Princeton University Art Museum
Free university museum in a 2025 Adjaye building, with art from antiquity to the present.
Founded in 1882, the museum holds more than 117,000 works spanning the ancient Mediterranean, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe, together with a strong collection of photography and modern and contemporary art. It grew out of teaching collections assembled for the university's art history department and still serves that purpose, while remaining open and free to the general public. Study rooms allow close examination of prints, drawings and photographs by appointment.
The old McCormick Hall galleries were demolished in 2021 and replaced by a building of about 146,000 square feet designed by Adjaye Associates with Cooper Robertson as executive architect. It opened on 31 October 2025. Nine pavilions of board-marked concrete and bronze-toned panels are gathered around two crossing interior walkways that continue the paths of the campus, with a grand stair rising to galleries on the upper floors. A satellite space, Art@Bainbridge, shows contemporary work on Nassau Street.
Highlights
- Free entry to a collection of more than 117,000 works
- Adjaye Associates building of nine concrete pavilions
- Ancient Mediterranean and Art of the Ancient Americas galleries
- Art@Bainbridge on Nassau Street for contemporary shows
