The Newport Art Museum exhibits the contemporary and historic art of Newport , Rhode Island and Southeastern New England. Memberships grant unlimited general admission and significant discounts to events, special programs and art classes year-round. The museum is located at 76 Bellevue. It’s main building is a National Historic Landmark – the 1864 John Griswold family summer house. The Art Association of Newport (now the Newport Art Museum) purchased the property from Griswold’s heirs in 1916. Subsequently expanded, Griswold House was the first major commission in Newport for architect Richard Morris Hunt, who went on to design the Breakers and Marble House, both on Bellevue. 

The Museum’s three-building campus also includes the Coleman Center for Creative Studies in the Gilbert S. Kahn Building, which houses the Museum’s art school, and the Cushing Gallery, which is named after Howard Gardiner Cushing (an early member of the museum). The Newport Art Museum hosts concerts, family programs, live theatre, gallery talks, lunch-hour discussions, lectures, after-hours social events and more year-round. Major events include Wet Paint weekend in August when “still wet” artworks created by hundreds of artists in a single day are sold at auction, and an elegant summer gala held each year in July.