Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)

Description:

• For more than 50 years LACMA has been one of the finest art museums in the nation, housing a 110,000-piece collection that includes works by Degas, Rembrandt, Hockney, and Monet. The huge 20-acre complex -- it's the largest visual arts museum west of Chicago -- has been expanded even more with the recent opening of the $56-million, three-story Broad Contemporary Art Museum (also known as BCAM). Boasting 60,000 square feet of exhibition space, it's the first new art museum built in L.A. since the Getty Center opened in 1997. BCAM is one of the largest column-free art spaces in the U.S., and opening installations include works by such contemporary artists as Richard Serra, Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein.

  Other highlights include LACMA's Pavilion for Japanese Art, which has exterior walls made of Kalwall, a translucent material that, like shoji screens, permits the entry of soft natural light. Inside is a collection of Japanese Edo paintings that's rivaled only by the holdings of the emperor of Japan. The Ahmanson Building houses the majority of the museum's permanent collections -- everything from 2,000-year-old pre-Columbian Mexican ceramics to 19th-century portraiture, to a unique glass collection spanning the centuries. Other displays include one of the nation's largest holdings of costumes and textiles, and an important Indian and Southeast Asian art collection. Free 50-minute guided tours of many of LACMA's special exhibitions are offered weekly -- check the museum's online calendar for times and locations.

• © Frommer's 2013

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Highly Recommended 2009
•  Highly Recommended 2010