Latvian National Museum of Art

The museum occupies a building of 1905 by Wilhelm Neumann, purpose-built as an art museum in a baroque revival manner with a top-lit gallery floor, standing at the edge of the esplanade park. A reconstruction completed in 2016 restored the historic interiors and added a large exhibition level excavated beneath the building along with a glass rooftop terrace. The collection is the principal holding of Latvian art: the nineteenth-century founders of a national school, Rozentals, Purvitis and Valters, the interwar modernists, the Soviet decades and contemporary work, along with a Baltic-German and Russian collection. Temporary exhibitions occupy the underground level.

History

The museum traces its origins to the Himsel Museum of 1773, whose art collection got its own cabinet in 1816, and to the paintings of Domenico de Robiani, bought by the Riga City Council in 1866, which formed the Riga City Art Gallery, opened to the public in 1869. Under Vilhelms Purvītis in the 1920s and 1930s it built up its collection of Latvian art (Wikipedia, Latvian National Museum of Art).

Highlights

• The Latvian collection - the national school from the nineteenth century on.
• The 1905 building - the purpose-built galleries and restored interiors.
• The underground level - the excavated hall for temporary exhibitions.
• The roof terrace - the view over the esplanade and the city.

When to go

Year round; the museum is indoors and closes on Mondays. Temporary exhibitions are often the reason to visit and are worth checking. Weekday mornings are quietest.

What to expect

The permanent collection is national in scope rather than international. Labelling is in Latvian and English but depth varies. The roof terrace is seasonal and weather-dependent. Temporary exhibitions carry separate tickets.

Nearby

Riga old town lies south; the art nouveau quarter is northwest.

Key facts