Famous Artworks on Display at MoMA in New York City

What famous artworks can I see at MoMA right now?

MoMA holds over 200,000 works. You will not see them all. But the icons you came for? They’re almost always on view. The museum rotates portions of its collection, yet its most celebrated pieces stay up because, frankly, visitors would riot if they didn’t.

Here are the masterpieces you can reliably expect to find on display:

Fifth Floor: Painting and Sculpture, 1880s-1940s

This is the floor most visitors beeline to. For good reason.

• Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night (1889). The single most visited work in the building. Gallery 502. Expect a crowd.
• Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). The painting that broke open modern art. Gallery 503.
• Henri Matisse, Dance (I) (1909). Massive, joyful, impossible to miss.
• Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory (1931). Smaller than you think. About the size of a sheet of paper. Gallery 517.
• Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43). A love letter to the city’s grid, painted by a man obsessed with jazz.
• Claude Monet, Water Lilies (1914-26). A triptych spanning an entire wall. Gallery 515.
• Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy (1897) and The Dream (1910).

Fourth Floor: Painting and Sculpture, 1940s-1970s

• Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962). All 32 of them, lined up like a grocery shelf.
• Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn Monroe (1962).
• Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31, 1950. Floor-to-ceiling drip painting. Stand close.
• Jasper Johns, Flag (1954-55).
• Mark Rothko, No. 10 (1950) and other color field works.
• Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl (1963).

Other Floors

• Second Floor (contemporary): Rotating installations, but you’ll often find works by Kara Walker, Cindy Sherman, and Gerhard Richter.
• Third Floor (architecture, design, photography): Includes iconic design objects like the original Eames Lounge Chair and photography by Dorothea Lange and Diane Arbus.
• Sculpture Garden (ground level): Picasso, Rodin, and rotating large-scale installations. Free to enter from the lobby. Beautiful in any season.

A note on rotations: MoMA does occasionally move works off view for conservation, loans, or reinstallation. The Starry Night, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, and Campbell’s Soup Cans are almost never pulled. If you’re traveling specifically to see a particular piece, check MoMA’s online collection page (moma.org/collection), which lists whether each work is “on view” and in which gallery.

What are the main differences between the Guggenheim and MoMA?

Scope. MoMA covers modern and contemporary art from the 1880s to today across painting, sculpture, film, design, photography, and performance. The Guggenheim’s permanent collection is smaller and more focused on early modern European art (Kandinsky, Chagall, Picasso) and postwar American art, though its temporary exhibitions are world-class.

The experience is different too. The Guggenheim is Frank Lloyd Wright’s spiraling rotunda on the Upper East Side. You ride the elevator up and walk down the ramp. It is the building. MoMA is a purpose-built gallery space in Midtown, renovated and expanded in 2019 by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. It is the collection.

If you only have time for one: MoMA for breadth and the greatest hits of modern art. The Guggenheim for architecture and a more curated, focused visit.

Are there free admission days or discounts at MoMA?

• First Thursdays: Free admission on the first Thursday of every month, 4pm to 8pm. Lines form early. Arrive by 3:30pm.
• Children under 16: Always free.
• Students with valid ID: $14.
• Seniors 65+: $18.
• NYC residents with IDNYC: Free. Bring your card.
• Bank of America cardholders: Free the first full weekend of every month through the Museums on Us program.

Buy timed-entry tickets online at moma.org to skip the ticket line. Walk-ups are accepted, but during peak season (summer, holidays) waits can stretch past 30 minutes.

What’s the story behind the crowd at MoMA’s fifth-floor window?

On the fifth floor, a large window looks out over the Sculpture Garden and Midtown Manhattan. Visitors gather there to photograph the view, which frames the garden’s sculptures against the surrounding skyscrapers. It has become an unofficial photo op, especially popular on social media. The window is near Gallery 515 (the Monet Water Lilies room), so you’ll pass it naturally.

Where is MoMA compared to the Met and the Guggenheim?

• MoMA: 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown Manhattan. Nearest subway: 5th Ave/53rd St (E, M) or 47-50th Sts/Rockefeller Center (B, D, F, M).
• The Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art): 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, Upper East Side. About 30 blocks north of MoMA. Subway: 86th St (4, 5, 6).
• The Guggenheim: 1071 Fifth Avenue at 89th Street, Upper East Side. Seven blocks north of the Met.

You can walk from the Met to the Guggenheim in about 10 minutes along Fifth Avenue. Getting from MoMA to the Met takes roughly 25 minutes by subway or 15 minutes by cab. All three in one day is doable but exhausting. Pick two, or give MoMA a full morning and the Met a full afternoon.

Tips for visiting MoMA like a local

• Go on a weekday morning. Saturdays are the busiest day. Sunday mornings are surprisingly manageable.
• Start on the fifth floor. Most visitors work top-down, and the fifth floor has the heaviest hitters. If you arrive right at opening, you’ll get a few minutes with The Starry Night before the crowds build.
• The second-floor cafe (Cafe 2) serves solid food and has a calmer vibe than the ground-floor options.
• MoMA Design Store across the street (44 West 53rd) is worth a browse. No admission required.
• Allow 2 to 3 hours for a focused visit hitting the highlights. Completists should budget 4 hours or more.
• Coat check is free and located on the ground floor. Use it. The galleries get warm.