Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238
718-638-5000
Containing 1.5 million artworks, the Brooklyn Museum is one of the nation's
premier art institutions. The Museum's collections, housed in a neoclassical
structure designed in 1893 by the renowned firm of McKim, Mead & White,
encompass virtually the entire history of art.
The art of China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and the Islamic world --
from ancient times to the present -- is represented in numerous ceramics,
sculptures and paintings. The world-famous Egyptian collection, filling
ten galleries, covers 5,000 years of Egyptian art. A major reinstallation
of more than 500 pieces of this collection opened in one of the three floors
of renovated gallery space in the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing. The
museum also has a fine assemblage of works from Greek and Roman antiquity.
The Museum contains 28 period rooms covering a historical span from a 17th-century
Brooklyn Dutch house to an Art Deco study, all complemented with pieces
of matching furniture, glass and metalware. The costumes and textiles collection
encompasses a range of styles from 14th-century ecclesiastical lace accessories
to 19th-century ball gowns.
The painting and sculpture collection contains works from the 14th-century
to the present, including a substantial number of 19th-century French works,
a large number of Spanish Colonial paintings and one of the country's most
comprehensive collections of 19th-century American painting and sculpture.
The Museum's 20th-century American holdings include works by Willem de Kooning,
Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, Richard Diebenkorn and others. An ongoing
series in the main lobby highlights new work by contemporary artists.
Holdings in the prints, drawings and photographs department include major
groups of works by John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, John Singleton Copley
and Thomas Eakins. There are notable drawings by Durer, Goya, Rembrandt
and Toulouse-Lautrec.
The print collection contains works by Bonnard, Denis, Redon and Vuillard,
as well as many German Expressionist images. Photographic masters such as
Lewis Hine and Edward Steichen are well represented.
In 1923 the Brooklyn Museum was the first in the United States to exhibit
African objects as art rather than artifacts, and since then many rare and
historically significant works have been acquired. During this period a
fine collection of Native American objects was also assembled. Ancient American
artistic traditions are represented by Peruvian textiles, Central American
gold and Mexican sculpture. The Oceanic collection includes sculpture from
Papua, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and New Zealand.
The Museum has now implemented a large portion of its master construction
plan, the result of an international design competition won by architects
Arata Isozaki and James Stewart Polshek. The entire Morris A. and Meyer
Schapiro Wing, for decades home to an art school, has been redesigned and
completely renovated, creating three floors of new gallery space, one of
the most beautiful settings for viewing art in the city.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Hours: Wednesday-Sunday 10 am-5 pm; closed Monday, Tuesday
Admission: Suggested contribution: Adults $4, students $2, senior citizens
$1.50, children under 12 free.
Giftshop Posters, books, reproductions, etc., open Wednesday-Sunday 10:30
am-5:30 pm; Equitable Tower Shop: 787 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan, open Monday-Friday
11 am-6 pm, Saturday 12-5 pm.
Food Service Museum Cafe features breakfast, deli sandwiches, hot entrees
and a salad bar; open Wednesday-Sunday 10:30 am-4:30 pm
Library Two libraries: the Art Reference Library contains titles on African,
American and Native American art, and 19th-century costumes and textiles;
the Wilbour Egyptology Library is one of the most comprehensive repositories
of its kind in the world; both are open by appointment only.
Disability Access: Fully accessible; TDD 718-738-6501
Directions: Subway: 2 or 3 to Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum; or take 4
or 5 to Nevins Street and cross platform to 2 or 3; Bus: B41, B48, B69,
B71 to Eastern Parkway
Parking: On-site lot at rear of museum
Landmark Status: National Register of Historic Places, New York City Landmark
City-owned, privately operated