Rhode Island School of Design Museum

About this Museum

The RISD Museum of Art was founded as part of the Rhode Island School of Design in 1877, as an industrial arts study collection aimed at the growing number of craft and industrial producers in New England at the end of the 19^th century. Today, the institution’s permanent collection includes more than 84,000 objects across a variety of fields: painting, sculpture, decorative arts, costume, and furniture from nearly every part of the world and every era, including cutting-edge contemporary art.

RISD’s collection is particularly strong in Colonial American cabinetmakers and silversmiths, French Empire furniture, 19^th-century decorative arts, as well as classic examples of Modernism.