The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal)

Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts is one of the most prominent museums in Canada and its oldest art institution, founded in 1860. It is located in the historic core of the city at Golden Square Mile and housed in an elaborate turn of the century Art Nouveau building. The museum is made up of several huge pavilions with a combined collection of over 30,000 works of art ranging from ancient Chinese earthenware, Roman, Greek and Egyptian relics, European masters, decorative and industrial artwork. On cheap city breaks in Montreal, you can get a good grounding in Canadian art history which includes a fine collection of Native American paintings.

The museum offers a mixed bag of exhibits that are as colourful and eclectic as any major art museum in North America. History lovers will enjoy browsing classical Roman sculpture or priceless Renaissance frescoes while contemporary tastes are well catered for with many exuberant pieces from the likes of Dali, Picasso and Matisse. On short breaks in Montreal, you will also come across exotic tribal art from Africa and rare artefacts dating over 3,000 years from imperial China.

 

Younger visitors will encounter lots of eye catching permanent exhibits, such as contemporary graffiti art, bizarre European surrealism and classic American pop art. Always refreshing and accessible for all tastes, temporary exhibitions have included such delights as the designs of fashion enfant terrible Jean Paul Gaultier, the music of Miles Davis, the art of Walt Disney and the iconic Chinese terracotta army figurines. Younger kids can also get artistic too. Sundays are family fun days with rewarding activities such as mask making, creative art and drama workshops and on weekend breaks in Montreal, you will be happy to take full advantage of free entrance for all at any time to the permanent collections.