Museum Mile

Item Description

Visit the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie of Art with these four free admission passes.  Both museums are located in Pittsburgh, PA. 

At Carnegie Museum of Natural History, dinosaurs are just the beginning. Discover prehistoric sea creatures like Dolichorhynchops, which inhabited oceans during the Cretaceous period. In Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems see the spectacular beauty of our gem and mineral collections and discover how they tell the life story of our planet. Visit Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt and explore the mysteries and vibrant everyday life of a society that continues to intrigue both expert and armchair archaeologists alike. Explore the Hall of North American Wildlife, which features some of the continent's most amazing animals in natural habitat dioramas depicting the major ecosystems. And, take part in hands-on activities that make scientific discovery come alive. Click here for a complete list of temporary exhibitions and permanent exhibition halls. Bring the family and see for yourself: there’s no place on earth like Carnegie Museum of Natural History!

Carnegie Museum of Art offers a distinguished collection of contemporary art that includes film and video works. Other collections of note include works of American art from the late 19th century, French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, and European and American decorative arts from the late 17th century to the present. The Heinz Architectural Center, opened as part of the museum in 1993, is dedicated to the collection, study, and exhibition of architectural drawings and models. The Hall of Architecture contains the largest collection of plaster casts of architectural masterpieces in America and one of the three largest in the world. The marble Hall of Sculpture replicates the interior of the Parthenon.

While most art museums founded at the turn of the century focused on collections of old masters, Andrew Carnegie envisioned a museum collection consisting of the “Old Masters of Tomorrow.” In 1896, he initiated a series of exhibitions of contemporary art and proposed that the museum’s paintings collection be formed through purchases from this series. Carnegie, thereby, founded what is arguably the first museum of modern art in the United States. Early acquisitions of works by such artists as Winslow Homer, James McNeill Whistler, and Camille Pissarro laid the foundation for a collection that today is distinguished in American art from the mid-19th century to the present, in French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, and in significant late-20th-century works.

Over the century, the museum has amplified its scope of interest to include European and American decorative arts from the late 17th century to the present. Architect-designed objects figure prominently among recent acquisitions and complement the Heinz Architectural Center. In addition, the museum’s collection includes photography, film and video,  Asian art (notably Japanese prints), and African art.

In 1994, the museum completed a reinstallation of its pre-1945 American and European fine and decorative arts that combines them in a single chronological sequence. In 2003, the Scaife Galleries, home for many of the paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative arts in the museum’s collection, reopened after a yearlong renovation. There is now a larger Works on Paper Gallery, and the contemporary art galleries incorporate decorative arts and works on paper along with paintings, sculpture, and film and video pieces. Some of the galleries now feature floor-to-ceiling, salon-style installations of the artwork. Resource areas and comfortable seating have also been integrated into the space. The Heinz Galleries are dedicated to the presentation of temporary changing exhibitions; they host three to five major exhibitions per year. In 2009, the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries of decorative arts and design reopened after a complete renovation. The first major reinterpretation of the decorative arts collection in two decades, the installation traces the evolution of style and design in the Western world from the mid-18th century to the present.

Item Special Note

Expires August 2013.

Each pass is good for one free visit.  General admission only.  Not valid with other discount or group offers.