How big is the RISD museum?

March 14, 2015 7:43 PM

My beloved and I are heading to Providence tomorrow for a day trip. How big is the RISD museum? Is it a 1 1/2 hour museum or a day-long museum? For comparison, we're pretty familiar with the Boston MFA or the Gardner or the Frick.
posted by Jasper Fnorde to Travel & Transportation around Providence, RI (8 answers total)

Best answer: It's smaller - depending on how long you stop and linger, the whole thing won't be more than two hours. Definitely not a day. I particularly liked the east asian collection that a Rockefeller/Aldritch or someone brought back in the teens.

If you have extra time to kill you can walk uphill and wander around Brown's campus, it's pretty on a nice day and you can stop and read the HP Lovecraft plaques.
posted by theweasel at 7:52 PM on March 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It's not huge -- you could probably cover the whole thing fairly thoroughly in a half-day. 1.5 hours would give you plenty of time to hit the highlights -- you just wouldn't necessarily see every single thing in every single gallery. It's smaller than the Frick (if I'm remembering correctly -- it's been a while since I've been there), and it's a whole lot smaller than the Boston MFA.
posted by ourobouros at 7:53 PM on March 14, 2015

Best answer: Yes, it's definitely more on the 1.5 hour than the day end of the spectrum, but impressive for a relatively small collection. Don't miss the wooden Buddha (you...really can't miss it)! Have a great time in PVD.
posted by kickingthecrap at 7:54 PM on March 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

...you can stop and read the HP Lovecraft plaques.

Truth.
posted by ourobouros at 7:54 PM on March 14, 2015

Yep, it's like a 1.5 to 2-hour museum. There's also the RISD store, which sells stuff created by alums. Enjoy!
posted by gemutlichkeit at 8:09 PM on March 14, 2015

Yes, 1.5 - 2 hours. Not huge. A lot smaller than your comparables.

If you are feeling ambitious, call ahead and see if you can get into the Nature Lab - a 19th-century-style natural history museum where students can pull any object to sketch. You need special permission but sometimes you can get it, or they'll have an open house or something. It's awesome.
posted by Miko at 9:03 PM on March 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Free on Sunday too. So you can just pop in and not feel obligated to spend that much time.
posted by smackfu at 7:38 AM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, all. We saw the fun ceramics show in the Roger Williams Park greenhouses, parked on the street right across from the RISD museum, got hit with some lovely mid-March New England sleet, and topped it off with a nice cocktail at Avery and dinner at North. A very successful day's escape. A++, would Providence again.
posted by Jasper Fnorde at 5:26 PM on March 15, 2015 [1 favorite]