The Permanent Collection

The permanent collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art demonstrates a broad range of human creativity spanning world cultures and history. The collection has grown significantly since the museum's founding in 1916 and continues to grow as the museum acquires new objects.

Holdings of Western art begin with ancient Near East, Egypt, Rome and Greece, and progress through medieval and Renaissance Europe, 18th- and 19th-century European and American art, Impressionism, and Modernism, concluding with works from our time. The museum's distinguished collection of Asian art includes works from China, Japan, Korea, India, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia. The museum also holds smaller collections of art of the ancient Americas and African Art.

The online collection is primarily arranged by department, although the advanced search feature facilitates searching with the artist's name, nationality or life dates, as well as the object's title, accession number, medium, or creation date. There is also an A-Z listing of artists names.

Occasionally you will find an object that is identified as "under research." An object may be designated by a curator as "under research" for any of the following reasons:

• its authenticity
• its cultural or functional identification
• or reconstruction (such as overpainting or modern fabrication) of some significant feature.

In response to the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) guidelines issued in June 1998, the paintings department of the Cleveland Museum of Art embarked upon a major research project to investigate in depth the provenance of paintings that might relate to Nazi-era art looting during the period 1933-1945.

You can find out more here.

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For information on materials for publishing and/or commercial use, contact Monica Wolf, office of rights and reproductions, at 216-707-2498.