Baltimore’s Kid-Friendly Art Museums

Especially welcoming to children, Baltimore’s two free art museums are good choices for family travel. Each museum offers special programs, activities and facilities to make their collections accessible and appealing to young visitors.

While adults can admire the paintings, sculptures and artifacts at Walters Art Museum, young visitors can explore the collections with the help of lively printed booklets with puzzles, treasure hunts and more activities that engage young minds.

On weekends, the Art Cart offers hands-on exhibits and experiences that might include a drawing kit to borrow, a building project or other tactile ways to interact with art. Also on weekends, the museum offers free 30-minute interactive Walk-In Family tours that explore the collections in ways that give young visitors a basic understanding of art.

Although currently closed due to health concerns, Walters’ Family Art Center is a place for hands-on art activities of all sorts. Among the galleries, the Egyptian Art collection is sure to be a hit with kids, featuring an intact mummy and sarcophagi.

The Baltimore Museum of Art is Maryland’s largest, with collections ranging from African art to the world’s most complete collection of works by Henri Matisse. His bold shapes and bright colors are especially appealing to children. Your child might enjoy the collection even more after first viewing the free, online Matisse for Kids, which explores his work and encourages young viewers to create their own art in his style.

Children can pick up free activity booklets in the African, American and Modern galleries, and you can get the Five Things to Gently Touch guide at the visitor welcome desk. You may also want to download the museum’s free audio family tour, Artful Stories, an imaginative look at 20 objects in the collections, all designed to engage children.

If children get tired of walking around the museum, take them outside to the sculpture garden, a park-like area of lawns interspersed with contemporary and 20^th-century works.