Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, located on Arthur Ashe Boulevard in Richmond, Virginia, is one of the largest art museums in the United States, with a permanent collection of more than 50,000 objects spanning 5,000 years of world history. Founded in 1936, it is the only major art museum in the southeastern United States open every day with no general admission charge. The permanent galleries are organized geographically and chronologically, beginning with ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman works and progressing through European old masters, American art, Asian decorative arts, and African and South Asian collections. The Fabergé collection — one of the largest outside Russia — includes five Imperial Easter Eggs created for the Russian royal family and is a highlight of the decorative arts galleries. A major sculpture garden flanks the building's modern west wing, designed by Rick Mather and opened in 2010, which added approximately 165,000 square feet of gallery space to the original 1936 structure. The museum's AMUSE Restaurant and Best Café are popular destinations in Richmond's cultural corridor along Boulevard. Special exhibitions, which carry a separate admission charge, feature major loans from international collections and are presented in dedicated upper-level galleries. Saturday evenings see extended hours to 9 PM with programming, performances, and a lively atrium atmosphere. The museum is located within the Boulevard Arts District, walkable from the science museum and within a short drive of Richmond's Carytown neighborhood.