Best Art Museums in Mexico City: 9 Compared, Hours and Tips
Mexico City's art museums range from colonial painting at MUNAL to contemporary work at Tamayo. Nine compared with hours and what each collects.
Mexico City’s main art museums split into three clusters: the Centro Histórico, Chapultepec Park and the Plaza Carso area. Colonial and 19th-century art is concentrated downtown, modern and contemporary work sits in the park, and the largest private collection is at Plaza Carso. The nine places below each have their own official or reference page, and they are grouped so you can combine two or three in one day.
Museo Nacional de Arte (MUNAL), Centro Histórico
The Museo Nacional de Arte (National Art Museum) occupies a neoclassical palace designed by the Italian architect Silvio Contri for the Secretariat of Communications and Public Works. Construction ran from 1904 to 1911, and the building later housed the national archive before opening as a museum in 1982. According to the Mexico City tourism page for MUNAL, the permanent collection has more than 3,000 works and the building has about 5,500 square meters of exhibition space.
The collection is arranged in three periods: the colonial era from 1550 to 1821, the first century after independence, and the years after the Revolution through the 1950s. Later art tends to be shown at other museums run by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL, the federal fine arts institute). Temporary shows cover themes in Mexican art and also include touring exhibitions from abroad.
Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Getting there: The statue of Charles IV by Manuel Tolsá stands in the plaza out front.
Museo Franz Mayer, Centro Histórico
The Museo Franz Mayer is mainly a decorative arts museum built around the collection of Franz Mayer, a German-born banker and collector. The permanent display covers ceramics, silverware, textiles, furniture, sculpture, painting, feather art, lacquerware, ivory, tortoiseshell, enamels and glass, with works from the 16th through the 19th centuries. Temporary exhibitions often bring in books, graphic design, photography and industrial design. The source says there is room to show only about 25% of the collection at a time.
The museum sits in a former hospital, the Hospital de San Juan de Dios, and the cloister forms most of the galleries. The library has nearly 22,000 volumes, including 800 different copies of Don Quijote in some 18 languages, all published before 1905.
Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; weekends, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Getting there: The museum faces Avenida Hidalgo next to the Alameda Central, and westbound Turibus Historic Center Circuit buses stop outside.
Museo de Arte de la SHCP (Antiguo Palacio del Arzobispado), Centro Histórico
The SHCP Museum of Art is in the former palace of the archbishop and now belongs to the federal finance ministry (SHCP). Its permanent collection comes from a program in which artists could pay taxes with their work. It includes pieces by Juan Correa, Diego García, Rufino Tamayo, Federico Cantú, Antonio Ruiz, Adolfo Best Maugard and Raúl Anguiano, and the source credits David Alfaro Siqueiros as a strong advocate of the program.
The palace was rebuilt in the 18th century and has a monumental facade by the architect José Miguel de Rivera Sarabia. Federal finance offices moved in after a bishop left the property in 1867 and are still in the building.
Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Centro Histórico
Ex Teresa Arte Actual occupies the former Santa Teresa la Antigua church and monastery, a 17th-century complex described as a strong example of New Spanish Baroque. Inside, the programming leans toward installation, performance, sound art, video art and multimedia work, with concerts, film and video screenings. A documentation center keeps an audiovisual and photographic collection. The official city page for Ex Teresa describes it as a laboratory and promoter of experimental art.
Expect process-based work rather than a conventional painting gallery. The main nave and chapels of the old church survive.
Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Palacio de Bellas Artes, Centro Histórico
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is the headquarters of INBAL and also a performance venue, with a main hall that holds some 1,700 guests. The white Carrara marble exterior is Art Nouveau, begun in 1904 to a design by Adamo Boari, while the interior by Federico Mariscal is Art Deco with pre-Hispanic motifs. The building opened on Sept. 29, 1934.
For art, the draw is the murals. The first floor has work by Rufino Tamayo. The second floor has murals by José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Jorge González Camarena, Roberto Montenegro and Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, and the third floor holds the Museum of Architecture. The theater’s glass curtain, made by Tiffany’s in New York, weighs some 24 tons. The Ballet Folklórico de México performs here, and the schedule is posted on the Bellas Artes website. Opening hours for the exhibition halls are not given on the source page, so check them before you go.
Getting there: The facade faces Avenida Juárez, beside the Alameda.
Museo del Chopo, Santa María
The Museo Universitario del Chopo is run by UNAM (the National Autonomous University of Mexico) and focuses on contemporary and alternative culture, photography, video and other current art. The building is its own attraction: an iron and glass structure in the German Jugendstil style by Bruno Möhring, first built for a 1902 textile exhibition in Düsseldorf and later reassembled in Mexico City. It was restored between 2004 and 2010, according to the Mexico City tourism page for El Chopo.
Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Chapultepec
The Museo Tamayo, formerly the Museo Rufino Tamayo, shows contemporary exhibitions drawn from its own collection and from works gathered by the painter Rufino Tamayo, who was born in Oaxaca in 1899. It was the first major museum in Mexico built with private funds and has been run by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) since 1986. The collection centers on the second half of the 20th century, and recent collection shows have included Joan Miró and Louise Nevelson. The modular, multi-level building was designed by Abraham Zabludovsky and Teodoro González de León, and a major reconstruction finished in June 2012.
Getting there: The Turibus Historic Center Circuit stops on the eastbound side of Paseo de la Reforma, close to the museum. The source page does not list hours or prices, so confirm them with the museum.
Museo de Arte Moderno, Chapultepec
The Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM) is also in Chapultepec Park and is part of INBAL. According to Wikipedia, it opened on Sept. 20, 1964, and concentrates on Mexican modern art from the 1930s onward. Artists in the permanent collection include Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington and Rufino Tamayo, plus photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo. The permanent display is in room “C” on the first floor, and the gardens hold sculpture.
Getting there: Chapultepec station on Line 1 of the Metro. Hours and prices are not given in that source, so check the museum’s own site.
Museo Soumaya, Plaza Carso
The Museo Soumaya is a private, nonprofit museum with two buildings, one at Plaza Carso and one at Plaza Loreto. It also manages a house museum for the Guillermo Tovar de Teresa collection in the colonia Roma. The collection has about 66,000 works, including pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican sculpture, Mexican art of the 19th and 20th centuries and European old masters, with names such as Auguste Rodin, Salvador Dalí, Murillo and Tintoretto. Visits are often paired with the nearby Museo Jumex, the Acuario Inbursa and the Plaza Carso shopping center.
Getting there: The Turibus Polanco Circuit stops across from the aquarium on Avenida Ferrocarril de Cuernavaca. The source gives no hours or ticket details.
Tips for visiting
Pair museums that are a short walk apart. Franz Mayer, the SHCP museum, Ex Teresa and MUNAL are all in the Centro Histórico, and Bellas Artes is beside the Alameda. The two Chapultepec museums also work as a pair. Hours differ by museum and several close on Mondays, so check each one the day before. Federal museums have free-entry rules on certain days, which are explained in our guide to free museum days in Mexico City.
For a different kind of collection downtown, see Templo Mayor. Anthropology is covered in our page on the National Museum of Anthropology, and the Casa Azul has its own ticket guide.
Quick answers
Which art museum is best for colonial and 19th-century art?
MUNAL covers 1550 onward in three periods, and the Franz Mayer museum shows decorative arts from the 16th through the 19th centuries.
Where can I see murals?
The Palacio de Bellas Artes has murals by Tamayo, Orozco, Siqueiros, Rivera and others on its upper floors. The SHCP museum also holds work by several of the same artists.
Which museums focus on contemporary art?
The Museo Tamayo and Ex Teresa Arte Actual focus on contemporary work, and the Museo del Chopo shows contemporary and alternative culture. The Museo de Arte Moderno concentrates on modern Mexican art.
Checked against official sources in November 2026. Hours, prices and rules change: confirm on the official page before you go or apply.
