Museum Profile
National Museum of American Illustration
The National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI) was founded in 1998 and is located in Vernon Court (1898), a Beaux-Arts adaptation of a 18th century French chateau on Newport’s historic Bellevue Avenue. The NMAI is the first national museum dedicated exclusively to American illustration art, widely considered to be “the Most American of American art”.
Our collection consists of the original artworks created to be reproduced in books, magazines, advertisements, and other circulated media. On display are original artworks by such masters as Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, NC Wyeth, Howard Pyle, Jessie Willcox Smith, Charles Dana Gibson, JC Leyendecker, and over 150 other illustrators from the "Golden Age of American Illustration".
These paintings provide beautiful renditions of our history and a visual record of our distinctive cultural heritage: our American civilization. Robert Campbell wrote in the Boston Globe, "[The NMAI] is one of my favorite museums in New England, or anywhere for that matter.”
The NMAI is a recipient of TripAdvisor’s Certificate of Excellence and in 2016 it received the FlipKey Award for being the #1 Museum in Rhode Island Worth Traveling For.
