Current Exhibition
Patterns in Abstraction: Black Quilts from the High’s Collection
Through January 5, 2025
Upcoming Exhibition
Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys
Opens September 13
Upcoming Events
Engage directly with works of art in the galleries through docent-led HIGHlights tours every Tuesday through Sunday. Tours begin at 1 p.m. in the Taylor Lobby near the elevators.
Designed for children ages fifteen months through three years and their caregivers, Toddler Thursdays engage children’s creativity and explore monthly topics with related artwork and self-guided tours, as well as new art-making activities to drop in for each week.
Become a Member
Members enjoy early access to new exhibitions, free admission, exclusive discounts when shopping and dining, complimentary parking, and other great perks. Being a member also means you’re a key part of helping us fulfill our mission to deliver the best of visual arts to Atlanta and beyond.
Our Collections
From nineteenth-century sculpture to contemporary folk art, our seven themed collections include more than 18,000 works of art from around the world. We regularly rotate what’s on display, so you’ll never have the same visit twice.
African Art
The High Museum of Art’s African Art collection prominently features the art and material culture of West and Central African makers, reflecting the cultural, social, and visual histories of these regions from antiquity to modern day.
American Art
The High Museum of Art’s historical American Art collection includes over 1,200 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints made by artists working within the United States between 1780 and 1980. With strengths in historical painting and sculpture, the collection demonstrates the evolution of a distinctly American point of view in artistic representation.
Decorative Arts and Design
The High’s Decorative Arts and Design collection explores the broad materializations of design across time and place. It features the renowned Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection—the most comprehensive survey of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American decorative arts in the southeastern United States; the Frances and Emory Cocke Collection of English Ceramics from 1640 to 1840; Southern works; and global contemporary design.
European Art
The High’s European Art collection comprises more than a thousand paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, spanning six centuries of artistic endeavor, from the 1300s through the 1900s.
Folk and Self-Taught Art
Not all great artists attended art schools. The artists featured in the High’s Folk and Self-Taught Art collection instead were shaped primarily by lessons learned from family, community, work, and spiritual experiences. Some painted on canvas, while others depended on more readily available materials: stone from local quarries, decommissioned doors, scrapyard metal, leftover fabric, and even chewing gum.
Modern and Contemporary Art
The Modern and Contemporary Art collection encompasses art from 1945 to the present in all media and from diverse geographic locations and cultures. It provides a broad overview of the art of our time with outstanding examples of work by definitive artists who emerged in the postwar era; midcareer artists who have expanded and challenged the canon since the early 2000s; and emerging artists whose influential work suggests new directions for the future.
Photography
The High Museum of Art began collecting photographs in the early 1970s, making it among the earliest museums to commit to the medium. With more than 8,500 prints, the Photography department comprises the Museum’s largest collection. It is particularly strong in American modernist and documentary traditions from the mid-twentieth century and in contemporary trends.
