Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Art (August 2019)

Carnegie Museum of Art – The Hall of Architecture Was Our Favorite Part

My spouse and I visited the Carnegie Museum of Art (abbreviated at CMOA) on a Sunday morning in late August 2019. The CMOA is open from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm on Wednesdays through Mondays (closed on Tuesdays), with extended evening hours until 8:00 pm on Thursdays. Admission to the CMOA also provides access to the adjacent Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) (see our separate review). 

The Carnegie Museum of Art is located in Pittsburgh’s East End/Oakland neighborhood, within walking distance of the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). On-site parking is available, as well as a museum store and restaurants (Cafe Carnegie [see our separate review] and the Fossil Fuels Café). Complimentary docent-led tours are offered throughout the day. Restrooms and coat check/lockers (which require one quarter to use) are also on-site. 

Pittsburgh industrialist Andrew Carnegie founded the CMOA in 1895 as one of the first museums in the country with a strong focus on contemporary art. An expansion 12 years later (in 1907) added additional footage, with a major expansion in 1974 that doubled the gallery space. The permanent collection features about 32,000 works (paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures, and artifacts), although less than 2,000 works are on display at any one time. The collection features works by Monet, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Rousseau, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Cezanne, Rothko, Pollock, Hopper, Cassatt, Homer, and Whistler. In addition to the traditional galleries, be sure to take time to appreciate the building itself, the grand staircases, the Hall of Architecture (with hundreds of plaster casts of classical and ancient architectural objects) and the Hall of Sculpture (a two-story space with a balcony that displays Egyptian, Greek, and Roman works).

We enjoyed our day visiting the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. We first visited the CMOA in the morning, ate lunch in the full-service Cafe Carnegie (which provided a great respite during a day of touring), then spent an enjoyable afternoon in the CMNH. Highly recommended!