RISD art museum again named one of best in country

THE RHODE Island School of Design's art museum ranked seventh on College Rank's list of the top 50 college art museums. / COURTESY OF THE RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN MUSEUM
THE RHODE Island School of Design's art museum ranked seventh on College Rank's list of the top 50 college art museums. / COURTESY OF THE RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN MUSEUM

PROVIDENCE – For the second week in a row, the Rhode Island School of Design art museum has ranked among the top college art museums in the country.
College Rank, a website that evaluates college programs, placed RISD’s museum seventh on its top 50 list.
RISD, College Rank said, “tasks itself with acquiring, preserving and exhibiting examples of art and design representative of the world’s cultures from ancient to modern times” and contains a collection of 100,000 objects in five different buildings.
College Rank said it looked at hundreds of college art museums, evaluating programming, existing collections and community impact to come up with its list.

Said study author Ashlee Grude, “Museums are often underrated and underutilized resources, and university and college museums especially get overlooked for larger institutions like the Field Museum or the Smithsonian. However, university and college museums, whether they be art, culture, history or natural science-focused, are as equally important in education and research and contain world-class collections.”
Harvard Art Museums at Harvard University in Cambridge was third on the list, which was topped by the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., followed by the Yale University Art Gallery at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

Just last week, Best College Reviews put the RISD museum second on its list of the top 35 college art museums. Harvard’s museum was first on that list.

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