While New York City is celebrated as one of the art capitals of the world, residents and travelers can also find many cultural gems just beyond the city’s five boroughs. With some fantastic museums nearby, you can find expansive sculpture fields and the historic charm of house museums just outside the Big Apple—giving you the opportunity for the perfect day trip.
Art Omni
Located in the Hudson Valley town of Ghent, Art Omni stretches across 120 acres of fields and forests. This expansive outdoor architecture and sculpture park is open year-round from dawn to dusk and is accessible to the public. Since its inception, Art Omni has hosted over 2,000 artists from over 100 nations, according to its website.
Over 60 works by architects and artists fill the park today, including large-scale works and a 1,500-square-foot indoor gallery.
ReActor, one of the most notable installations at Art Omni, was created by Alex Schweder and War Shelley (who occasionally live in the sculpture). The large “habitable sculpture” sits atop a 15-foot concrete column and rotates 360 degrees, moving in response to its inhabitants’ movements, exterior forces, and interior conditions.
Storm King Art Center
Storm King Art Center is one of Hudson Valley’s most popular outdoor art museums, showcasing beautiful large-scale sculptures since 1960. This museum sprawls across 500 acres, housing one of the country’s largest collections of outdoor contemporary sculptures.
Storm King includes iconic pieces by modern sculpturists such as Alexander Calder, David Smith, Henry Moore, and Isamu Noguchi, alongside contemporary artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Alice Aycock, and Maya Lin.
According to the center’s website, Storm King is set against a backdrop of rolling hills, ponds, woodlands, and open grass fields that are carefully maintained to establish a “rich mosaic of colors and textures.”
Dia Beacon
This museum is located within a former Nabisco box-printing factory, which was converted into a museum in 2003 along the banks of the Hudson River. The Dia Art Foundation transformed that former plant into a grand art setting with giant windows and over 34,00 square feet of skylights that create ample natural light. According to the foundation, the skylights have helped establish Dea Beacon’s reputation as a “daylight museum. “
Dia Beacon is an expansive 240,000-square-foot gallery featuring art from the 1960s to the present day. Andy Warhol’s “Shadows” was a standout exhibition at Dia Beacon. In December 2023, it returned to the museum for a long-term view. “Shadows” is one of Warhol’s most abstract works, featuring a single painting in multiple parts that interweave signature elements of Warhol’s creative vision in film, painting, photography, and screen-printing.
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
Nestled on Vassar College’s campus, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is the first art museum at a college or university to be established as part of the institution’s original plan.
This museum is free and open to the public. It was created to support the college’s leadership, scholarship, and integrative learning goals through the preservation, documentation, interpretation, presentation, and development of its collections.
Frances Lehman Loeb currently showcases over 22,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, textiles, glass, and ceramics. They have featured works from numerous countries, including American, European, Asian, and contemporary works.
Olana State Historic Site
Recognized as one of the country’s only intact artists’ homes, studios, and estate complexes, Olana State Historic Site was once the home of Frederic Edwin Church, a leading figure in the Hudson River School of Landscape Painting.
Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1965, the home stretches across 250 acres of scenic property. The park’s centerpiece overlooks the rolling hills and forests of the Hudson River Valley. It blends Victorian, Persian, and Moorish architectural styles that Frederic and his wife Isabel were fond of. The home’s interior resembles how it looked in Frederic’s lifetime, with a collection of exotic furnishing and decorations that the artist obtained through his international travels.
