Lesser known cities for art and museums

Turin/Torino is a fabulous city with museums, palaces, beautiful piazzas, great food, and not very many tourists. We recently spent a week there and didn’t get to everything so we hope to return.

Dulwich Picture Gallery near London

Antwerp: KMSKA, MAS, Van den Bergh, and more
Brussels: unified Fine Art (Ancient & Modern), several others
Turnhout: (small) unuusal Playing Cards Museum

Germany is a vast country with many, many museums. Kassel is noted for Contemporary Art, but there is a UNESCO WHS estate, Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, that has a massive and superb collection of paintings, and some sculpture. Also a funerary-culture museum I missed; German traditions are VERY different from ours. For example, flower shows in Germany typically have a graveyard exhibit. Aschaffenberg has a big Schloss, but beside it is the Pompejanum, which is like the Getty Villa of Germany. Leipzig's big museum is important because there is little New Leipzig School (e.g. Neo Rauch) contemporary art to see in the USA. Dresden has a staggering amount of art. Next door is the massive porcelain museum in Meissen.

There are a few notable museums in eastern France, like Louvre Lens, and the Lille Palais de Beaux Arts.

Basel has a few important art museums. See also:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/switzerland/interesting-town-near-swiss-german-border

I enjoyed Museum Mayer van den Bergh and Rubenshuis in Antwerp and Groeninge Museum in Bruges.

We have a week in western Europe this summer and would like to spend it visiting cities with lesser known but excellent art museums.

What do you consider Western Europe?

If you’re going to be near Alsace stop in at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar and see the Isenheim Altarpiece. Good luck!

File for future reference, lol, since you won't be in the UK this year. I've caught excellent exhibitions at both the Holburne Museum in Bath (a Canaletto exhibition) and at the Salisbury Museum on the Cathedral Close in Salisbury (a Constable exhibition).

On to Paris....

Have you been to the Marmottan? It's excellent with the number of Monet paintings on display in their lower level but is pretty well-known so you might have done this one.

Last Fall I finally got to the Museum of Hunting and Nature in Paris. I thought there would be no one there but it was the opening of a special exhibition from a fabric artist and there were at least 30 people in line at opening. Plus it was some kind of Fall school break so there were lots of families with kids. Still, I enjoyed it even though their stuffed wolf looked more like a Western US Coyote than a Yellowstone Gray Wolf. It has some animal/hunting/nature art along with taxidermies specimens of a bunch of wildlife so if you are looking for all art this would not be the place.

Musée Cognacq-Jay is also good and free as it is a City of Paris museum. I kind of laughed when I went here because there was 1 Rembrandt and 2 Canaletto's (or 2 and 1) and I thought...hmmmm...same as Nissem Camondo or some other smaller museum so that must have been the starter suggestion for 19th century art collectors, lol. First, get your hands on a Rembrandt and then try to find a Canaletto, then double it to give your collection standing among your peers! hahaha....

I'll be interested to see what others suggest!

Panorama Mesdag in den Haag (also the Mauritshuis of course but that doesn’t count as lesser-known I think). The Panorama centres on one big painting but it’s so beautifully displayed, it’s quite magical.

Without knowing which "major art museums" you've already visited, I'll add some of Germany's offerings to the above suggestions.

Berlin, multiple options, here are some suggestions (including the "majors" you may have visited already but other smaller galleries as well): https://www.visitberlin.de/en/art-museums

Hamburg: Kunsthalle (if you haven't visited this one) https://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/en

Bremen: Kunsthalle Bremen https://www.kunsthalle-bremen.de/en/kunsthalle-bremen/die-kunsthalle

Save this one for next year when it reopens:
Schwerin Staatliches Museum, a smaller museum with a very fine collection: https://www.museum-schwerin.de/en/collection/collections/

I'm an art lover also. If you make it to Copenhagen, multiple options within walking distance of each other. https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/copenhagen/activities/art-museums-and-art-spaces

Milan has many good art museums.

The French Riviera is peppered with art museums; Nice alone has at least six. Google should get you a pretty comprehensive list. A lot of the Riviera museums focus on a single artist, but the Fondation Maeght in St-Paul-de-Vence takes a broader look. I've never seen statistics to back this up, but I have the impression France has more, and more widely scattered, art museums than most other countries.

Wow, thank you all for the terrific suggestions! Gotta get my map out and start planning. The only places I've been mentioned here is Turin, Berlin and Paris, although not to those museums. Turin was indeed a wonderful surprise, loved that city, and the Egyptian Museum was amazing. Thank you all, much to think about and plan!

There are a number of museums in southern France dedicated to the work of individual artists. The ones I remember visiting are Maillol (in his former home in Banyuls), Picasso (Antibes, also Barcelona), (Leger (in Biot), Chagall (in Nice), Renoir (in his former home in Cagnes-sur-Mer), and Toulouse Lautrec (in Albi).
The town of Ceret houses the Musee d’Art Moderne with works by Picasso, Modigliani, Braque, and Soutine, among others, many of whom lived there for several years.
Fondation Maeght, in St. Paul de Vence, has works by some of the most renowned 20th C. artists and sculptors including Calder, Braque, Kandinsky, and Miro.

I would suggest going to Northern France, ie, near Arras the town of Lens. The Louvre has additional exhibitions in Lens. Lens fits the description of "lesser known cities" unless one follows French soccer matches, ie the Paris-Lens match.

Next to Potsdam is Babelsberg, where the museum is located. I've not been to this esoteric art museum, only to the famous Schloss Babelsberg (chateau).

Oh, Rosalyn's suggestion of the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi slipped my mind when I was thinking about your question! It is excellent. I was not really a fan of his work until I went to that museum, plus it is in the 13C Bishop's Palace so is a very cool building.

The 2 Granet Museum buildings in Aix-en-Provence I found quite interesting too.

Berlin and Potsdam have over 50 art museums plus various art galleries and street art of various art types (pictures, sculptures, ...). See art museum list for Berlin. Additionally you will find art related events such as Gallery Weekend and events of University of Arts and three Art Colleges (link to overview of art colleges in German language).

Very interesting are time-limited street art collections when a building planned for demolition is handed over for 2-3 months to artist collectives. These projects are very popular and well visited but the art disappears with the building (link to example from the past).

Netherlands:
Kroeller-Mueller Museum in the middle of Het Nationale Park De Hoge Veluwe, north of Arnhem. Van Gogh, Seurat, Monet and other Impressionists and Post Impressionists.

Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem.

I really think your idea of "art" needs definition. Nancy, which is a center for art glass and Art Deco, has fantastic architecture and the display of glass in the basement of the museum right off Stanislaus Plaza is world class. For paintings, the Bemberg in Toulouse was fantastic, with a great selection of Impressionists. The Chagall windows in Metz are icing on the cake for the Cour de l'Ore where, along with a huge collection of Roman stuff, you'll find at least one current exhibit of modern art. You could easily spend a week in the Dordogne just looking at neolithic paintings, starting with Lascaux. I'll argue the Porsche and Mercedes museums in Stuttgart are jammed with art. Have you seen the fantastic Roman mosaics at the Rhineland State Museum Trier? The Durer House in Nuremberg? The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna? The Mucha in Prague? The Marienberg in Wurzburg? There are so many...

IggyStooge,
Not a small town, but if you haven't been to Vienna, the Kunsthistoriches Museum is a beautiful setting for its wonderful collection of art. And a plus for me, the biggest collection of paintings by Breugel!

Maybe the museum in Krakow that has the Lady with the Ermine. And I agree about the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna.

In the Netherlands topnotch is Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and certainly worth to mention. Alas it’s undergoing extensive renovation works for many years to come, the collection is nowadays spread around different locations, you can go for instance to the spectacular nearby museums Depot.

In The Hague Kunstmuseum Den Haag has among others an extensive collection of works by M.C. Escher and Piet Mondriaan. Of the first there is a collection also to admire in “Escher in het Paleis”.

Catharijneconvent in Utrecht. Mainly about medieval art, but also with temporarily exhitions from other periods.

Of the smaller museums have Museum Voorlinden near The Hague and Singer Museum Laren south-east of Amsterdam a big reputation about modern art. From time to time interesting temporarily exhibitions there.

All these museums are located within easy reach of eachother, so you won’t loose much time with moving around if you stay at a central location.

If you make it back to Spain, you might be interested in visiting the Foundation Vicente Marin, in the village Bretun in the province of Soria.

The collection is interesting, but the visit is also an experience. The foundation has taken over several buildings in the village and includes a hotel.

Lesser known cities for art and museums

Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, St Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City.

Philadelphia of.course Has the arr.museum but by far our favorite is the Barnes Museum. Much smaller but what a great mix of so many classic artist works. The US has many fabulous museums so you don't have to go to Europe to enjoy art.

The Stadel Museum in Frankfurt has an excellent collection as well as the Rembrandt's Amsterdam exhibit going right now.

Great topic, thanks. Looking through your posts, I don't notice any mention of Scandinavia, so wondered if you had considered a week split between Copenhagen & Stockholm, both of which have a plethora of incredible museums ranging from modern (Louisiana art museum outside Copenhagen) to the fabulous History Museum in Stockholm, not to mention the Vasa museum...

Couldn't tell if ancient art / art in churches is of interest, what about the mosaics in Ravenna, Italy, a huge variety of art museums in Milan, or the Brescia ruins outside Milan, along with the Museo di Santa Giulia, which sits on top of the old Roman baths? Just as examples of what might lie outside museums but be museum-quality treasures. I see you've been to Rome, have you been to Ostia Antica outside Rome, or Orvieto for the cathedral? Enjoy!

Oslo is a hidden gem. Unique world-class Scandinavian art of the 1880-1930 period.

^^Agree! The Munch Museum is very well curated. Very well exhibited overview of Munch's life - interactive. The collection at the National Museum is also very worthwhile.

We enjoyed the Mucha Museum in Prague.

Agreeing with KGC. My husband loves cars (especially Porsche), I’m meh. We went to both the Porsche and Mercedes museums in Stuttgart, Germany and I enjoyed them. I do highly recommend doing the factory tours at each museum. Fascinating!

I second the Mucha Museum in Prague!

I'm going to add two I haven't seen mentioned here that I really enjoyed:

Cologne- Ludwig Museum (modern art): https://www.museum-ludwig.de/de/
Zurich- Kunsthaus Zurich (wide ranging collection including a lot of Swiss artists like Giacometti): https://www.kunsthaus.ch/

As a bonus in Zurich, from the museum you can walk to the Fraumunster and see the beautiful Chagall stained glass windows.

Here’s a new small art museum recommendation…The Museo Sorolla, an impressionist artist’s home and gallery in Madrid. It is closed for improvements until 2026. This is a “3rd” for the Mucha Museum in Prague. Easily visited when starting the RS tour of Eastern (central) Europe. I 2nd the recommendation to bus out to the Louisiana (modern art) Museum near Copenhagen.

I will second Sam's suggestion. It's a great museum in an absolutely lovely, unique setting. Nice cafe restaurant too, good food.

Netherlands: Kroeller-Mueller Museum in the middle of Het Nationale
Park De Hoge Veluwe, north of Arnhem. Van Gogh, Seurat, Monet and
other Impressionists and Post Impressionists.

And seconding Judy's suggestion of Vienna

IggyStooge, Not a small town, but if you haven't been to Vienna, the
Kunsthistoriches Museum is a beautiful setting for its wonderful
collection of art. And a plus for me, the biggest collection of
paintings by Breugel!

Also in Vienna, the Belvedere Palace Museum, tremendous collection of paintings, skewing local, think Klimpt and the Vienna Secession. Wonderful collection.