Blanton Museum of Art

"Explore over 19,000 works including European paintings and modern American art." - Amanda Ogle Amanda Ogle Amanda Ogle is a writer and editor who specializes in travel, food and drink, sustainability, and general lifestyle topics. Her work has appeared in Travel + Leisure, National Geographic, Condé Nast T

"This museum at The University of Texas has a compact collection that does an excellent job covering numerous genres. There are early Renaissance paintings, Roman-era pottery, modern works housed in the contemporary gallery, a vast prints collection, and Native American and Latin American works. It's impossible to miss (as in, you should not skip, as well as it is literally not possible to miss since it's at the front door) Teresita Fernández Stacked Waters: acrylic panels in ombre shades of blue that cover the walls and staircase in the museum's atrium to create a submerged-in-water feeling." - Jonathan Thompson, Mandy Ellis

"Austin is known as a music, outdoors, and food town,so the visual arts can sometimes get short shrift, especially when compared to Texas towns like Fort Worth and Houston. Located on the University of Texas campus, the Blanton makes the case that more people should be paying attention to what the state’s capital city has to offer. With 18,000 works in its collection, the Blanton is the centerpiece of the art world in Austin . Regular and rotating exhibits feature works that span from ancient India to modern North American art. Admission is free on the third Thursday of each month."

"Blanton Museum of Art’s edible art competition — where people can create baked renditions of artwork in the museum — begins today, Friday, April 9. Photo entries for the Blanton Bake-Off are being accepted through email at pr@blantonmuseum.org or Instagram/Facebook posts with the hashtag BlantonBakeOff in the professional and amateur categories. The deadline is Sunday, May 16 at 11:59 p.m. Public voting will begin on Monday, May 17 through the museum’s Instagram and Facebook accounts. Winners are announced on Wednesday, May 19, with prizes such as family membership packages as well as gift cards to local restaurants such as Sour Duck Market and Quack’s bakery." - Nadia Chaudhury

Austin’s art museum - home of Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin, a chapel of light