New York is renowned as the art capital of the world, with 654 artistic events to visit this year, almost double that of London, which is in second place. The Big Apple is home to more than 500 art galleries, with an impressive average Google rating of 4.6.University cities are meccas for art and art lovers, and Boulder, just half an hour from Denver and home to the University of Colorado, is no exception. For its size (barely exceeding 100,000 residents), there are plenty of museums, such as the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the University of California Heritage Center and the Center for the Dairy Arts. It bills itself as a city with “murals” on (almost) every wall, and there are nearly 100 in the city.
That number is increasing, as the Richmond Mural Project event attracts artists from around the world every year to contribute to the city's living canvas. Cincinnati is better known for baseball than fine art, but don't rule out Queen City as a top destination for art museums. Founded in 1881, the Cincinnati Museum of Art and its 88 galleries is one of the oldest art museums in the United States. The Berkeley Museum of Art, together with the Pacific Cinematographic Archive, known collectively as BAMPFA, recently inaugurated a new facility just outside the campus, right in the center of the city.
Although it is mainly known for its film archive of 16,000 pieces, fine art does not come second. The art museum side contains more than 19,000 works, including Chinese paintings from the Ming and Qing dynasties, Indian miniatures, paintings by old masters, and early photographs. Charleston is considered to be the best city per capita for art lovers in the country. For years, Charleston has hosted several prestigious art festivals such as MOJA Arts Festival, Piccolo Spoleto and Kulture Klash among many others.
If you're just looking for cities with most art-related businesses without taking into account population size, this is how top 10 would look like: San Francisco (No. 1), New York (No. 2), Los Angeles (No. 3), Vienna (No.
4), Chicago (No. 5), Seattle (No. 6), Denver (No. 7), Miami (No.
8), Berlin (No. 9) and Milan (No. 10). When it comes to per capita numbers though, Miami takes first place with most art fairs, galleries, distributors and consultants per 100,000 residents.
Magic City also ranks second in art museums, theaters, music venues, art space rentals, art supply stores and music stores per square mile. Fort Lauderdale is another great destination for art lovers who prefer Tommy Bahama to a gondolier's fringe - it's known as “Venice of America” due to its winding canals and 45 000 residential yachts docked at one of its 100 marinas. Berlin also performs well when it comes to art scene - it's home to Grand Lady of art fairs FIAC and Paris Internationale while hosting Gallery Weekend in April and Berlin Art Week in September each year. Richmond has become home to one of the most amazing collections of public wall art in United States due to Virginia Commonwealth University School of Arts being ranked as number one public school fine arts program in country by US News & World Report.
To sum up - if you're looking for a city with most art galleries per capita then Charleston should be your destination while if you're looking for cities with most art-related businesses then San Francisco should be your first choice.
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