Have you ever considered a museum's collection as an invitation to investigate your own relationship to creativity?
To engage the mind and spirit, the PEM collection offers outstanding works primarily from the 1600s to today: paintings, decorative arts, sculptures, photographs, drawings, textiles, architecture and objects of daily life. Our African, Asian, American, maritime, Native American and Oceanic art collections emphasize the lively conversations that occur through creativity across time, place and culture.
More than 850,000 works of art and culture — many of them the first of their kind to be collected in this country — come together to offer an experience that’s unique among American art museums. PEM’s deep and far-ranging collection opens windows into how people live, work and celebrate. Here, you can explore art and the world in which it is made. Reveal and compare concepts of creativity, individuality, community, tradition, spirituality and even emotion. The connections you make with your own experiences inspire a journey as important as the works themselves.
African Art
PEM's African art collection reflects the continent's artistic traditions and cultural complexity.
American Art
PEM’s vibrant American art collection tells compelling stories of four centuries of art, culture and human creativity.
American Decorative Art
The American decorative art collection holds many stories about the inseparability of art from daily life.
Architecture
PEM has pioneered historic preservation since the 1860s and currently preserves nearly two dozen historic properties in downtown Salem.
Asian Export Art
PEM holds the largest and most comprehensive collection in the world of transcultural works by Asian artists who catered to diverse markets around the globe.
Chinese Art
PEM’s Chinese collection celebrates the breadth and beauty of China’s diverse arts.
Contemporary Art
Today’s art helps us imagine the future: That has been true since PEM’s founders brought back the collection’s first objects in 1799.
European Art
Reflecting PEM’s long history, our diverse holdings of European art foster connections across the museum.
Fashion and Textiles
PEM’s fashion and textiles collection reveals how design shapes our identity across cultures and eras.
Japanese Art
PEM holds a remarkable array of objects from everyday life in 19th-century Japan.
Korean Art
Hailed as one of the most important in the United States, PEM’s Korean collection reflects Korea and Korean life from the late Joseon to the present.
Maritime Art and History
PEM’s wide-ranging maritime collection conveys the far-reaching cultural, symbolic and emotional impact of the sea.
Native American Art
PEM’s Native American art collection celebrates a continuum of Indigenous creative brilliance and honors a multiplicity of worldviews.
Natural History
PEM’s historic natural history collection is rooted in scientific curiosity and supports evolving our engagement with nature and forging a new relationship with the planet.
Oceanic Art
PEM’s Oceanic holdings reveal connections between the porous boundaries of art, religion and life.
Phillips Library Collection
PEM’s Phillips Library, among the oldest libraries in the United States, inspires new journeys of learning.
Photography
PEM’s photography collection encourages different ways of seeing the world.
South Asian Art
Rooted in intercultural influence and exchange, PEM’s South Asian collection celebrates the diversity of South Asia’s rich creative output and its people.
About
The James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes Collection Center
Learn about PEM’s state-of-the-art 120,000-square-foot Hawkes Collection Center in Rowley, Massachusetts.
Keep exploring
Press Release
PEM Collection Center enhanced by generous donation from philanthropists James B. and Mary Lou Hawkes
Director's Dialogue
Moshe Safdie
Past event
Speaking from the Heart: An Open Dialog on Climate Action
Press Release