Forty museums hold, between them, the greater part of the world's portable memory: the Rosetta Stone and the Mona Lisa, the Jadeite Cabbage and the complete Tutankhamun, Guernica and the Night Watch. This guide — the opening publication of LIKE® Magazine's Museums department — maps them institution by institution.
The list covers 40 museums in 19 countries: the great houses of Europe, the encyclopedic museums of the United States, and the national museums of Asia, the Middle East and Oceania. For each: its verified director — checked one by one in October 2026, a season in which a dozen of these chairs changed hands — its governance where the leadership splits, its collection (with object counts only where the museum itself publishes them), its signature works, its visitors with the year always stated, its building, its official website and a published contact route. Where a chair stands empty, the entry says so in words. The gaps — Latin America above all — are named at the end rather than padded over.
EUROPE'S GREAT HOUSES OF ART
1. LOUVRE — PARIS, FRANCE
Founded 1793 · Encyclopedic museum of art and antiquities
Director: Christophe Leribault, President-Director (appointed February 2026)
Governance: A French national museum under the Ministry of Culture; its president-director is appointed by the President of the Republic. Leribault succeeded Laurence des Cars, whose resignation was accepted by President Emmanuel Macron on 24 February 2026.
Collection: Approximately 500,000 objects, of which some 35,000 are on display across eight curatorial departments, from Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities to paintings, sculpture, decorative arts and Islamic art.
Signature works: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa; the Venus de Milo; the Winged Victory of Samothrace; Veronese's The Wedding at Cana; Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People.
Visitors: 9,046,000 in 2025 — the world's most visited museum (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025; the Louvre itself reported 9 million in 2025, against 8.7 million in 2024).
The building: The former royal palace of the Louvre on the Seine, opened as a museum on 10 August 1793; I. M. Pei's glass Pyramid (1989) serves as its entrance, and a renovation and security programme of some $820 million is under way.
Website: louvre.fr · Contact: Contact form and visitor services via louvre.fr
On 19 October 2025 thieves stole crown jewels from the Galerie d'Apollon; the theft, strikes, water leaks and a suspected long-running ticket-fraud scheme formed the background to the change of leadership in February 2026.
Sources: louvre.fr; Associated Press and Artnet News, February 2026 (Leribault appointment; des Cars resignation); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
2. BRITISH MUSEUM — LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Founded 1753 · Museum of world history, art and culture
Director: Nicholas Cullinan, Director (since 2024)
Governance: A national museum sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, governed by a board of trustees; Cullinan succeeded Hartwig Fischer, with Sir Mark Jones serving as interim director.
Collection: Eight million objects — the museum's own published figure — spanning two million years of human history across every continent.
Signature works: The Rosetta Stone; the Parthenon Sculptures; the Sutton Hoo helmet and ship-burial regalia; the Lewis Chessmen; the Lion Hunt reliefs of Ashurbanipal.
Visitors: 6,440,120 in calendar 2025 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025). The museum's own Annual Report and Accounts separately report 6.5 million for the financial year 2024–25; the two bases are not blended.
The building: Robert Smirke's Greek Revival building in Bloomsbury (opened on the present site in the 1850s), centred since 2000 on the Great Court, its former courtyard roofed in glass and steel to a design by Foster + Partners.
Website: britishmuseum.org · Contact: Contact form via britishmuseum.org; the museum is free to enter
From September 2026 to July 2027 the museum shows the Bayeux Tapestry, lent by France and displayed in Britain for the first time in some 1,000 years, backed by an £800 million UK government guarantee.
Sources: britishmuseum.org (About us; Annual Report and Accounts); UK government trustee appointment notices, 2026 (executive led by Dr Nicholas Cullinan); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
3. VATICAN MUSEUMS — VATICAN CITY, VATICAN CITY
Founded 1506 · Papal collections of art and antiquities
Director: Barbara Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums (Director of Museums and Cultural Heritage)
Governance: The museums are the cultural arm of the Holy See; Jatta, the first woman to direct them, has held the post since 2017 and is styled Director of Museums and Cultural Heritage in Vatican Press Office releases of 2026.
Collection: The collections assembled by the popes over five centuries, shown in 54 galleries; the Holy See does not publish a single object total, and none is asserted here.
Signature works: Michelangelo's ceiling and Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel; the Raphael Rooms; the Gallery of Maps; the Laocoön group; the Apollo Belvedere.
Visitors: 6,933,822 in 2025 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: A sequence of palaces and galleries within the Apostolic Palace complex, entered from Viale Vaticano; the double-helix Bramante Staircase of 1932 (Giuseppe Momo) is its celebrated exit.
Website: museivaticani.va · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via museivaticani.va
Founded under Pope Julius II, whose acquisition of the Laocoön in 1506 began the collection; the museums are routinely the second most visited art museums in the world.
Sources: Holy See Press Office releases, March–October 2026 (Barbara Jatta in post); museivaticani.va; The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
4. RIJKSMUSEUM — AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
Founded 1800 · National museum of Dutch art and history
Director: Taco Dibbits, General Director
Governance: The Netherlands' national museum, operating at arm's length from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Dibbits has led it since 2016.
Collection: One million objects in the museum's own published count — paintings, prints, drawings, photography, Asian art and Dutch historical artefacts — of which some 8,000 are on display.
Signature works: Rembrandt's The Night Watch; Vermeer's The Milkmaid; Van Gogh's Self-Portrait (1887); the Gallery of Honour's Dutch Golden Age paintings.
Visitors: Over 2.3 million in 2025 (the museum's own press release, December 2025); the museum reported about 2.5 million in 2024.
The building: Pierre Cuypers' cathedral-like building of 1885 on Museumplein, comprehensively renovated by Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos and reopened by King Willem-Alexander in 2013.
Website: rijksmuseum.nl · Contact: Visitor services and tickets via rijksmuseum.nl
The museum buys jointly at the highest level: with the Louvre it bought Rembrandt's pendant portraits of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit for €160 million (2016), and in 2026 it made its first joint purchase with the Mauritshuis.
Sources: rijksmuseum.nl (collection count; 2025 visitor release); Artnet News, October 2026 (Dibbits in post); The Art Newspaper
5. MUSEO DEL PRADO — MADRID, SPAIN
Founded 1819 · National museum of European painting and sculpture
Director: Miguel Falomir, Director (since 2017)
Governance: Spain's national painting museum; Javier Solana presides over the museum's Royal Board of Trustees, with Falomir as its executive director.
Collection: The world's pre-eminent holdings of European art from the 12th to the early 20th century, built on the Spanish royal collections — Bosch, Titian, El Greco, Rubens, Velázquez and Goya in depth. The museum publishes no single object total in the form used here, and none is asserted.
Signature works: Velázquez's Las Meninas; Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights; Goya's The Third of May 1808 and the Black Paintings; Fra Angelico's The Annunciation.
Visitors: More than 3.5 million in 2025 — the first time the museum has passed that figure (the museum's published accounts, reported July 2026).
The building: Juan de Villanueva's neoclassical building on the Paseo del Prado, designed in 1785 as a cabinet of natural history and opened as a museum in 1819; extended by Rafael Moneo's building of 2007.
Website: museodelprado.es · Contact: Visitor services and tickets via museodelprado.es
Falomir argued publicly in January 2026 that a museum's success 'can collapse it', setting out the Prado's deliberate policy of capping crowding to protect the visitor experience — a position quoted across the museum world.
Sources: museodelprado.es; Artnet News, January–March 2026 (Falomir in post; attendance); museum accounts coverage, July 2026
6. UFFIZI GALLERIES — FLORENCE, ITALY
Founded 1581 · National gallery of Italian Renaissance art
Director: Simone Verde, Director (since January 2024)
Governance: A state museum group within Italy's Ministry of Culture, uniting the Uffizi, the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens; Verde succeeded Eike Schmidt.
Collection: The defining collection of Italian Renaissance painting, formed from the Medici collections and bequeathed to Florence by Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici in 1737; the group also administers the Pitti Palace museums and the Boboli Gardens.
Signature works: Botticelli's The Birth of Venus and Primavera; Leonardo's Annunciation; Michelangelo's Doni Tondo; Caravaggio's Medusa; the Tribune room.
Visitors: 5.3 million in 2025 across the group's three sites — the Uffizi, Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens (museum figures reported by The Art Newspaper's 2025 survey, which lists the group without a per-site split).
The building: Giorgio Vasari's Uffizi (1560–81), built as the offices — uffizi — of the Florentine magistrates, its top floor converted to a gallery for Francesco I de' Medici; opened to the public in 1769.
Website: uffizi.it · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via uffizi.it
A €50 million (some $58 million) renovation and expansion programme was presented by Verde in August 2026.
Sources: uffizi.it; Artnet News and The Times, August 2026 (Verde; revamp); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
7. STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM — ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Founded 1764 · Encyclopedic museum of art and world culture
Director: Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director General (since 1992)
Governance: A federal state museum of Russia; Piotrovsky, director since 1992, succeeded his father Boris Piotrovsky in the post.
Collection: More than three million works of art and artefacts of world culture, in the museum's own published count, from Stone Age finds to Matisse and Picasso.
Signature works: Leonardo's Benois Madonna and Litta Madonna; Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son; Matisse's Dance; the Peacock Clock; the Jordan Staircase of the Winter Palace.
Visitors: The museum states that it welcomed over 3.5 million visitors in the year preceding its 2025 ticket-price article (hermitagemuseum.org); no fuller audited series was published for this guide.
The building: The Winter Palace of Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli (1754–62) and the adjoining Small, Old and New Hermitages and Hermitage Theatre, facing Palace Square and the Neva; the General Staff Building opposite houses the modern collections.
Website: hermitagemuseum.org · Contact: Visitor information via hermitagemuseum.org
Founded by Catherine the Great with her 1764 purchase of the Gotzkowsky collection; opened to the public under Nicholas I in 1852.
Sources: hermitagemuseum.org (director; collection count; visitor statement), October 2025–2026; The Art Newspaper (Piotrovsky profile and coverage)
8. MUSÉE D'ORSAY — PARIS, FRANCE
Founded 1986 · National museum of art, 1848–1914
Director: Annick Lemoine, President of the Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie (from 19 March 2026)
Governance: The two museums form a single French public establishment (EPMO). Lemoine succeeded Sylvain Amic, president from April 2024, who died in office in August 2025; Christophe Leribault had led the establishment from 2021 to 2024.
Collection: The world's largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art, within a national collection of art from 1848 to 1914 — painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts and architecture.
Signature works: Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhône; Manet's Olympia and Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe; Renoir's Bal du moulin de la Galette; Monet's Poppies; Courbet's L'Origine du monde.
Visitors: 3.8 million in 2025, holding firm on the previous year (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: Victor Laloux's Beaux-Arts Gare d'Orsay railway station and hotel of 1900, converted in 1986 to a design led by Gae Aulenti, its great clock and vaulted train hall preserved.
Website: musee-orsay.fr · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via musee-orsay.fr
The brief's starting name for this post, Sylvie Patry, is a former senior Orsay curator and conservation delegate who left the museum in 2022; the presidency has changed hands twice since (Leribault, then Amic, then Lemoine).
Sources: Le Monde, 25 February 2026 (Lemoine appointment); musee-orsay.fr; The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
9. MUSÉE DE L'ORANGERIE — PARIS, FRANCE
Founded 1927 · National museum: Monet and the Walter–Guillaume collection
Director: Annick Lemoine, President of the Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie (from 19 March 2026)
Governance: Administered with the Musée d'Orsay as one public establishment (EPMO); see the Orsay entry for the presidency.
Collection: A museum of two treasures: Claude Monet's Water Lilies cycle, given to France in 1922, and the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection of Cézanne, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Rousseau, Derain, Modigliani and Soutine.
Signature works: Monet's eight Water Lilies compositions in the two oval rooms devised by the artist; Cézanne's and Renoir's portraits in the Walter–Guillaume galleries below.
Visitors: Attendance is reported jointly with the Musée d'Orsay: 4.9 million combined in 2024 (The Art Newspaper). No standalone Orangerie figure for 2025 was published in the sources verified for this guide, and none is invented.
The building: An 1852 orangery of the Tuileries Garden, adapted in the 1920s to house the Water Lilies in two oval rooms lit by daylight, above the garden front of the Tuileries.
Website: musee-orangerie.fr · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via musee-orangerie.fr
Included by design although a single-artist shrine in part: it is a national museum of the first rank and the second half of the Orsay establishment.
Sources: musee-orangerie.fr; Le Monde, February 2026 (EPMO presidency); The Art Newspaper (combined attendance 2024)
10. TATE MODERN (TATE) — LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Founded 2000 · National collection of modern and contemporary art
Director: Karin Hindsbo, Interim Director of Tate (from 1 January 2026)
Governance: Tate is in transition, and this guide prints the position exactly as verified: Maria Balshaw, Director since 2017, stepped down in December 2025; Karin Hindsbo serves as Interim Director of Tate from 1 January 2026; Catherine Wood is Interim Director of Tate Modern; and Jessica Morgan, from the Dia Art Foundation, has been announced to become Director of Tate on 1 January 2027.
Collection: Tate holds the United Kingdom's national collection of British art from 1500 and of international modern and contemporary art — more than 70,000 works across its four galleries, in Tate's published count.
Signature works: At Tate Modern: the Rothko Seagram murals; Warhol's Marilyn Diptych; Duchamp's Fountain; the Turbine Hall commissions; Tate Britain, across the river, holds the world's greatest Turner collection.
Visitors: Tate Modern received 4,514,266 visitors in 2025 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: Bankside Power Station, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and closed in 1981, converted by Herzog & de Meuron and opened as Tate Modern in 2000; the Switch House extension (2016) added the Tanks and a panoramic terrace. Tate itself was founded in 1897.
Website: tate.org.uk · Contact: Visitor services via tate.org.uk; entry to the collection is free
The directorship is this guide's most layered entry: an interim arrangement through 2026 with a named successor taking office on 1 January 2027.
Sources: Tate press release, 16 March 2026, and Tate Annual Report 2025–26 (interim director); press reporting, August 2026 (Morgan appointment); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
11. NATIONAL GALLERY — LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Founded 1824 · National collection of Western European painting
Director: Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director (since 2015)
Governance: A national museum sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Finaldi, who had been the Prado's deputy director, returned to London to lead the gallery in 2015.
Collection: More than 2,300 paintings — the gallery's published count — of Western European art from the mid-13th century to 1900, held for the British public.
Signature works: Van Eyck's The Arnolfini Portrait; Leonardo's The Virgin of the Rocks; Van Gogh's Sunflowers; Turner's The Fighting Temeraire; Velázquez's The Rokeby Venus.
Visitors: 4,147,544 in 2025, up some 30 per cent on 2024 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: William Wilkins' neoclassical building of 1832–38 on Trafalgar Square; the Sainsbury Wing (Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, 1991) was reworked and reopened in 2025 under the gallery's Project Domani.
Website: nationalgallery.org.uk · Contact: Visitor services via nationalgallery.org.uk; entry to the collection is free
Founded in 1824 when Parliament bought the Angerstein collection; the gallery completed its bicentenary redisplay, Project Domani, in 2025–26.
Sources: nationalgallery.org.uk; Museums + Heritage, October 2026 (Finaldi in post; Project Domani); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
12. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO — BILBAO, SPAIN
Founded 1997 · Museum of modern and contemporary art
Director: Miren Arzalluz, Director General (from 1 April 2025)
Governance: A Basque public-private institution affiliated with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Arzalluz, previously director of the Palais Galliera in Paris, succeeded Juan Ignacio Vidarte, director for 32 years.
Collection: Basque and Spanish art and international modern and contemporary art in depth, built since 1997 around the Guggenheim network's holdings and the Basque institutions' own acquisitions.
Signature works: Richard Serra's The Matter of Time, eight vast weathered-steel sculptures permanently installed; Jeff Koons' Puppy at the entrance; Louise Bourgeois' Maman on the river terrace.
Visitors: 1,305,003 in 2025 (the museum's own press release).
The building: Frank Gehry's titanium-, glass- and limestone-clad building of 1997 on the Nervión river — the building that gave urban regeneration its shorthand, the 'Bilbao effect'.
Website: guggenheim-bilbao.eus · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via guggenheim-bilbao.eus
The directorship changed hands in April 2025 after Vidarte's three decades; Arzalluz is the museum's second director general.
Sources: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao press releases, 2025 (Arzalluz appointment; visitor figures); guggenheim-bilbao.eus
13. CENTRE POMPIDOU — PARIS, FRANCE
Founded 1977 · National museum of modern art and cultural centre
Director: Laurent Le Bon, President (since July 2021)
Governance: A French national cultural establishment; Le Bon presides over the centre and its Musée national d'art moderne, Europe's largest modern art museum.
Collection: More than 120,000 works in the Musée national d'art moderne — the museum's published count — the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe.
Signature works: Kandinsky's and Duchamp's bodies of work; the reconstructed Atelier Brâncuși beside the piazza; Sophie Taeuber-Arp, František Kupka and the founding modern holdings.
Visitors: 3.2 million in 2024 — the last full year before the building's closure (The Art Newspaper Paris round-up, January 2025).
The building: Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers' inside-out high-tech building of 1977, its services colour-coded on the façade; the Beaubourg building closed on 22 September 2025 for a renovation, state-funded at some €262 million, and reopens in 2030.
Website: centrepompidou.fr · Contact: Programme, partnerships and touring information via centrepompidou.fr
During the closure the centre works through partnerships — with the Grand Palais, the Louvre and institutions abroad — a national collection administered as a travelling one until 2030.
Sources: centrepompidou.fr; The Art Newspaper (closure, 22 September 2025; renovation funding; 2024 attendance)
14. MUSEO REINA SOFÍA — MADRID, SPAIN
Founded 1992 · National museum of modern and contemporary art
Director: Manuel Segade, Director (since 2023)
Governance: Spain's national museum of 20th- and 21st-century art; Segade, a curator and writer, succeeded Manuel Borja-Villel in 2023.
Collection: Almost 25,000 works — the museum's published count — of Spanish and international modern and contemporary art.
Signature works: Picasso's Guernica, returned to Spain in 1981 and the museum's defining work; Dalí's The Great Masturbator; Miró's paintings; the contemporary Spanish collections.
Visitors: 1,601,732 at the main site in 2025, up 4.2 per cent (the museum's published figure).
The building: The Sabatini building, an 18th-century hospital by Francesco Sabatini adapted as an art centre, joined by Jean Nouvel's extension of 2005 with its great red canopy; the museum was officially inaugurated on 10 September 1992.
Website: museoreinasofia.es · Contact: Visitor services and tickets via museoreinasofia.es
With the Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza, the museum completes Madrid's Golden Triangle of Art on the Paseo del Prado.
Sources: museoreinasofia.es (inauguration; collection; visitors); Frieze and museum coverage, 2026 (Segade in post)
15. MUSEO THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA — MADRID, SPAIN
Founded 1992 · National museum: the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection
Director: Evelio Acevedo, Managing Director (since 2012)
Governance: A Spanish state museum holding the collection assembled by Barons Heinrich and Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and bought by Spain in 1993; the museum's official management structure names Evelio Acevedo as Managing Director.
Collection: Some 1,000 works on display from a collection that surveys Western painting from the 13th to the late 20th century — the encyclopedic complement to the Prado and the Reina Sofía, strong in early Netherlandish, Impressionist, Expressionist and American painting.
Signature works: Van Eyck's Annunciation Diptych; Holbein's Portrait of Henry VIII; Ghirlandaio's Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni; Hopper's Hotel Room; Kandinsky and the German Expressionists.
Visitors: Nearly one million people visited in 2025 (the museum's own year-end review, '2025 at the Thyssen').
The building: The Villahermosa Palace, a late 18th-century palace on the Paseo del Prado adapted for the museum by Rafael Moneo and opened in 1992.
Website: museothyssen.org · Contact: Visitor services and tickets via museothyssen.org
The collection was contested by the world's museums before Madrid secured it; installed first on loan in 1992, it was purchased by the Spanish state the following year.
Sources: museothyssen.org (management structure; 2025 review); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza official publications
16. MUSÉE DU QUAI BRANLY – JACQUES CHIRAC — PARIS, FRANCE
Founded 2006 · National museum of the arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas
Director: Emmanuel Kasarhérou, President (since 2020)
Governance: A French national museum; Kasarhérou, the first Kanak to head a major French national museum, was reappointed for a third term by decree of 22 July 2026.
Collection: Some 300,000 objects of the arts and civilisations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, of which about 3,500 are shown in the permanent plateau des collections.
Signature works: Major Fang and Kota reliquary figures; the Djidji Ayôkwé talking drum of Côte d'Ivoire, whose return was signed in February 2026 under France's restitution framework.
Visitors: Nearly 1.4 million in 2025 (Le Monde, June 2026, on the museum's 20th anniversary).
The building: Jean Nouvel's building of 2006 beside the Eiffel Tower, screened by a vast planted wall by Patrick Blanc and set in a garden by Gilles Clément; the museum marked its 20th anniversary in 2026.
Website: quaibranly.fr · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via quaibranly.fr
From November 2025 to March 2026 the museum hosted 'Dragons', 83 works lent by the National Palace Museum, Taipei — a loan between institutions that itself made diplomatic news.
Sources: quaibranly.fr; Le Monde, June 2026 (20th anniversary; visitors; presidency); decree of 22 July 2026 (reappointment)
17. KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM — VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Founded 1891 · Imperial art collections of the Habsburgs
Director: Jonathan Fine, Director General of the KHM-Museumsverband (from 1 January 2025)
Governance: The museum heads Austria's federal museum association (KHM-Museumsverband, including the Weltmuseum Wien and the Austrian Theatre Museum); Fine, an American art historian, succeeded Sabine Haag.
Collection: The Habsburg imperial collections: the picture gallery of Bruegel, Vermeer, Raphael, Rubens and Rembrandt; the Kunstkammer of imperial treasures; Egyptian, Near Eastern and classical antiquities; the imperial coin cabinet.
Signature works: Bruegel's The Tower of Babel and The Hunters in the Snow — the world's largest Bruegel holding; Vermeer's The Art of Painting; Benvenuto Cellini's Saliera salt cellar in the Kunstkammer.
Visitors: 1,688,509 in 2023 — the latest figure verified for this guide (the museum group's published reporting).
The building: The Ringstrasse palace of Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer, opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1891, its staircase decorated with paintings by the young Gustav Klimt and his circle.
Website: khm.at · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via khm.at
The directorship changed on 1 January 2025; Fine is the first American to lead the imperial collections.
Sources: KHM press releases, 2024–25 (Fine appointment); khm.at; The Art Newspaper
18. VAN GOGH MUSEUM — AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
Founded 1973 · National museum: the Van Gogh collection
Director: Emilie Gordenker, General Director (since February 2020)
Governance: A Dutch national museum built on the collection of the artist's brother Theo, held by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation; Gordenker leads it as general director.
Collection: The largest Van Gogh collection in the world — more than 200 paintings, some 500 drawings and more than 750 letters by Vincent van Gogh, in the museum's published count — with works by his contemporaries.
Signature works: Sunflowers; The Potato Eaters; Almond Blossom; The Bedroom; Self-Portrait as a Painter; Wheatfield with Crows.
Visitors: 1.9 million in 2025 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: Gerrit Rietveld's building of 1973 on Museumplein, with Kisho Kurokawa's exhibition wing of 1999; a renovation from autumn 2028 was settled with Dutch government funding in October 2026, the museum remaining partially open.
Website: vangoghmuseum.nl · Contact: Timed tickets only, via vangoghmuseum.nl
Included by design: a single-artist museum of national calibre, holding the defining collection of the most visited painter in the Western canon.
Sources: vangoghmuseum.nl (collection counts); The Art Newspaper and Museums Association, October 2026 (Gordenker; funding settlement; renovation)
19. MAURITSHUIS — THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
Founded 1822 · Royal Cabinet of Paintings
Director: Martine Gosselink, General Director (since 2020)
Governance: A Dutch state museum; Gosselink has led it since 2020.
Collection: 854 objects — the published count of the Royal Cabinet of Paintings — a small collection of Dutch Golden Age painting of exceptional concentration.
Signature works: Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft; Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp; Carel Fabritius' The Goldfinch; Rogier van der Weyden.
Visitors: About 520,000 expected in 2025 including the Prince William V Gallery, up 5 per cent on 2024 (the museum's statement, December 2025).
The building: The former city residence of Count John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen (1633–44, Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post) beside the Hofvijver pond, a museum since 1822.
Website: mauritshuis.nl · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via mauritshuis.nl
In 2026 the Mauritshuis and the Rijksmuseum made their first joint acquisition together — a Hendrick Avercamp winter scene bought for some $13 million.
Sources: mauritshuis.nl (collection count; visitor statement; joint acquisition); museum publications, 2026
20. STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN — BERLIN, GERMANY
Founded 1830 · Federation of Berlin's state museums
Director: Marion Ackermann, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (from 1 June 2025)
Governance: Berlin's state museums — 15 collections in some 17 buildings — are governed by the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation). Ackermann, its first woman president, succeeded Hermann Parzinger on 1 June 2025; individual museums have their own directors under the foundation. Older references to a single SMB director-general are outdated.
Collection: Encyclopedic state collections across Museum Island and other sites: classical antiquities, Egyptian art (the Neues Museum), European painting and sculpture, Islamic art, prints, coins, and the ethnological and Asian collections shown at the Humboldt Forum.
Signature works: The Bust of Nefertiti in the Neues Museum; the Ishtar Gate and Processional Way in the Pergamonmuseum; the Alte Nationalgalerie's German 19th-century painting, 150 years old as a gallery in 2026.
Visitors: Museum Island's five museums draw more than 2.5 million visitors a year (published figure, Christie's and AFP reporting, 2026). The Pergamonmuseum is partially closed for a renovation running to 2027 and beyond; no single audited federation total was published for this guide.
The building: Museum Island, a UNESCO World Heritage ensemble built between 1830 and 1930 — Schinkel's Altes Museum first — with David Chipperfield's James-Simon-Galerie (2019) as its entrance building.
Website: smb.museum · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via smb.museum
The federation's leadership is printed at the level this guide could verify — the foundation presidency that appoints and oversees the museum directors.
Sources: smb.museum; Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz; The Art Newspaper, 2025 (Ackermann appointment); Christie's, January 2026 (Museum Island visitors)
21. STATE TRETYAKOV GALLERY — MOSCOW, RUSSIA
Founded 1856 · National gallery of Russian art
Director: Olga Galaktionova, General Director (from January 2026)
Governance: Russia's national gallery of Russian art. Galaktionova moved from the Pushkin Museum in January 2026, succeeding Elena Pronicheva (2023–26); Pronicheva in turn took over the Pushkin.
Collection: The world's defining collection of Russian art, from medieval icons to the avant-garde, across the Lavrushinsky Lane building and the New Tretyakov on Krymsky Val; the gallery publishes no single object total in the form used here.
Signature works: Andrei Rublev's Trinity, the gallery's most famous icon; Malevich's Black Square (New Tretyakov); Kandinsky's Composition VII; Repin's Ivan the Terrible and His Son; Vrubel's Demon.
Visitors: 2.5 million in 2024, up 25 per cent on 2023 (the gallery director's published annual summary, January 2025).
The building: The Lavrushinsky Lane building, its façade designed by Viktor Vasnetsov (1902–04) as a fairy-tale tower; the New Tretyakov Gallery (1960s–80s) houses the 20th-century collections.
Website: tretyakovgallery.ru · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via tretyakovgallery.ru
Founded by the merchant Pavel Tretyakov, who began collecting Russian art in 1856 and gave the gallery to Moscow in 1892. The directorship has changed three times since 2023.
Sources: tretyakovgallery.ru; Interfax reporting, January and September 2026 (Galaktionova appointment; Trinity statement); United Cultures Forum programme, 2026
22. ACROPOLIS MUSEUM — ATHENS, GREECE
Founded 2009 · Archaeological museum of the Acropolis of Athens
Director: Nikolaos Chr. Stampolidis, Director General
Governance: A Greek public-law museum governed by a board appointed by the Ministry of Culture; Stampolidis, an archaeologist, serves as director general.
Collection: More than 4,000 objects from the rock and slopes of the Acropolis of Athens, from prehistory to late antiquity — the complete surviving sculptural programme of the Parthenon that remains in Greece.
Signature works: The Parthenon Gallery, its frieze mounted as on the temple itself around a concrete core of the building's exact dimensions; the original Caryatids; the Moschophoros (Calf-bearer); the Archaic korai.
Visitors: 1,716,570 in the annual-report period July 2022–June 2023 — the latest figure verified for this guide (the museum's annual report).
The building: Bernard Tschumi Architects with Michael Photiadis: a glass, steel and concrete building of 2009 on Makrigianni Street, aligned on the Parthenon and floating above the excavated ancient neighbourhood visible through its glass floors.
Website: theacropolismuseum.gr · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via theacropolismuseum.gr
The museum has hosted long-term loans of Acropolis-linked works from abroad, including the British Museum's Meidias Hydria — diplomacy conducted object by object.
Sources: theacropolismuseum.gr (director general; annual report); UNESCO ICPRCP proceedings, May 2026 (Stampolidis in post)
THE AMERICAS
23. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART — NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
Founded 1870 · Encyclopedic museum of art
Director: Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director and CEO
Governance: The Met's leadership was consolidated in 2023: Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO from 2015, stepped down in July 2023, and Hollein — director since 2018 — added the chief executive's title. References to a separate Met presidency are outdated.
Collection: More than 1.5 million works in the museum's published count, spanning 5,000 years of world art across 17 curatorial departments, at The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters.
Signature works: The Temple of Dendur; Washington Crossing the Delaware; Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat; the museum's five Vermeers; the Egyptian collection; the Arms and Armor court.
Visitors: Over 5.7 million across both buildings in fiscal 2025, ended 30 June 2025 (the museum's own announcement). The Art Newspaper's calendar-2025 survey separately counts 5,984,091 at the main building; the bases differ and are not blended.
The building: Richard Morris Hunt's Beaux-Arts Fifth Avenue façade of 1902 on Central Park, grown into a two-million-square-foot complex; The Met Cloisters (1938) in Fort Tryon Park assembles medieval cloisters from Europe.
Website: metmuseum.org · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via metmuseum.org
Founded in 1870 and the largest art museum in the Americas; Hollein, an Austrian who previously led the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Städel in Frankfurt, is its tenth director.
Sources: metmuseum.org (leadership; FY2025 attendance); The Metropolitan Museum of Art announcements, 2022–23 (Hollein director and CEO); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
24. THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART — NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
Founded 1929 · Museum of modern and contemporary art
Director: Christophe Cherix, the David Rockefeller Director (since September 2025)
Governance: Cherix, the museum's chief curator of drawings and prints, was elected unanimously by the board to succeed Glenn D. Lowry, director from 1995 to 2025. Marie-Josée Kravis is Chair of the board and Sarah Arison its President.
Collection: Some 200,000 works of modern and contemporary art — painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, photography, film, design and media — in the museum's published count.
Signature works: Van Gogh's The Starry Night; Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; Monet's Water Lilies triptych; Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans; Matisse's The Dance (I).
Visitors: 2.8 million in 2025, up 4 per cent (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: Midtown Manhattan: the 1939 International Style building by Philip Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone, expanded by Yoshio Taniguchi (2004) and by Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler (2019).
Website: moma.org · Contact: Tickets and member services via moma.org
The directorship passed in 2025 from the longest-serving director in the museum's history to its first chief-curator successor in a generation.
Sources: MoMA press release, April 2025 (Cherix appointment; board officers); moma.org; The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
25. NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART — WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES
Founded 1937 · National museum of art
Director: Kaywin Feldman, Director (since March 2019)
Governance: The nation's art museum, governed by a board of trustees; Darren Walker, formerly president of the Ford Foundation, was elected President of the board in October 2024. Feldman is the gallery's fifth director and the first woman to hold the post.
Collection: More than 150,000 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs and decorative arts in the gallery's published count, founded on Andrew W. Mellon's gift and enriched by the Kress, Widener, Chester Dale and Corcoran collections.
Signature works: Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci — the only Leonardo painting in the Americas; Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance; the Rothko and Calder rooms; the East Building atrium's Calder mobile.
Visitors: 2.9 million in 2025, down 28 per cent on 2024 after the federal government shutdown closed the gallery for more than a month (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: John Russell Pope's marble West Building of 1941 on the National Mall, with its domed rotunda; I. M. Pei's triangular East Building of 1978; a sculpture garden between them.
Website: nga.gov · Contact: Visitor services via nga.gov; admission is free
In May 2026 trustee Mitchell P. Rales endowed 'Across the Nation', a $116 million programme lending the national collection to regional museums across the United States.
Sources: nga.gov (leadership; Feldman; Walker election, October 2024); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025 and May 2026 (Rales endowment)
26. ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO — CHICAGO, UNITED STATES
Founded 1879 · Encyclopedic museum of art
Director: James Rondeau, President and the Eloise W. Martin Director
Governance: Rondeau combines the presidency and the directorship; in 2026 the board publicly affirmed its confidence in his leadership as he marked ten years in the post.
Collection: Some 300,000 works in the museum's published count, from ancient and Byzantine art to the strongest holdings of Impressionist, post-Impressionist and American art in the United States.
Signature works: Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte; Hopper's Nighthawks; Grant Wood's American Gothic; Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day; the Thorne Miniature Rooms.
Visitors: 1.5 million in 2025, up 14 per cent (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: The Beaux-Arts building of 1893 by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge on Michigan Avenue, guarded by Edward Kemeys' bronze lions of 1894; Renzo Piano's Modern Wing (2009) faces Millennium Park.
Website: artic.edu · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via artic.edu
Founded as both museum and art school; the School of the Art Institute remains its sister institution across the tracks.
Sources: artic.edu; The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025; museum coverage, 2026 (Rondeau in post)
27. GETTY MUSEUM — LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES
Founded 1954 · Museum of art and antiquities (J. Paul Getty Trust)
Director: Timothy Potts, the Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director (since September 2012)
Governance: The museum is the largest programme of the J. Paul Getty Trust, whose President and CEO since August 2022 is Katherine E. Fleming; Potts directs the museum at the Getty Center and the Getty Villa.
Collection: European painting, drawing, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture and decorative arts and photography at the Getty Center; Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities at the Getty Villa. The Trust publishes no single combined object total in the form used here.
Signature works: Van Gogh's Irises; Pontormo's Portrait of a Halberdier; Rembrandt drawings; the Villa's Roman galleries and the celebrated antiquities collection.
Visitors: Getty Center: 1.3 million in 2025, up 2 per cent on 2024 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025); the Getty Villa, closed for much of 2025 by the Palisades fire, received 189,000.
The building: Richard Meier's travertine-and-glass Getty Center (1997) above the Sepulveda Pass, reached by tram; the Getty Villa (1974) recreates Herculaneum's Villa dei Papiri. The Center closes from March 2027 to spring 2028 for modernisation (Getty announcement).
Website: getty.edu · Contact: Visitor services via getty.edu; admission is free
The richest museum foundation in the world by endowment; the museum began in J. Paul Getty's Malibu ranch house and the Villa of 1974.
Sources: getty.edu (leadership: Potts; Fleming); The Art Newspaper, 2026 (2025 attendance; 2027–28 closure)
28. LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART — LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES
Founded 1965 · Encyclopedic museum of art
Director: Michael Govan, CEO and the Wallis Annenberg Director
Governance: A county museum governed by a board of trustees; Govan has combined the chief executive and director roles since 2006.
Collection: More than 155,000 objects spanning 6,000 years of art history — the figure published by museum officials in April 2026 — the largest collection in the western United States.
Signature works: Chris Burden's Urban Light, 202 restored Los Angeles streetlamps of the 1920s–30s; Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass; Magritte's The Treachery of Images; the museum's Latin American, Islamic and Japanese holdings.
Visitors: The museum states that its campus and programmes serve more than a million visitors a year; no audited single-year total was published in the sources verified for this guide.
The building: The David Geffen Galleries, Peter Zumthor's single-level glass and concrete building that arcs over Wilshire Boulevard, opened to the public on 19 April 2026, joining Renzo Piano's BCAM (2008) and Resnick Pavilion (2010) on the Wilshire campus.
Website: lacma.org · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via lacma.org
The Geffen Galleries' opening in April 2026 — displaying 2,500–3,000 works across a single floor — completes the rebuilding of the museum's campus begun in 2020.
Sources: lacma.org (Govan; collection figure, April 2026); museum and press coverage of the David Geffen Galleries opening, April 2026
29. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON — BOSTON, UNITED STATES
Founded 1870 · Encyclopedic museum of art
Director: Pierre Terjanian, the Ann and Graham Gund Director and CEO (from 1 July 2025)
Governance: Terjanian, previously the Met's chief curator of arms and armor, succeeded Matthew Teitelbaum on 1 July 2025, combining the director and chief executive titles.
Collection: One of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas: ancient Egyptian and Nubian art, the leading Japanese collection outside Japan assembled in the 19th century, one of the largest Monet holdings outside Paris, and American art from colonial silver to the present.
Signature works: Gauguin's Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?; Copley's Watson and the Shark; Monet's La Japonaise; the museum's Egyptian masterpieces, including the portrait statue of Prince Ankhhaf.
Visitors: 1.1 million in 2025, up 7 per cent (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025).
The building: Guy Lowell's Beaux-Arts building of 1909 on Huntington Avenue in the Fenway; the Art of the Americas Wing by Foster + Partners (2010) and the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art (2011).
Website: mfa.org · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via mfa.org
The directorship changed on 1 July 2025; Terjanian is the museum's twelfth director.
Sources: MFA Boston press release, 10 April 2025 (Terjanian appointment); mfa.org; The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
30. CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART — CLEVELAND, UNITED STATES
Founded 1916 · Encyclopedic museum of art
Director: William M. Griswold, the Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler Director
Governance: Griswold, formerly of the Met and the Morgan Library & Museum, has directed the museum since 2014.
Collection: More than 68,000 works spanning 6,000 years of world art — the museum's published count — with celebrated holdings of Asian, medieval, African and American art; general admission has always been free.
Signature works: Caravaggio's The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew; the Armor Court; Monet's Water Lilies (one of the triptych panels); the museum's Guelph Treasure pieces and its Chinese and Indian galleries.
Visitors: More than 800,000 in 2025 — an all-time record, with more than 31,000 member households (the museum's published figures, 2026).
The building: The white marble Beaux-Arts building of 1916, hub of Cleveland's University Circle and Wade Park, expanded by Marcel Breuer (1971) and unified by Rafael Viñoly's expansion and glass atrium (2009–13), on the Fine Arts Garden laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1928).
Website: clevelandart.org · Contact: Visitor services via clevelandart.org; admission is free
The museum marked its 110th anniversary in 2026, its standing resting on a founding charter 'for the benefit of all the people forever'.
Sources: clevelandart.org (director; collection; record attendance); Cleveland Magazine, 2026
31. PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART — PHILADELPHIA, UNITED STATES
Founded 1876 · Encyclopedic museum of art
Director: Daniel H. Weiss, Director and CEO (from 1 December 2025)
Governance: Weiss — who was President and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2015 to 2023 — was appointed in November 2025 and is committed through at least 2028, succeeding Sasha Suda (2023–25). The museum rebranded as the Philadelphia Art Museum in October 2025, shortly before his arrival.
Collection: More than 240,000 objects — the museum's published figure — of European, American, Asian, Latin American and contemporary art, costume and decorative arts, including the world's great Duchamp collection.
Signature works: Duchamp's Étant donnés and The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass); Cézanne's The Large Bathers; Van Gogh's Sunflowers; the museum's front steps, made world-famous by the film Rocky.
Visitors: About 700,000 a year in the museum's published materials; the museum reported 672,753 visitors in its most recent fiscal year (figures published in 2026 reporting of the museum's recovery plan).
The building: The great Greek Revival main building of 1928 atop Fairmount at the end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway — designed in Horace Trumbauer's office, with Julian Abele a principal designer — its core reworked by Frank Gehry in a project completed in 2021; the museum also administers the Rodin Museum.
Website: philamuseum.org · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via philamuseum.org
Founded for the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, the museum now carries a deficit recovery plan alongside its new leadership; the guide prints the institution under the name it held for 149 years, noting the 2025 rebrand above.
Sources: Philadelphia Museum of Art announcement, November 2025 (Weiss appointment); The Art Newspaper, 21 November 2025; museum publications (collection and visitor figures)
ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST & OCEANIA
32. NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CHINA — BEIJING, CHINA
Founded 2003 · National museum of Chinese history and art
Director: Luo Wenli, Director (per the museum's official English-language site, June 2026)
Governance: China's national museum, under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. English-language reference sources conflict on this post (older sources name Wang Chunfa; other reports of 2024–25 name Gao Zheng and Li Qun in director-level roles). This guide follows the museum's own English site, which named Luo Wenli as Director in its reports of meetings on 17 and 22 June 2026, and flags the conflict here rather than concealing it.
Collection: More than 1.4 million items in the museum's published count, across 48 exhibition halls — the national collection of Chinese cultural relics and art from prehistory to the present.
Signature works: The Simuwu Ding, the great Shang-dynasty bronze cauldron of the 12th–11th century BC; the permanent exhibitions 'Ancient China' and 'The Road of Rejuvenation'.
Visitors: About 7.03 million in 2025 (figure reported in The Art Newspaper's Visitor Figures 2025 regional tables).
The building: A building of some 200,000 square metres on the eastern side of Tiananmen Square — among the largest museum buildings in the world — rebuilt to a design by gmp Architects and reopened in 2011. The museum was formed in 2003 from predecessors whose origins reach back to 1912.
Website: en.chnmuseum.cn · Contact: Visitor information and reservations via en.chnmuseum.cn
The museum stands in the ceremonial centre of the Chinese state; its exhibitions are the official narrative of Chinese civilisation.
Sources: en.chnmuseum.cn (director, June 2026; collection and halls); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
33. NATIONAL PALACE MUSEUM — TAIPEI, TAIWAN
Founded 1925 · National museum of Chinese imperial art
Director: Hsiao Tsung-huang, Director (since 31 January 2023)
Governance: The museum is a cabinet-level institution of Taiwan, administered under the Executive Yuan; Hsiao, an art historian, has directed it since January 2023.
Collection: Nearly 700,000 pieces in the museum's published count — the great surviving collection of Chinese imperial art, evacuated from the Forbidden City in Beijing in the 1930s–40s and divided between Taipei and Beijing.
Signature works: The Jadeite Cabbage; the Meat-shaped Stone; the Mao Gong Ding, bearing the longest Chinese bronze inscription; Song-dynasty Ru ware; the archive of Qing court documents.
Visitors: 2.4 million at the Northern Branch in Taipei and 1.1 million at the Southern Branch in Chiayi in 2025 (the director's statement, December 2025).
The building: The Northern Branch (1965) at Waishuangxi, Taipei, in palace style against the hills; the Southern Branch at Taibao, Chiayi (opened 2015), a modern building by Kris Yao | Artech. The museum marked its centennial in 2025, founded in the Forbidden City in 1925.
Website: npm.gov.tw · Contact: Visitor services via npm.gov.tw
From November 2025 to March 2026 the museum lent 83 objects to 'Dragons' at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris — among the most closely watched museum loans of the year.
Sources: npm.gov.tw (director; centennial; visitor statement, December 2025); museum publications (collection count)
34. TOKYO NATIONAL MUSEUM — TOKYO, JAPAN
Founded 1872 · National museum of Japanese and Asian art
Director: Makoto Fujiwara, Executive Director
Governance: Japan's oldest museum, administered by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage; Fujiwara serves as its executive director.
Collection: Some 120,000 tangible cultural properties in the museum's published count, including 89 National Treasures — Japanese art and archaeology, the treasures of Horyu-ji, and Asian art along the Silk Road.
Signature works: The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures, hundreds of 7th–8th-century objects given to the Imperial Household by Horyu-ji in 1878; National Treasure swords, screens and lacquer of the Heian and Kamakura periods.
Visitors: About 2.58 million in 2025 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025, as summarised in its published tables).
The building: Ueno Park: the Honkan main building (1937, Jin Watanabe, in Imperial Crown style), the Toyokan for Asian art, the Heiseikan (1999), and the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures by Yoshio Taniguchi (1999).
Website: tnm.jp · Contact: Visitor information via tnm.jp
Founded in 1872, the museum is the senior member of Japan's four national museums of art and history.
Sources: tnm.jp and National Institutes for Cultural Heritage documentation (executive director; collection); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025; Abu Dhabi Media Office (executive director's official visit)
35. NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA — SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
Founded 1945 · National museum of Korean history and art
Director: VACANT at press time (October 2026)
Governance: The directorship is vacant, and this guide prints it as such: You Hong-june, appointed on 20 July 2025, announced his resignation on Wednesday 21 October 2026 — accepted by President Lee Jae Myung the same day — over a calligraphy scroll from his own collection that had been misattributed to the independence activist Park Won-geun and exhibited at the museum. No successor had been announced when this guide closed.
Collection: Korea's largest museum collection: some 6,000 years of Korean history and art from Paleolithic hand axes to Joseon-dynasty painting, calligraphy and Buddhist sculpture, with major Asian holdings.
Signature works: The Gilt-bronze Pensive Bodhisattva (National Treasure); Goryeo celadon; the Ten-story Stone Pagoda from Gyeongcheonsa Temple, standing in the museum's great hall.
Visitors: 6,507,483 in 2025, up some 72 per cent on 3.8 million in 2024 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025) — a surge widely credited to the global popularity of Korean screen culture, including the animated film KPop Demon Hunters.
The building: The Yongsan building of 2005, among the largest museum buildings in the world, set between a reflecting pond and the slopes of Namsan.
Website: museum.go.kr · Contact: Visitor services via museum.go.kr; admission is free
The museum is this guide's clearest case of a directorship that could not be printed as a name: the post fell vacant the week the guide closed.
Sources: Korea JoongAng Daily, 21 October 2026 (resignation and acceptance); museum.go.kr; The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
36. LEEUM MUSEUM OF ART — SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
Founded 2004 · Museum of Korean traditional and contemporary art
Director: No director in post (the post has been vacant since 2017)
Governance: A private museum of the Samsung Foundation of Culture. Hong Ra-hee, who founded the museum and directed it until 2017, returned on 2 April 2025 as Honorary Director; Kim Sung-won serves as Deputy Director. No director has held the post since 2017, and this guide names none.
Collection: Korean traditional art — celadon, porcelain, calligraphy, painting and Buddhist art — in Museum 1, and Korean and international modern and contemporary art in Museum 2, from the collection of the Samsung Foundation of Culture.
Signature works: Goryeo celadon and Joseon white porcelain in the traditional galleries; contemporary installations in the Mario Botta, Jean Nouvel and Rem Koolhaas buildings.
Visitors: The museum does not publish an annual visitor figure, and none is asserted here.
The building: Three buildings by three architects in Hannam-dong, opened in 2004: Mario Botta's terracotta Museum 1, Jean Nouvel's black Museum 2, and Rem Koolhaas' Samsung Child Education & Culture Center.
Website: leeum.org · Contact: Reservations and visitor services via leeum.org
Included as a brief-listed peer although a private foundation museum rather than a public one; that status is stated plainly here and in the department's README.
Sources: leeum.org; Samsung Foundation of Culture announcement, April 2025 (honorary director); Korean press coverage of the museum's leadership
37. LOUVRE ABU DHABI — ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Founded 2017 · Universal museum
Director: Souraya Noujaim, Director (announced 10 October 2026)
Governance: The museum is an institution of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, created under the 2007 intergovernmental agreement between Abu Dhabi and France, which licenses the Louvre name to 2047. Noujaim, the museum's inaugural scientific and curatorial director (2018–23) and previously head of Islamic Arts at the Louvre in Paris, succeeded founding director Manuel Rabaté, who left in March 2026 to lead the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi.
Collection: A universal museum of world cultures shown side by side — ancient, medieval and modern works owned by the museum and lent by French national museums, from a Bactrian princess figure to a page of the Blue Qur'an and paintings of the European schools.
Signature works: The building's dome and its 'rain of light'; the museum's cross-civilisation galleries pairing works from every continent by period rather than by geography.
Visitors: 1,422,021 in 2024 — its highest annual attendance since opening, and more than 6 million visitors in total (the museum's press release, February 2025).
The building: Jean Nouvel's museum-city on Saadiyat Island, opened on 11 November 2017, roofed by a dome 180 metres across woven from 7,850 metal stars in eight layers.
Website: louvreabudhabi.ae · Contact: Tickets and visitor services via louvreabudhabi.ae
The first universal museum in the Arab world; its directorship changed hands in 2026, between the guide's research and its press date.
Sources: Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and ArtAsiaPacific, October 2026 (Noujaim appointment); Louvre Abu Dhabi press release, February 2025 (2024 visitors); louvreabudhabi.ae
38. MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC ART — DOHA, QATAR
Founded 2008 · Museum of Islamic art
Director: Shaika Al-Nassr, Director
Governance: The museum is a flagship of Qatar Museums, the state cultural authority; Al-Nassr (also rendered Shaikha Nasser Al-Nassr in Qatar Museums publications) serves as its director and on the board of ICOM Qatar.
Collection: Qatar's world collection of Islamic art spanning some 1,400 years — the 7th to the 21st centuries — gathered from three continents: manuscripts, ceramics, metalwork, glass, ivory, textiles, carpets, wood and jewellery (Qatar Museums' published description).
Signature works: Imperial carpets of the Safavid and Mughal courts — the subject of the museum's 2025 loan exhibition 'Wonders of Imperial Carpets' at the Hong Kong Palace Museum; celebrated folios, metalwork and ceramics from Spain to China.
Visitors: Qatar Museums describes the museum as attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually; no audited single-year total was published in the sources verified for this guide, and none is invented.
The building: I. M. Pei's limestone tower of 2008, rising from its own island off the Doha Corniche — the architect, then 91, modelled its geometry on the ablutions fountain of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun in Cairo.
Website: mia.org.qa · Contact: Visitor services via Qatar Museums, qm.org.qa
One of the first projects of Qatar Museums and still its emblem; the museum anchors the southern end of the Corniche opposite the National Museum of Qatar.
Sources: Qatar Museums press releases, 2025–26 (museum description; director); Qatar News Agency, 23 August 2026 (ICOM Qatar board; director in post)
39. GRAND EGYPTIAN MUSEUM — GIZA, EGYPT
Founded 2025 · National museum of Egyptian antiquities
Director: Ahmed Ghoneim, CEO of the Grand Egyptian Museum Authority
Governance: The museum is administered by the Grand Egyptian Museum Authority under Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities; Ghoneim, an economist, serves as its chief executive.
Collection: More than 100,000 artefacts in the museum authority's published figure — the largest archaeological museum complex in the world, holding the complete Tutankhamun collection of some 5,400 pieces shown together for the first time.
Signature works: The complete Tutankhamun collection; the 83-tonne statue of Ramesses II in the grand atrium; the Khufu solar boats, moved from beside the Great Pyramid.
Visitors: About 4 million visitors between the opening in November 2025 and the end of August 2026 (the museum authority's board and Ministry of Tourism reporting, September 2026).
The building: Heneghan Peng Architects' competition-winning design: a vast chamfered triangle of stone and glass aligned on the three pyramids, two kilometres from the Giza plateau. Officially inaugurated on 1 November 2025 and opened to the public on 4 November 2025.
Website: gem.eg · Contact: Timed tickets via the museum's official ticketing site, visit-gem.com
The museum gathers the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir's greatest holdings into a single complex; its opening in November 2025 was attended by heads of state and government from around the world.
Sources: Associated Press, November 2025 (inauguration and opening); Grand Egyptian Museum Authority and Ministry of Tourism reporting, September 2026 (visitors); museum authority publications (collection)
40. NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA — MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
Founded 1861 · State gallery of art
Director: Tony Ellwood AM, Director
Governance: Australia's oldest public art museum, a state institution of Victoria governed by a council of trustees; Ellwood has directed it since 2012.
Collection: More than 70,000 works in the museum's published count, across NGV International (world art) and NGV Australia (Australian art, including First Peoples collections of national significance).
Signature works: Frederick McCubbin's The Pioneer (1904); the Great Hall's stained-glass ceiling by Leonard French, the world's largest suspended stained-glass work; major Asian and European old master holdings.
Visitors: About 3 million in 2025, up 7.8 per cent on 2024 (The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025, published tables).
The building: NGV International on St Kilda Road, Roy Grounds' bluestone building of 1968 redeveloped by Mario Bellini (2003), with its water wall and Great Hall; NGV Australia (2002) at Federation Square.
Website: ngv.vic.gov.au · Contact: Visitor services via ngv.vic.gov.au; admission to the collection is free
Founded in 1861, the gallery is the oldest and most visited art museum in Australia.
Sources: ngv.vic.gov.au (director in media releases, 2026; collection); The Art Newspaper Visitor Figures 2025
NAMED GAPS
Latin America has no entry in this roster, and it is the guide's largest gap: Mexico City's Museo Nacional de Antropología received 5,048,893 visitors in 2025 — among the ten most visited art and antiquities museums in the world — and is the recommended first build of the department's next edition. Sub-Saharan Africa likewise has no entry (the Grand Egyptian Museum represents North Africa); South Asia has none. Canada was considered — the Art Gallery of Ontario is the strongest candidate — and cut at the roster's cap of 40, which is also why the Americas section is, in this edition, a United States section; that is stated plainly rather than disguised. Two institutions in the 2025 visitor top ten are not in the roster: the State Russian Museum, St Petersburg (5,087,276 visitors in 2025), and Shanghai Museum East (4,593,216 in 2025). Excluded by design: science and natural-history museums, which belong to a future guide of their own, and single-artist houses as a class — with two deliberate exceptions, the Van Gogh Museum and the Musée de l'Orangerie, both national museums of the first rank. The Leeum Museum of Art is a private foundation museum, included as a peer and labelled as such in its entry.
Compiled October 2026 from official museum sources, annual reports and reputable press. Visitor figures carry their year and basis in each entry and are never blended; the master data file (CSV) accompanies this guide in the LIKE® Museums department records.