On a semi-recent flight to Las Vegas, I read an article in Delta’s Sky Mag that talked about the world’s must-visit museums (note this is not “the best” but “must-see” – a subtle difference but an important one none the less). To quote the article:
“The Ancient Greeks brought us the word museum; a place dedicated to the muses. Today, museums exist in countless interpretations in all corners of the world. They celebrate a single artist or pay tribute to a single topic. Museums as showcases for modern architecture has rewritten the global skyline and grabbed the world’s attention. But perhaps it is the looming world-class repositories of stunning collections we most associate with the classic idea of a museum: The Prados, Louvres and Mets of the world.
You could spend many lifetimes seeing just a fraction of the museums, great and humble, the world offers.”
Because their mag exists online only in some dumb ass virtual magazine form, where you need a special reader to “turn” the pages, I’ve taken the time to type out Delta’s list. The ones that have been italicized are ones to which I’ve been.
- Musee du quai Branly, Paris
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
- de Young Museum, San Francisco
- La Fondation Maeght, Sanit-Paul-de Vence, France
- National Archaeological Museum, Naples
- The City Museum, St. Louis
- The Field Museum, Chicago
- The International Spy Museum, Washington, D.C.
- Kariye Museum, Istanbul
- The Hermitage, St. Petersburg
- Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
- The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
- The Frederick Meijer Gardens, Grand Rapids, Michigan
- National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City
- Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield, Illinois
- National Palace Museum, Taipei
- The Getty Center, Los Angeles
- The Uffizi Gallery, Florance
- Museum of Modern Art, New York City
- Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
- High Museum of Art, Atlanta
- American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore
- British Museum, London
- Edo-Tokyo Museum, Tokyo
- Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, Cairo
- Vatican Museums, Rome
- Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon
- Museum of Latin American Art, Buenos Aires
- Botero Museum, Bogota