The Walters Art Museum is among America’s most distinctive museums, forging connections between people and art from cultures around the world with a permanent collection that spans seven millennia. Through its collections, exhibitions, and education programs, the Walters engages the people of the City of Baltimore, the state of Maryland, and audiences across the globe.
Located in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood, the Walters is free for all.
Since its founding, the mission of the Walters Art Museum is to bring art and people together for enjoyment, discovery, and learning. We create a place where people of every background can be touched by art. We engage and strengthen our community by collecting, preserving, and interpreting art.
The museum’s campus includes five historic buildings and 36,000 art objects. Moving through the museum’s galleries, visitors encounter a stunning array of objects, from romantic 18th and 19th-century images of French gardens and Latin American effigies to mesmerizing Ethiopian icons, richly illuminated Qur’ans and Gospel books, ancient Roman sarcophagi, and serene images of the Buddha.
The Walters Art Museum was established in 1934 “for the benefit of the public.” Originally called the Walters Art Gallery, the museum started when Henry Walters (1848-1931) bequeathed to the City of Baltimore an extensive art collection begun by his father, William T. Walters (1819-1894), two buildings, and an endowment. While previous descriptions of William and Henry Walters have focused on their roles as philanthropists and art collectors, the museum is addressing and examining their support of the Confederacy and their Eurocentric collecting. In 2000, the Walters Art Gallery became the Walters Art Museum, a change that reflects the museum’s role as a major public cultural institution. The museum’s original collection and now three of the museum’s five buildings are owned by the City of Baltimore and stewarded by the Walters.
In addition to offering free admission to the museum and special exhibitions, the Walters is committed to public education, offering essential programs that help people to connect art to their lives. The Walters is also a leader in digitization, releasing high-resolution digital images of collection objects into the public domain for any use, free of charge, on the online collection and award-winning manuscripts website Walters Ex Libris. The Walters’ Visitor Promise aligns staff and volunteers across the museum to preserve and share the works in our care for future generations, partner with communities, and create welcoming, accessible experiences for visitors.
Today, the Walters serves Baltimore and Maryland by embracing its role as educators and storytellers, using the collection as a vehicle of knowledge and cultural expression to support learning, dialogue, and community engagement.
The Walters Art Museum has been governed by an independent Board of Trustees since its founding. Read about the museum’s current leadership here.
As part of the Walters Art Museum’s commitment to understanding the deepest histories of its artworks, buildings, institutional legacy, and indeed the land on which we sit, we acknowledge the original stewards of the objects we hold and the territory on which the City of Baltimore, and subsequently the museum, were created.
The Visitor Promise is the cornerstone for the public policies of the Walters Art Museum. Our visitor policy has been developed to protect Walters’ visitors, staff, and volunteers, as well as the artwork and buildings we steward.
Members of the public are welcome to take photographs and video of works on display, unless otherwise noted, provided they do not endanger works of art, interfere with the viewing experience of others, impede access in any way, or violate copyright laws.
The Walters Art Museum believes that digital images of its collection extend the reach of the museum. To facilitate access and usability, we choose to make digital images of artworks believed to be in the public domain available for use without limitation, rights- and royalty- free. However, the rights of the artist supersede all other rights.
In accordance with the Last Will and Testament of Henry Walters and applicable City and State laws, the Trustees of the Walters Art Museum have adopted these By-Laws.
The Collections Management Policy of the Walters Art Museum provides a framework to ensure the preservation, safety, and integrity of both the Museum’s collections and other works of art that may be temporarily housed at the Museum. The Collections Management Policy summarizes standard policies and identifies the respective roles and responsibilities of staff and Trustees.
The Walters Art Museum is a frequent lender to special exhibitions organized by museums here and abroad. In order to assure the safety of works from the collection while in transit and on exhibition elsewhere, the Walters Art Museum has determined certain requirements regarding facilities, administration, and arrangements pertinent to the loan which must be adhered to by the borrowers.
The Walters Art Museum is dedicated to protecting the privacy of visitors to our website. The Walters does not collect personal information about visitors unless the individual knowingly provides it.