Tel Aviv offers a wide variety of art museums and art galleries of all types and sizes.
The largest and the most diverse is the Tel Aviv Museum of Art located at the cultural center of the city, just by the municipal library, a theater, and the Opera hall in the Shaul HaMelech Boulevard area.
Opened in 1932, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art is currently Israel’s leading art institution — it attracted over one million visitors in 2018. It has a large permanent collection, but most of the exhibitions are temporary and you can find fine both Israeli and international art exhibits. Each year over half a million people visit to view around 20 different exhibitions. There are a couple of additional pavilions with different exhibits. For full details of getting there, admission and exhibition program please visit the Tel Aviv Museum of Art website.
The Eretz Israel Museum is a large museum (both in terms of space and of diversity) operating as a local version of natural history museum. It has several areas of special interest among them glass art and photography. It is also the host of the very much recommended Biennial for Israeli Ceramic. The museum is located at the northern side of the city not far from the Tel Aviv University campus. For full details of getting there, admission and exhibition program please visit the Eretz Israel Museum website.
Amongst the smaller museums that are dedicated to Israeli artists is the Gutman Museum named for Nachum Gutman, an artist who symbolizes the buildup of Tel Aviv in period of the 1920’s to 1940’s. The museum is located in the Neve Tsedek neighborhood, which is highly recommended for a short afternoon walk and café stop just between Tel Aviv and Jaffa. More details at Gutman Museum website.
Another very famous and popular Israeli artist is Reuven Rubin who is more identified with the Israeli countryside scenery and less with the city, but he lived and worked in the center of old Tel Aviv. The Rubin Museum is operated in his house at the very heart of old Tel Aviv (just by the house of Haim Nachman Bialik– the national poet). More details at Reuven Reuben Museum website.
In the very same street (Bialik), you can visit the Bauhaus Museum, a small pearl dedicated to the Bauhaus movement, and situated in the ground floor of a beautifully renovated Bauhaus building. It allows guests to discover and admire the vast collection of Bauhaus-style buildings that earned that section of Tel Aviv the nickname “The White City,” which is also declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
If you happen to visit the renewal project of the old Jaffa port, you may visit the Rosenthalis House. Moshe Rosenthalis created outside the Israeli mainstream, but his wonderfully colorful works are presented by his son in his old atelier just across the street in front of the main entrance to the port. Don’t miss it, the house is also worth visit as it is an old Arab style house overlooking the port.
Sommer Contemporary ArtInterested in a lot more contemporary art? The pretty facade, along Rothschild Boulevard in the cultural heart of Tel Aviv, is the front entrance of the Sommer Contemporary Art, established in 1999. It is considered one of the most influential galleries for Israeli contemporary art, proudly exhibiting and promoting works by contemporary Israeli artists in the national and international art scene, as well as works by contemporary foreign artists living in Israel and abroad.
Although Tel Aviv has plenty of little art galleries dotted all over, if you wish to make a more targeted walk, then choose Gordon Street that stretches perpendicularly from the sea starting just by the main hotel area. The street used to be the main art gallery area of the city, and still hosts a lot of small private art galleries.
The Old Jaffa Artists’ Colony is also a great place to browse contemporary art and to meet some of the artists themselves.
Please see our guide to Tel Aviv Museums.