These days, there’s no need to visit a museum to see otherworldly art when you’re on vacation. Many of the nation’s top hotels are dabbling in the illustrious world of collecting themselves. It’s not unusual for a boutique hotel to partner with a local gallery to display a rotating array of pieces or for a property to commission new works to unveil in its lobby or garden.
Here, we highlight eight properties that have such amazing art collections they could charge a separate fee to tour their halls.
The Langham, Boston
Art and history collide at The Langham, Boston, a Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star hotel with a collection curated by Richmond International. Many of the 268 pieces reflect a connection to the building (the property was once the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) or the surrounding area’s history. During a 2021 renovation, the hotel worked with the nonprofit Copley Society of Art to commission 60 new pieces, such as Samuel Gareginyan’s abstract portrait John Singleton Copley, displayed in the lobby. Hotel guests are invited to take a self-guided tour featuring videos and recordings of the artists who created the works.
Other pieces include N.C. Wyeth’s Abraham Lincoln mural, initially commissioned by the bank; eight portraits of the bank’s former presidents by Debra Keirce; and a 7-foot hanging wire sculpture of the Lady Liberty coin head by artist Lyle London.
The St. Regis San Francisco
Given the Five-Star hotel’s location between two of the city’s famed museums, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of the African Diaspora, it makes sense that it takes its art collection seriously. Everywhere you look in the hotel, from the patio to the lobby, you’ll find brilliant pieces.
Safety is a giant safety pin sculpture by Giuseppe Palumbo in front of the hotel. It represents support and solidarity for the repressed and marginalized. In the reception area, a painting titled Solitude by Randy Hibberd depicts an abstracted city nestled within San Francisco. Gold accents mimic the golden sunlight reflecting off the Bay. In the dining room, a dreamy landscape titled Mountain Mist by Janie Rochfort reflects a unique watercolor style. Rich olives and lighter pinks capture the fluid colors of a San Francisco sunset.
MacArthur Place Hotel & Spa
Check out the artist-in-residence program at Sonoma’s MacArthur Place. In partnership with Uprise Art, the Four-Star resort welcomes artists to stay and hosts open studios where they create art and explain their processes to any interested parties. The first resident of 2024 was New York-based abstract painter Eddie Perrote (March 31 through April 5). Painter Mia Farrington (May 19 to 24) and graphic sculptor Dan Covert (July 7 to 12) are next
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Even for someone who loves getting lost in museums — especially “everything museums” like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York — London’s Victoria and Albert Museum might have been my Waterloo. The statistics are daunting: 5,000 years of artistic production with more than 60,000 works on view (from a collection of some 2.8 million) in about 150 galleries beneath 21 acres of roof.
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