Montreal Museum of Fine ArtsMusée des beaux-arts de Montréal

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts traces its origins to 1860, when the Art Association of Montreal was founded to encourage an appreciation of the fine arts among the people of the city, and it took its current name in 1950. The museum describes itself as the first art museum in Canada. Its collection of close to 47,000 works takes in paintings, sculptures, graphic art, photographs, multimedia installations and decorative art objects, and Tourisme Montréal counts it among the 15 most visited museums in North America.

The museum occupies five pavilions on Sherbrooke Street West, from the 1912 Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion to the Pavilion for Peace, which opened in 2016 and holds 700 works of international art. The Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion, added in 2011, also houses Bourgie Hall, a concert venue. Visitors move between the permanent collection and changing exhibitions; the fall 2026 program includes Chiharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles, on view until February 14, 2027. Admission is $32 for visitors 26 and older, $16 on Wednesday evenings from 5 to 9 p.m., and free for visitors 25 and under.