Starting today (June 23), Harvard Art Museums offers free admission to all visitors, joining the many university-affiliated US museums that have long offered such free admission. The University of Cambridge, Massachusetts campus is home to the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler museums, which together contain more than 255,000 objects from around the world dating from antiquity through the 21st century. The institution also includes four research centers, including the Harvard Art Museums Archive and a center focused on conservation and technical studies.
“Art is for everyone,” Lawrence S. Bacow, president of the university, said in a statement. “This initiative ensures that every visitor to our campus will now have the opportunity to view and engage with the phenomenal collections we care for at Harvard’s art museums.”
Reunited under the singular title in 2014, after a major renovation, the three museums are housed in a building designed by Renzo Piano which has become a destination in its own right. Historically, visiting the collections was free for certain groups, including the University community, Cambridge residents and young people under 18. Tickets were otherwise $20 for adults, with those over 65 charged $18. Extending free to all will greatly expand access while encouraging visits, which have seen “dramatic increases”, according to the institution, over the past two years. The new policy is supported by an endowment built by Bacow, which includes a gift from the estate of Harvard alumnus David Rockefeller.
Harvard’s recent art museum traffic growth stems not only from the lifting of Covid-related restrictions, but also from its previous introductions of free admission on certain days, which brought in many first-time visitors. According to the museum, attendance has steadily increased since the spring of 2022, at a monthly average of 20%, and reached its highest monthly total ever in April.
“We are delighted to implement this new comprehensive free admission policy, which will remain in place permanently,” said Martha Tedeschi, Director of Museums. “Taking this step represents our deep commitment to serve all audiences, to strengthen our teaching and research mission, and to become a center where discovery, exchange, inclusion and learning can flourish for all. .
Admission to art museums at some, but not all, top US universities is also free for all. The Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, the Princeton Art Museum, the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, the Hammer Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles and the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, among others, are free to all visitors all the time. Other major museums on campus, such as the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), charge admission to most non-students .
