You can find more of her work at her website .

Your Collection

Log in to the harvard art museums, virtual student guide tour.

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Tour 8:00pm - 8:30pm

Emily Axelsen ’23 will explore the museums’ collections with an eye to how ritual has brought meaning to the mundane and the monumental. She will focus on an ancient Greek drinking cup attributed to the Theseus Painter (c. 510–500 BCE ); The Breakfast Table , a small painting that John Singer Sargent made in Paris (1883–84); and Untitled [portrait of a wedding party, New York] (1923) by African American photographer James Van Der Zee.

This interactive tour will take place online via Zoom. To join, click the following link: https://harvard.zoom.us/j/93032933639 (free admission; no pre-registration required).

Virtual Student Guide Tours take place every Thursday at 8pm (Eastern) on Zoom. Each tour is unique and offers a chance to explore the collections of the Harvard Art Museums through the eyes of a Harvard student. Drop in and join the conversation!

Read these instructions on how to join a meeting on Zoom. For general questions about Student Guide Tours, email [email protected] .

This program is supported by the Ho Family Student Guide Fund.

The Ho Family Student Guide Program at the Harvard Art Museums trains students to develop original, research-based tours of the collections. These tours, designed and led by Harvard undergraduates from a range of academic disciplines, focus on objects chosen by each Student Guide and offer a unique, thematic view into the collections.

The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at [email protected] at least 48 hours in advance.

The Harvard Art Museums are open to the public. Currently, reservations are required for all visitors and can be made up to three weeks in advance. Please visit the museum website for more information.

5 Ideas and 5 Museums for Virtual Tours (Ep. 221)

Whether you are teaching in person or working with students via distance learning, virtual museum tours are a great way to engage your students and incorporate art history. In today’s episode, Tim shares 5 tips to help your students make the most of their virtual museum experience, as well as 5 suggestions for museums to visit.  Full Episode Transcript Below.

Resources and Links

• View all of AOEU’s resources to help with distance learning
• Lena Rodriguez’s download of art history ideas
• Guggenheim Bilbao
• Guggenheim New York
• Frida Kahlo Museum
• Van Gogh Museum
• The Vatican Museums

Tim: Welcome to Art Ed Radio , the podcast for art teachers. This show is produced by The Art of Education University. I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

I spent a lot of time this weekend, probably too much time doing some virtual museum tours. I love the idea of getting into museums, ones that I’ve never had a chance to visit in real life, and exploring the artwork and exploring the architecture and just kind of checking out the museum and just being able to get lost in something that you love. It’s a wonderful feeling. After I spent time exploring and taking these virtual tours, I honestly felt so much better. It was an awesome way to spend some time. So, today we are going to talk about virtual museum tours. I have five ideas to share with you for tours, and five of my favorite online locations that I think are worth visiting.

Now, before we dive into all of those ideas, I want to give a shout out and a little bit of credit to Lena Rodriguez. You know Lena, she has been on the podcast a lot of times. She’s done PRO Pack, she’s done a lot of conference videos. Just an amazing high school teacher from Texas. And if you were on the webinars back in March and April that we were doing, you probably saw her. For her presentation there, she and I had collaborated on a bunch of ideas on how you can teach art history via distance learning. I’ll link to that download in the show notes today, but it also kind of inspired me when I was putting together some of the ideas for this episode and some of the things that I wanted to talk about. I’m going to chat about a couple of her ideas, and so I just wanted to give her credit where credit is due.

Also, I’m trying to convince Lena to present at the Art Ed Now Conference, once again. The conference is going to be happening in the summer on July 30th. It’s going to be amazing as it always is. We are going to just come together for a great day of learning and professional development. I love the community aspect of Art Ed Now. So many wonderful things are happening amongst our teachers when we get together, when we talk, when we share, when we learn from each other. And as we’re planning this, we have a few tricks up our sleeve this time around. If you’ve been there before, you know what a cool event it is, but we’re going to try and make it even better this year. So it may look a little different than it has in the past, but I think you’re really going to enjoy it. If you’re interested and you want to register, you can learn everything you need to know and do everything you need to do at www.artednow.com.

With all of that being said, we need to chat about the five ideas and the five museums that were promised. So, here we go. Five ideas for doing some virtual museum tours with your students.

All right. Idea number one, figure out how you’re going to make that virtual visit worthwhile. You don’t want to just send your student a list of museums or say, “Hey, go tour this.” Hey, you need to figure out how to make it meaningful, how to make it worthwhile, and there are a million ways to do that. You can have them draw some of the works they see. They can record themselves talking about what they’re seeing or what they’re touring. They can write a narrative of the tour, talk about just some of the favorite works that they encounter there. They can look up the museum on Google Maps. They can draw the street view. They can see all of the architecture that surrounds it. Just give them some context and let them explore, but give them a focus when they are exploring.

You need to prep your students. They need an anticipatory set. They need some kind of focus. They might need you to curate some things for them. Otherwise, just going to museum, it’s so overwhelming. They are drinking from a fire hose. Because we are adults, we have a vast knowledge of art history. But if you’re anything like me, with that experience and that knowledge, you still can get sucked down random rabbit holes. You can be overwhelmed with everything that a museum tour has to offer online, and you can just get lost with all of the things that you’re trying to explore. So I think you need to have some recommendations for your kids, have some specific things that they need to do.

You can give them some objectives, and they don’t need to be like really highfalutin learning objectives, but it can be find X number of things that you like, et cetera, et cetera. Just give them a specific thing to do so they’re not just wandering aimlessly. You can give them specific paintings to look at, maybe some ideas on how to explore the things. We’ll talk a little bit more about that. Or just give them some questions to answer. But no matter what you do, just make sure that you can make it worthwhile.

If you just send out a list of links to various museums, that’s not going to interest kids. But if you can come up with an anticipatory set, if you can get them excited and inspired and you can give them some specific things to do or to find so they feel like they’re succeeding, they feel like they want to keep going, then that’s going to make it really, really worthwhile for them. So I would just encourage you to put some thought into what you want them to get out of the experience. And more importantly, put some thought into how you’re going to make that virtual visit worthwhile.

All right. Idea number two, have your students bring along a sketchbook. Whenever I took my students to the museum for field trips or whatever we were doing, I would always encourage them to bring a sketchbook with them in real life. And honestly, a virtual visit does not need to be any different than that. We all know that kids learn better when they draw. We’ve seen all of that research. We know how the brain works when we’re drawing. And so it’s so easy for them to do that on their virtual visit as well. Drawing enhances their learning and this is the perfect opportunity for them to practice that. Whether they are taking notes, whether they’re drawing what they see, whether they’re writing reactions or whatever else you want them to do. Hey, all of those things can be worthwhile for them to put in their sketchbook.

Maybe they are doing some sketch notes that tell the story of their visit. Or maybe you have other ideas on what you want them to draw or what you want them to explore, what you want them to do in their sketchbook, but just having a place to focus their ideas, to focus their sketches and put everything together in one place, that’s going to make that learning so much better for them. Especially if you try and get a little more learning out of that, just having all of their thoughts, ideas, reactions, all in one place is going to help them if you try and extend that learning at all in the future. So make sure that they bring a sketchbook along on that virtual tour.

Idea number three, I love to have kids use some higher-order thinking skills, so having them write about the artwork they see is a spectacular idea. Just a few ways that I’ve been thinking about to help kids with writing, give them some prompts on how to get started with this. They can compare and contrast a couple of different paintings. What do you see that’s the same? What do you see that’s different? What do you like better? Why? And that could be two specific paintings. That could be a couple of artists where you have them compare a body of work or a collection of their work.

You can give students a single artist to research or to look at, and have them find their three best or their five favorite works from that artist that are in the museum, and just kind of have them talk through why do they like these things? Why did they choose those things? Have them think about why they’re evaluating things and why they made the choices they did. You can give kids a specific painting that’s in the museum, like find this work from Renoir, and also find four paintings that you think are similar. It’s not quite a scavenger hunt, but it’s more of a find things that you can compare, find things that are similar, and just send them out to explore and make those connections in their head.

I also love to have students compare two paintings that take on the same subject in different ways, like look at a still life from 1960 and compare it to a still life from 1760. It’s fun to look at different artistic approaches, look at different choices that artists make, and having them compare a couple of paintings that are taking on the same subject is great because it teaches them about style, it teaches them about movement in art history.

As I said, it shows them different approaches, it shows them different perspectives. Shows how they can deal with subject matter in different ways. I’ve always found that that can be really inspiring, especially if you can talk to your students about why do you think the artists made those choices? And more importantly, what choices would you make as an artist? That really gets kids thinking about their own artwork and why they do what they do and why they appreciate what they do. And just being able to kind of focus those thoughts and those ideas and infuse them into their own work, it can be really inspiring. So I really like that idea. It’s a great way for them to learn.

Idea number four is listing some favorites. This kind of goes back to some of the writing ideas, but it’s awesome to do a top 10 list. If you have kids go to a specific museum, like let’s do a virtual tour of the Van Gogh Museum, what are your 10 favorite paintings that you run into? A list of 10 can be hard, but it makes kids think, and it makes them go through with an eye toward, “Ooh, do I like this? Why?” That evaluation, that ranking, just sort of putting together all of that learning can be kind of fun for them.

Now, if you think a top 10 list or a ranking like that is a little too much, have them look for three things that they liked or three things that they didn’t like. Again, that can be a single artist, that can be an entire museum. What are your three favorite paintings? What are your least three favorite paintings? Or three least favorite I should say, I guess. You can do the same with sculpture or prints or drawings or whatever you can find in the museum, but just have them pick out their favorites or their least favorites and ask them to write about them. Ask them to use the vocabulary and the language that would be happening in your classroom. This is a great chance for kids to write, to think about their opinions and to share their opinions. So putting those types of lists together can be really worthwhile, and it’s a really approachable way to get them into writing and sharing.

Then idea number five to help your kids on their virtual museum visits would be a scavenger hunt. Now, this can be a little more in depth. This might be something if you have a little more time, you want to put together. This isn’t something that you can rush and do really well. But it’s fun to go on your own tour of the virtual museum and pick out things that you want kids to see, you want them to notice, you want them to think about, and then direct them to those items, direct them to those things, with the questions that you were asking or with the items that are on the scavenger hunt for them. And then that can really lead into better discussions and better learning with kids, and you can get them to focus on things that you’ve covered in class or things that you want to cover that you want to think about.

If you don’t want to be so specific, you can just have them find artworks and make connections themselves. Ask them to go on a scavenger hunt for artworks that have great use of color, or artworks that show depth and perspective, or artworks that show pattern, or artworks that show rhythm. Again, just go back to that use of vocabulary and that language that would be happening in your classroom, and see if you can transfer that to those virtual visits. A scavenger hunt is a great way for students to do that.

Anyway, any of those five ideas can really sort of serve as a bridge for kids into the virtual museum, into the idea of a tour. If you give them that specificity that I talked about in idea number one, making that visit worthwhile, just having that sort of context, that framework, that structure for them can be really helpful so they aren’t overwhelmed, so they know exactly what they’re looking for. It’s a great way to start.

Now, as promised, I also want to give you my five favorite museums, and this is sort of that framework or that structure for you so you aren’t flailing around looking at a million different museums and trying to decide what’s going to work the best for you. These are just a few of my favorites, a good place for you to get started. Of course, these recommendations come with a caveat that you need to preview all of these things before you send them to your students, make sure you’re checking out what you’re going to have your kids see and checking out what is appropriate for your students and your situation before you just send those things.

All right, five museums. Number one, the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain. They have wonderful virtual tours. A lot about the architecture, a lot about the art. You can really dive into specific paintings that are there. A lot of really, really cool things happening. They have, I believe, the Irises by Van Gogh are there if I’m remembering correctly, Promenade by Renoir, if I’m remembering right. Just a lot of really, really specific paintings that are really cool. A great collection of work.

On their website, there’s also this great short film with a free runner. Somebody who just runs all over architecture does amazing flips and scales the outside of buildings, all sorts of cool things. And also a filmmaker. And they can kind of combine them into this three or four minute film. I was fascinated by it. The whole time I was watching it, I was like, “This is something students would love.” Just a different look at the museum, how to tour it, and some of the cool things that are there. That’s definitely worth your time.

Museum number two, the Vatican Museums in Rome. So the Sistine Chapel, obviously, but it’s not just the Sistine Chapel. There were I think, five other tours besides the whole Sistine Hall. If you’re into that, you can spend hours there. Now, let’s be honest, your kids are not going to spend hours there, but there’s just so much information. Virtual tours, videos of all different sections of the Sistine Chapel, all different parts of so many of the museums. If you’ve talked about Michelangelo, if you’ve talked about the Sistine Chapel, or if your kids are just interested in that, you can really dive deep into everything that’s there and see everything that’s there. Again, that’s one that can be a little bit overwhelming, so I think you need to get specific on what you want your students to do, but it’s a great place to start if that subject matter is interesting to them.

All right. Number three, the Frida Kahlo Museum. It’s a great one. This is probably where I spent the most time, because it’s just amazing to see her home and see her studio, and it’s part museum, part house. So you can just see how she lived, which is a wonderful experience. It’s so bright, it’s so colorful. It’s so just Frida. It’s captivating to see, it just fills you with so much energy. If you’re like me, you love Frida Kahlo, it is amazing to see everything that’s in her home. I love just peeking into the kitchen, seeing what’s in her living room. She’s got a cabinet with all sorts of little sculptures and statues and knickknacks, and just seeing everything that she keeps around her house, being able to zoom in and be like, “What is that?” Just so much fascinating stuff. I really loved checking all of that out. So if you’re fascinated by Frida, definitely check that out.

Number four, The Guggenheim Museum in New York. Now, I already said Guggenheim Bilbao, but the one in New York is just another amazing museum, another amazing museum going experience, and another example of great architecture. Obviously Frank Gehry and Bilbao and Frank Lloyd Wright in New York, but both are just architectural masterpieces.

I visited the Guggenheim in New York last year when I was interviewing CJ Hendry in Brooklyn, and it was just an incredible experience. You take the elevator to the top, you walk the circular ramp down the five or six floors that are there and just view artwork the entire time that you’re there. Obviously a virtual tour can’t replicate that experience, but it can do pretty well. And there’s a lot of really interesting stuff for you to look at.

I said way back at the beginning to have your kids check out Google Street View and see the surrounding architecture and what’s around there. It’s really cool to do that with The Guggenheim in New York, because obviously great architecture all around there and it’s across the street from Central Park, like literally across the street, and it’s really fun for kids to be able to check all of that out. So just getting the surrounding experience as part of that is really cool.

Then finally, number five, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It is the largest collection of Van Gogh works anywhere. You can tour each floor of the museum separately, and just some amazing stuff there. A lot of students react really well to Van Gogh. He’s easy to like, the work is accessible, it’s easy to understand. And so that’s a great place to have your kids visit so many cool things that are there. Again, that’s one that can be overwhelming. There’s like 150 works there. So you may need to specify or give kids some specifics on what they may want to check out. But if it’s just you going through, then to take a look and take it all in.

When I was going through it over the weekend, there’s this whole slideshow and a whole bunch of learning about Van Gogh’s love life, and, man, you thought he failed at painting during his lifetime, he really failed at romance. It was fascinating and kind of read about all of that. I learned a lot about him that I didn’t know before. I’m not saying that needs to be a part of what you have your students do, but it’s definitely worthwhile for you to check out, I think.

All right. That wraps up our list of five there. I’ll just say I think it’s really worth your time to explore some of these museums for yourself. It’s enjoyable. You can put your headphones on, you can block things out and just get lost in something you love. It’s a little bit of an escape, which is really nice.

And beyond that, I think as teachers, we are always looking at things with an eye toward how they can be used in our classroom. That’s part of the fun of what we do, just sharing our love of art with our students. And so when we’re touring these museums and checking out the art we love, we’re always thinking of ways to share that love with our students, and these tours are a great way to do it. So if you can give it some context and figure out what you want your kids to do, it can be an awesome experience for them. No matter what school looks like, whether you are distance learning or in-person, there’s so much to explore and so much to do in the world of virtual museums.

I hope these suggestions give you a good jumping off point and a good place to get started. I will make sure I link to all the museums. I also put Lena’s download with a few more ideas for virtual art history that go beyond what we talked about here. So check the show notes if you want to explore any of that stuff. And then if you have more ideas that you want to share, or if you just want to tell me which museums you love to visit virtually, I would love to hear from you. Shoot me an email, hit me up on Twitter and let me know. All right. Thank you for listening and happy virtual museum visiting.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. As always, we appreciate you giving us a listen, and we will talk to you again next week.

Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.

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Virtual Opportunities

Although the current pandemic limits our capacity to host large groups of visitors, we remain available as a resource for WVU, the community, and the state of West Virginia. We’re here to help your group or class continue to engage with the art in our exhibitions and collections.

Virtual Field Trip

On Tuesday and Friday mornings from 9:00 am - noon, museum education staff are available to host virtual K-12 “field trips.” The field trips will consist of a walk-through of current exhibitions with 4-6 stops at selected works of art for more in-depth looking and questioning. The themes and content of these stops can be tailored to your curricular needs. Teachers will also be provided with lesson plans for a related art-making activity.

University instructors can arrange similar virtual tours for their students based on their class schedule and educator availability (not limited to the K-12 timeframe).

Virtual tours must be booked at least 3 weeks in advance. 

Fill out the Virtual Tour request form  

Customized Synchronous Sessions with Museum Staff

In addition to virtual tours, the museum staff is here to support you and your teaching in a variety of ways, including:

• A guest lecture from a member of the museum’s curatorial or education staff on a topic central to your learning goals.
• A class conversation about professional opportunities in the museum field.
• A customized collection visit featuring images of works from the museum’s collection, not currently on display.
• A facilitated workshop related to the themes and topic of your course. There are a variety of possibilities including, but not limited to:
• A writing class using our collection to inspire ekphrastic poetry or descriptive text.
• An education class creating lesson plans inspired by our collection.
• A science class using art as a forum for honing observation skills.

To arrange any of the above, please contact educational programs manager, Heather Harris at [email protected] .

Virtual Events

We are planning to offer a free virtual programming for the general public and we invite you to consider including them in your syllabus or lesson plan. Event descriptions will be posted as they are confirmed. Museum staff are available to help you link the content of the programs to your curricula.

Online Resources

In addition to the synchronous options detailed above, the museum also has art kits and videos  available online for you and your students. If you have any questions about the content of these resources or need more information about the artworks featured, please contact educational programs manager, Heather Harris at [email protected] .

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Harvard art museums virtual student guide tour.

Thursday, February 10, 8-8:30pm

Harvard undergraduates lead these tours focused on several objects in our collections. This interactive tour will take place online via Zoom. The link to join will be updated here soon. The tours are free and open to all; no pre-registration required.

Virtual Student Guide Tours  take place every Thursday at 8pm (Eastern) on Zoom. Each tour is unique and offers a chance to explore the collections of the Harvard Art Museums through the eyes of a Harvard student. Drop in and join the conversation!

Read  these instructions on how to join a meeting  on Zoom. For general questions about Student Guide Tours, email  [email protected] .

This program is supported by the Ho Family Student Guide Fund.

The Ho Family Student Guide Program at the Harvard Art Museums trains students to develop original, research-based tours of the collections. These tours, designed and led by Harvard undergraduates from a range of academic disciplines, focus on objects chosen by each Student Guide and offer a unique, thematic view into the collections.

The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at  [email protected]  at least 48 hours in advance.

The Harvard Art Museums have reopened to the public. Reservations are required for visitors and can be made up to three weeks in advance. Please visit the museum  website  for more information.

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Virtual Tour of Noé Martínez: The Body Remembers

Installation view, Noé Martínez: The Body Remembers , Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, March 13–June 16, 2024. Julia Featheringill Photography.

Join the Rose Art Museum for a virtual tour of Noé Martínez: The Body Remembers led by exhibition co-curators Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum, and Guest Curator Circe Henestrosa, Head of the School of Fashion, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Ankori and Henestrosa will explain how Martínez’s multimedia installation references his Indigenous Huastecan heritage, and reflect upon the capacity of art to act as an embodied expression of multigenerational trauma as well as a healing ritual.

REGISTER NOW

This program is held in conjunction with Noé Martínez: The Body Remembers , March 13–June 16, 2024.