Delaware Art Museum

Wilmington'S Art Museum, Founded In 1912 Around The Work Of The Illustrator Howard Pyle, With A Major English Pre Raphaelite Collection And An Outdoor Sculpture Garden · Wilmington, Delaware

The Delaware Art Museum sits on a wooded rise off Kentmere Parkway in the north-west of Wilmington, a short drive from downtown. It was founded in 1912 by friends and students of Howard Pyle, the Wilmington illustrator often called the father of American illustration, and his work is still its heart: the painted originals behind books and magazine stories, shown with those of the Brandywine School he trained, among them N.C. Wyeth, Frank Schoonover, Jessie Willcox Smith and Maxfield Parrish. The second great holding is the Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft collection of English Pre-Raphaelite art, widely described as the largest and most important outside the United Kingdom, with Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Millais. There is also a large John Sloan collection and archive, American painting from the 19th and 20th centuries, a research library, and outside the Copeland Sculpture Garden and a labyrinth laid in an old reservoir. It is a very good city museum rather than a trip in itself: two or three unhurried hours, easily paired with the Brandywine gardens nearby.

2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, Delaware, 19806, United States

The museum is open most days of the week but closed early in the week, commonly on Mondays and Tuesdays in recent years; confirm days before you drive over, because a closed Monday is the easiest way to waste the trip. On open days the galleries keep regular daytime hours, roughly late morning to late afternoon, and one evening a week has sometimes run later for programs; confirm current times. The museum has offered free hours, such as Sundays and at times a weekday evening; confirm what is free now and whether you must reserve a ticket for those slots. It closes on major holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Galleries can be partly closed while exhibitions are installed, so check which rooms are open if you are coming for one painting. The Copeland Sculpture Garden and the labyrinth are outdoors on the museum grounds and are generally open to walk in daylight, and have often been free even when the galleries are not; confirm access. The Helen Farr Sloan Library and Archives keeps separate, shorter hours and is by appointment for research. The cafe and shop follow the museum day and may close before the galleries do.

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