High Museum of Art

From a stately home on Peachtree Street to its current award-winning buildings in a spectacular setting, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta has grown to become the leading art museum in the Southeastern United States with its renowned collection of classic and contemporary art and renowned architecture by Richard Meier and Renzo Piano.

The Museum’s role is to provide the people of Atlanta and the region with a diverse, broad selection of art. The High’s distinctive location and regional history also offer a unique perspective that influences the art on exhibit and how the Museum builds its collections.

Located in Atlanta’s Midtown arts and business district, the High has over 11,000 works of art in its permanent collection. The Museum has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American art; significant holdings of European paintings and decorative art; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art. The High is dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and is distinguished as the only major general museum in North America to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of folk and self-taught art. The High’s Media Arts department produces acclaimed annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema.

The Museum’s current building opened to worldwide acclaim in 1983, and has received many design awards, including a 1991 citation from the American Institute of Architects as one of the "ten best works of American architecture of the 1980s."

Due to the unprecedented growth the High has experienced during the past decade in exhibitions, community programming and collection building, the Museum initiated a building expansion program. The High Museum of Art opened its expanded facilities to the public in November 2005, creating a vibrant "village for the arts" at the Woodruff Arts Center in Midtown Atlanta.

Three new buildings, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, more than double the Museum’s size to 312,000 square feet, allowing the High to display more of its growing collection, increase educational and exhibition programs, and offer new visitor amenities to address the needs of larger and more diverse audiences. The expansion strengthens the High’s role as the premier art museum in the Southeast and allow the Museum to better serve its growing audiences in Atlanta and from around the world.