Baltimore Museums

Baltimore is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maryland, located about 40 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1729, Baltimore is the second-largest seaport in the Mid-Atlantic.

After a decline in manufacturing and a shifted to a service-oriented economy, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins University are now the city’s top two employers.

Baltimore has more public statues and monuments per capita than any other city in the U.S. and a third of the city’s buildings (over 65,000) are designated as historic in the National Register, which is more than any other U.S. city.

Virtual Tour of the Museums in Baltimore

• Walters Art Museum
• Baltimore Museum of Art
• American Visionary Art Museum
• Baltimore Museum of Industry
• National Museum of Dentistry

Highlights Tour of the Museums in Baltimore

Walters Art Museum

The Walters Art Museum is an art museum with a collection that includes masterworks of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamian, Greek and Rome, medieval and  Renaissance artworks,  Master European and 19th-century paintings.

Including Chinese ceramics and bronzes, plus Art Deco jewelry.

In 2000, “The Walters Art Gallery” changed its long-time name to “The Walters Art Museum” to reflect collection and focus.

Baltimore Museum of Art

The Baltimore Museum of Art was founded in 1914 and houses a collection of 95,000 objects. The museum’s collection includes over 1,000 works by Henri Matisse as well as many other famous artist’s paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs.

The museum’s galleries showcase collections of art from around the world with significant contributions from Africa, Europe, Asia, and America.  

The museum is also home to 18,000 works of French mid-19th-century art making it’s collection one of the most significant holdings of French Art in America.

The museum’s neoclassical building was designed in the 1920s, and the facilities include two landscaped gardens with 20th-century sculpture.

American Visionary Art Museum

The American Visionary Art Museum specializes in the preservation and display of outsider art, also known as “intuitive art,” “raw art,” or “art brut.” Congress has designated it as America’s National Museum for Visionary Art.

The museum’s facilities feature three floors of exhibition space, a Sculpture Barn and Wildflower Garden, and event spaces.

The museum has a permanent collection of about 4,000 pieces. Its exhibitions, rather than focusing on specific artists or styles, focus on themed shows.

Baltimore Museum of Industry

The Baltimore Museum of Industry focuses on exhibits that explore various types of manufacturing and industry from the early 20th century. The museum also documents inventions and processes discovered in Baltimore and Maryland. 

The museum’s exhibits include recreations of parts of a cannery, a 1900s garment loft, a machine shop from 1900, a print shop, a Pharmacy, as well as exhibits on the food industry in Baltimore.

The museum was founded in 1977 to preserve the industrial history of Baltimore, and there are also hands-on sections with working equipment and other artifacts. 

The library consists of over 5,000 rare and historical books. The manuscript collections cover all major industries in Baltimore, including canning, the cloth trades, violin making, and the steel industry.

The museum is housed in an old Oyster Cannery, and its photographic collections consist of over 250,000 prints and negatives.

National Museum of Dentistry

National Museum of Dentistry preserves and exhibits the history of dentistry in the United States and the world. The museum is located on the campus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, home of the nation’s first dental school.

The museum exhibits numerous artifacts concerning dentistry throughout the ages as well as highlighting trends in oral health and the dentistry profession.

The Dr. Samuel D. Harris Museum of Dentistry received congressional designation as the nation’s official dental museum in 2003 and it also became an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.

The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, founded in 1840 was the birthplace of the Doctor of Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) degree. It is known as the first dental college in the world.

The College was chartered by an act of the General Assembly of Maryland in 1840. The College is still in existence today and is part of the University of Maryland, Baltimore as one of its five professional graduate-level schools.

The establishment of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery is seen as one of the crucial steps in the foundation of the dental profession in the United States and the world.