Take a trip through some of the world’s greatest collections on these virtual museum and gallery tours, no queuing necessary
While a virtual tour doesn’t quite compare to being able to make your way down Frank Lloyd Wright’s winding curves of the Guggenheim or strolling under the stunningly intricate arch of the Musée d’Orsay, exploring online means art buffs can experience uninhibited, uninterrupted, intimate views of the artworks. Plus, you can enjoy exhibits from famed artists in renowned museums from across the world – all from the comfort of your sofa, or even bed.
Get ready to feed your cultural fix and indulge in a few armchair travels; here are the best virtual tours across the globe from classical Dutch art and history to Cézanne, Keith Haring to Picasso. Looking for something a little more eccentric? Check out the Museum of Broken Relationships. Afterwards, peruse these street artists who capture the spirit of their city and ‘Faces of Frida,’ which holds over 800 works from 33 museums and art centres. You can never have enough art in your life, after all.
The British Museum is the OG national museum. When it opened in 1759, it was the first of its kind to open to the public in the entire world, and they’re still showing us how it’s done today. The graphics on this tour are impressive—think an intergalactic guitar fretboard. Tap through a musical guide to Africa, the Americas, Asia, Oceania, and Europe, and play a little tune along the way.
Virtual tour of the British Museum
Thousands visit the Gugg every day just to explore its epic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building, and thanks to this Google Street View tour, you can wander its halls from your couch in four unique virtual tours. Peruse the museum’s most significant offerings of postmodern, conceptual, and installation art, then head to the homepage for a bumper database of its entire collection, or check out the online exhibits.
Virtual tour of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Over in the Netherlands, the Rijksmuseum is an oasis of classical Dutch art and history, Asian artefacts, and 17th century silver and porcelain spanning 80 galleries. The Street View-style tour is fine (there is eight total), but the online exhibitions are brilliant, like the interactive guide to the master of throwing shade, Rembrandt. You can even get up close and personal with The Night Watch and Vermeer’s Milkmaid.
Virtual tour of the Rijksmuseum
Fancy a trip to Paris? Oui oui! This grand museum holds the largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works in the world, and you can click your way through the very best among them thanks to interactive galleries featuring van Gogh, Cézanne, Degas, and more. Or, learn more about the architecture of the building in the online exhibit; did you know it was installed in the former Orsay railway station, designed by architect Victor Laloux?
Virtual tour of the Musée d’Orsay
Philadelphia art collector Albert C. Barnes founded this museum in 1922 to show people how to observe and appreciate art. His collection boasts works from Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse and features African masks, Native American jewellery, Greek antiquities, and more. Their online collection allows viewers to filter through pieces by colour, lines, light, and space, as inspired by Dr Barnes’ approach to looking at art.
Virtual Tour of the Barnes Foundation
Forty-five seconds. That’s how long you normally have to bathe in the twinkling, reflective abyss of Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Infinity Mirrored Room’ at the Broad. Currently, the exhibit is closed, so while you won’t be able to snag the ever-popular selfie in the signature exhibit, you can explore her groundbreaking role as an artist a la the #infiniteLA videos. You can also traverse a range of exhibits with a deep dive into artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Kara Walking via the Up Close series; or enjoy performances, talks and conversations, and workshops.
Virtual experiences of Broad From Home.
You can scroll through more than 300,000 works in the digital archives of the Uffizi, Florence’s treasure chest of Renaissance art. All the big boys are here—Botticelli, Titian, and Canaletto. Click on the HyperVisions tab for thoughtfully curated tours around themes such as angels, epiphany and intercultural vision. Deep. You can even stroll through the Buantalenti Grotti in the Boboli Gardens in a 360 virtual tour, or review the new digital archives.
Virtual tour of the Uffizi Gallery
Opened in 1969, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) has established itself as the representative institute of Korean art. The MMCA has four different locations, all of which can be viewed on Google for free, that specialize in architecture and design, contemporary art, modern art, and art education. With such a vast and diverse collection, you can spend an entire afternoon marvelling at paintings and sculptures.
Virtual Tour of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
The Museu de Arte de São Paulo has a very particular way of displaying artwork in their galleries: paintings are hung on crystal easels that make them look like they’re floating mid-air. Check it out on their virtual gallery, which also features online exhibits of art from Brazil and beyond including Picture Gallery in Transformation; Art in Fashion: MASP's Rhodia Collection; and Art from Italy: from Rafael to Titian.
Virtual tour of MASP
Like most museums around the world, the National Gallery of Victoria has temporarily closed its doors. But those who missed out on its big-hitting ‘Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines’ show are in luck: the free multimedia guide is available to listen to, in addition to a wide assortment of virtual self-guided tours ranging from Japanese modernism to the We Change the World exhibit, exploring how art and design can create change.
Virtual tour of the National Gallery of Victoria
The Museo de Frida Kahlo is located in La Casa Azul, the home and studio where Kahlo entered and exited this world. It showcases paintings by Kahlo and her husband and artist, Diego Rivero, as well as popular artworks, pre-Columbian sculptures, and personal possessions. Get a real sense of Kahlo’s daily life and the culture she came from by exploring her preserved space.
Virtual tour of the Museo Frida Kahlo
As well as a vast online catalogue of Pablo’s finest with 4,251 works, this temple to all things Picasso offers a 360-degree tour of some of the best-preserved medieval architecture in Barcelona. When you’re done perusing the courtyards, you can tour the Ontology “Picasso 1936 Exhibition” to explore how the event was put together and the artist’s connection with Barcelona, or the houses that Picasso lived and worked in, as well as the places he frequented.
Virtual tour of Picasso Museum
This could be a touchy subject for quarantining couples, but the Museum of Broken Relationships takes a nostalgic look at old flames, and it’s really quite beautiful. Each item on display represents the donor’s ex, and the stories behind them range from uplifting to heartbreaking. Who knew an old toaster could be so poignant? Other quirky items include belly button lint, an empty bag of fortune cookies attached to a Starbucks cup, and a 27-year old crust from the wound of first love (each with a powerful story).
It’s good to know that way before everything went crazy, most of London’s museums digitised their collections and even created virtual tours of their spaces. From Tate Modern through to the Natural History Museum, here are our favourite virtual tours of our most beloved London cultural institutions.
Available in partnership with Google Arts & Culture, the tours feature images from various collections and, in some cases, walkabouts through parts of the museum via street view.
You may not be able to visit L.A.’s best museums right now as they’re all temporarily closed, but you can bring a little piece of them home with you. And no, we’re not encouraging art theft.
Who among us couldn't use a classy, calming dose of fine art? Boston's museums are up there with the best, and you can explore most of them online for free.
While you could spend this time time streaming or navigating social media, you might want to consider using the opportunity to up your cultural game by virtually touring the best online museum experiences in the United States.
In Madrid, Barcelona and beyond, museums and art galleries are contributing to helping us get our art fix by providing online versions of their collections for us to enjoy.
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