The Most Racially Diverse Art Museums

As with the other museums on this list, the National Gallery of Art’s collection is dominated by white artists. The museum reopened its doors last May after a six-month closure under a new mantra, “Of the nation and for all people,” with a vision of diversifying its collection under the guidance of its first female director Kaywin Feldman.

After facing criticism for years for ignoring the desires of the communities it purports to serve, the Detroit Institute of Arts hired a new diversity director last year, Carla Tinsley-Smith. Tinsley-Smith aims to focus on developing a more inclusive workplace environment, while the museum board of directors says it’s committed to acquiring more works from Black artists.

In August 2020, the Whitney Museum cancelled a show featuring Black artists after the artists discovered their work had been acquired at discounted prices without their knowledge by fundraisers aimed at benefiting racial justice causes. The Whitney acknowledges that it has “made mistakes” in the past, adding “We have increased the racial diversity of our collection.”

The Art Institute of Chicago was criticized for efforts to be less white when it fired all its volunteer docents (most of them white, affluent women) and replaced them with a paid, racially diverse staff. Like others, the museum is taking a two-prong approach to boosting diversity, by focusing on diversifying its staff and its exhibitions.

After facing growing pressure from within the organization, the Met, as it’s known, pledged to spend $3 million to support exhibitions and acquisitions “in the area of diverse art histories.” In November 2020, the museum named its first diversity officer.

Last year, the Dallas Museum of Art put on display its most recent acquisition at the time, “Sam F,” a painting by 1980s New York City artist Jean Michel-Basquiat. The acquisition was part of the museum’s efforts to boost its collection of art produced by nonwhite artists under the direction of Augustin Arteaga, who was hired six years ago from Mexico City.

Houston is one of the country’s largest and most ethnically diverse cities, but critics say the city’s Museum of Fine Arts continues to be slow to incorporate diversity in its exhibitions. Things may be changing. In 2019, Houston-area museums pledged to increase the diversity of their boards and collections.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art had a tumultuous 2020 with developments including allegations of sexual misconduct, followed by COVID-19 shutdowns and ensuing furloughs and layoffs, and certification of the museum’s first employee union. Since then, the museum has reportedly ramped up efforts to increase diversity of its staff and board and named its first diversity director last August.

The namesake of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, William Rockhill Nelson, an active segregationist and founder of The Kansas City Star newspaper, became a matter of contention in recent years. But the museum’s board voted to keep the name while also implementing a strategic plan that “honors the past, while recognizing that the museum be a place of dialogue regarding current issues.” Recently, the museum collaborated with Kansas City-based African American Artists Collective and launched an exhibition featuring Black artists.

The museum is best known for its costly three-year partnership with the Louvre, but it also increased the number of in-house exhibitions featuring artists of color. The result was a significant increase in the number of nonwhite visitors.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art tumbled into controversy in 2020 after it published an Instagram post featuring Black artist Glenn Ligon as a response to national protests against police brutality. At the time, the museum was dealing with accusations of racism from former employees, five of them senior staffers who had resigned. After facing criticisms that included its collecting and programming practices, the museum has since announced changes to increase equity.

After facing years of criticism for the lack of nonwhite representation in its programming, the MoMA announced in 2019 that it would increase diversity following its $450 million expansion, renovation, and reopening in October 2019. Since then, the MoMA has increased the number of solo shows devoted to nonwhite artists thanks in part to the hiring of more nonwhite curators.

Last year, the museum saw its senior curator resign, citing internal resistance from the organization’s leadership to diversity efforts. The museum’s director of human resources also stepped away, citing a “hostile” work culture. A museum spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times in the wake of the resignations that the museum was committed to improving diversity.

Along with other museums in Connecticut, the oldest university museum in America has started initiatives to diversify its trustee boards and collections. The Yale University Art Gallery is based in New Haven, a city with a predominantly nonwhite population. A spokesperson for the gallery told the Hartford Courant in December the museum recently launched a strategic plan to improve equality, inclusion, and racial justice in the gallery’s overall effort.

The museum set up a $500,000 fund in 2020 to boost diversity efforts after a group of Black middle school students on a field trip said museum staff and patrons targeted them with racist comments. Though the museum said it couldn’t verify the claims, the move toward fostering a more inclusive environment came amid an accounting into the lack of diversity – among both trustee boards, museum staff, collections, and exhibitions – at art galleries nationwide.

In response to American museums’ Eurocentric reputation that has long eschewed minority representation, the Denver Art Museum recently completed a renovation and expansion of its campus, anchored by a new gleaming Martin Building. Inside, art by indigenous and Latin American artists are prominently featured.

A 2020 survey by Curate LA and The Future Left gave eight out of 12 Los Angeles museums a pass for accessibility and transparency criteria, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The museum, however, ranked at the bottom for nonwhite and gender-based representation in leadership positions. But like other museums, the LACMA has been working to be more representative of the diversity of the city in which it resides.

It’s perhaps telling that the most diverse art museum in the country still retains a collection that is 78% represented by white artists. But relative to other major art galleries in the country, the RISD Museum is a class leader in diverse representation despite having so few works by Black and Hispanic or Latino artists.