Rhode Island School of Design

The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), situated in its bustling capital of Providence, is a melting pot of artistic talent from all over the world. Since its founding date in 1877, RISD has produced more than 20,000 alumni who have established themselves as leaders in their respective fields of art. At present, over three thousand artists and designers attend RISD. They enjoy the highest quality of instruction in fine arts, which RISD preaches to be the foundation of architecture, apparel design, furniture design, graphic design, industrial design, and textile design. RISD’s mission is “to aid in the cultivation of the arts and design, and the general advancement of public Art Education and the application of the principles of Art to the requirements of trade and manufacture.” The school fulfills its mission through a number of ways. One of which is through holding a number of events such as lectures, exhibitions, concerts, tours and workshops in the RISD Museum.

The RISD Museum is home to an overwhelming collection of 85,000 works of art. Enter the museum doors and find yourself enthralled by the beauty of various art forms from all parts of the world and from all periods of history. The museum has six departments: Ancient Art, Asian Art, Contemporary Art, Costume and Textiles, Decorative Arts, Painting and Sculpture, and Prints, Drawings, and Photos. The Ancient Art collection consists of bronze figures and vessels, stone sculptures, Greek coins, Greek vases, paintings, mosaics, Roman jewelry, Egyptian coffins, glass, and terracotta.

The Asian Art collection is highlighted by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller’s stunning assortment of more than a hundred Japanese bird-and-flower woodblock prints called “surimono”. Aside from these, the Asian Art collection includes ceramics, paintings, sculptures and textiles which bear influences from Arab, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Persian and Turkish cultures.

The Contemporary Art collection contains the most recent works of art in the RISD Museum. They include artworks of varying forms by Vito Acconci, Richard Anuskiewicz, Linda Benglis, Sam Francis, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Mangold, Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Cy Twombly, Wayne Thiebaud, Larry Rivers, Martha Rosler, Richard Serra, Andy Warhol and William Wegman. The collection of Costume and Textiles is made up of African, American, Chinese, European, Egyptian, Indian, Japanese, and Peruvian works. The RISD Museum has had a textile exhibit for the last one hundred years. Today, the Costume and Textiles collection consisted of an astonishing 15,000 pieces.

The Decorative Arts collection includes art forms such as furniture, metalwork, wallpaper, ceramics and glass with European and American influences which date back to the Medieval times. This collection also boasts of the popular Charles L. Pendleton furniture. The Painting and Sculpture collection consists of a wide array of art from the European and American Medieval period, to the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods, to the 20th century. The collection of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs housed in the RISD Museum contain works by master artists such as Rembrandt, Goya, William Blake, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, and Edgar Degas Pablo Picasso.