Museum · Newark, Essex County
Newark Museum of Art
New Jersey's largest museum, with art from around the world, a planetarium and the Victorian Ballantine House.
112 places
Museums
Art, science and history, from Newark to the Brandywine
New Jersey has no single museum district, and that is part of the pleasure: its museums are spread through old cities, college towns and country estates, and most make an easy half-day. Newark has the state's largest museum, Trenton has the State Museum beside the State House, and the Princeton and Rutgers art museums are open to everyone. In Jersey City, Liberty Science Center is built for hands-on discovery, with the Manhattan skyline outside.
Many of these belong to reciprocal admission networks, so a membership at a museum near home may get you in free or at a discount; each place's page says which networks it is part of. Over the border, Philadelphia, New York and the Brandywine Valley add world-famous collections, all within an easy day trip.
Our picks
Where to start
Science museum · Jersey City, Hudson County
Liberty Science Center
A big hands-on science museum in Liberty State Park, with a giant planetarium dome and views of the Manhattan skyline.
Museum · Princeton, Mercer County
Princeton University Art Museum
The university's art museum on the Princeton campus, with collections that range from ancient to contemporary art.
Science museum · Trenton, Mercer County
New Jersey State Museum
The state's museum beside the State House in Trenton, with natural history, archaeology, fine art and a planetarium.
Museum · Morris Township, Morris County
Morris Museum
Art, science and history in Morristown, and a celebrated collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata.
Museum · Parsippany-Troy Hills Township, Morris County
Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms
Gustav Stickley's Arts and Crafts farm, a National Historic Landmark, with his log house furnished in his own designs.
Photo: Daniel Case, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The full list
Every museums place
-
Acorn Hall
An 1853 Italianate house in Morristown, home of the Morris County Historical Society, with period rooms and a Victorian garden.
-
ArtYard
A contemporary art center in Frenchtown, with changing exhibitions, performances and artist residencies.
-
Battleship New Jersey Museum & Memorial
The battleship USS New Jersey, which served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, moored on the Camden waterfront for tours.
-
Hunterdon Art Museum
Contemporary art and craft exhibitions in a 19th-century stone mill across the river from Clinton's Red Mill.
-
Liberty Science Center
A big hands-on science museum in Liberty State Park, with a giant planetarium dome and views of the Manhattan skyline.
-
Montclair Art Museum
American and Native American art in a classical building in Montclair, open since 1914.
-
Morris Museum
Art, science and history in Morristown, and a celebrated collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata.
-
Museum at Liberty Hall
The Livingston and Kean family estate at Kean University, built by New Jersey's first elected governor, William Livingston.
-
New Jersey State Museum
The state's museum beside the State House in Trenton, with natural history, archaeology, fine art and a planetarium.
-
Newark Museum of Art
New Jersey's largest museum, with art from around the world, a planetarium and the Victorian Ballantine House.
-
Old Barracks Museum
Barracks built in 1758 for British troops in the French and Indian War, which housed Hessian soldiers before the Battle of Trenton.
-
Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center
A village of artists' studios around the Museum of American Glass, with live glassmaking demonstrations.
-
Zimmerli Art Museum
Rutgers University's art museum, with a major collection of Soviet nonconformist art alongside European, American and Japanese works.
-
Historic Village at Allaire
A restored 19th-century iron-making village inside Allaire State Park, with a general store, bakery, blacksmith and church.
-
Princeton University Art Museum
The university's art museum on the Princeton campus, with collections that range from ancient to contemporary art.
-
Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms
Gustav Stickley's Arts and Crafts farm, a National Historic Landmark, with his log house furnished in his own designs.
Over the border
A short drive into New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware.
-
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University
America's oldest natural science research institution, founded in 1812, with dinosaur skeletons, dioramas and a live butterfly room.
-
Barnes Foundation
Albert Barnes's extraordinary collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse and more, hung as he arranged it.
-
Brandywine Museum of Art
Three generations of Wyeth family art in a converted 19th-century grist mill on the Brandywine River, surrounded by native-plant gardens.
-
Delaware Art Museum
Pre-Raphaelite paintings, American illustration by Howard Pyle and his students, and a sculpture garden.
-
Franklin Institute
Philadelphia's landmark science museum, home of the giant walk-through heart and the Fels Planetarium.
-
Frick Collection
Old master paintings, furniture and porcelain in Henry Clay Frick's Fifth Avenue mansion.
-
Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame
The story of trotters and pacers, with a racing simulator, beside Goshen's Historic Track.
-
Historic Fallsington
A village in Lower Bucks County that grew up around its Quaker meetinghouses, with buildings spanning three centuries.
-
Hudson River Museum
Art, history and science on the Yonkers waterfront, with a planetarium and the restored 1876 Glenview mansion.
-
Independence Seaport Museum
Philadelphia's maritime museum on Penn's Landing, with the cruiser Olympia and the World War II submarine Becuna to explore.
-
Intrepid Museum
The aircraft carrier Intrepid on the Hudson, with the space shuttle Enterprise, a submarine and historic aircraft on deck.
-
James A. Michener Art Museum
Pennsylvania Impressionist landscapes and other art of the Bucks County region, in a museum built inside the walls of the old county jail.
-
Museum of the American Revolution
The story of the Revolution told through objects such as George Washington's own field tent, a short walk from Independence Hall.
-
Mütter Museum
The College of Physicians' famous museum of medical history, with anatomical specimens, antique instruments and curiosities.
-
National Museum of Industrial History
A Smithsonian affiliate in a former Bethlehem Steel building, telling the story of American industry.
-
Penn Museum
The University of Pennsylvania's archaeology and anthropology museum, with a colossal Egyptian sphinx and treasures from the royal tombs of Ur.
-
Philadelphia's Magic Gardens
Isaiah Zagar's mosaic labyrinth of tiles, mirrors, bottles and found objects, covering a block on South Street.
-
Sigal Museum
The Northampton County Historical and Genealogical Society's museum of local history in downtown Easton, across the river from Phillipsburg.
-
Tyler Arboretum
One of the oldest arboretums in the Northeast, with venerable trees, wildflower meadows and miles of woodland trails.
-
Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library
Henry Francis du Pont's country estate, with a celebrated museum of American decorative arts and a naturalistic garden planned to bloom in waves from spring to fall.
-
Boscobel House and Gardens
A restored Federal-style mansion on a bluff above the Hudson, with gardens and a sweeping view of the Highlands and West Point.
-
Delaware Museum of Nature and Science
A natural history museum for families in Greenville, with dinosaurs, seashells and hands-on discovery rooms.
