The Smith College Museum of Art holds a collection disproportionately impressive for a college museum — over 25,000 works, with particular strength in European paintings from the 16th through 20th centuries and American art from the same period. There are works by Degas, Monet, Courbet, Seurat, and Picasso, alongside strong holdings of American 19th-century landscape and early 20th-century modernism.
The museum building was redesigned in 2003 with a light-filled new wing that works well. Admission is free, and the collection is genuinely significant — the Monet and Seurat canvases alone would justify a visit in a larger city. One of the best free art museums in New England.