Haute Top 5: Best Art Museums in Los Angeles

The Broad is the latest and greatest contemporary art museum in Los Angeles. The museum, which was founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad in 2015, offers free general admission with the idea that art should be accessible for all. The museum is home to the 2,000 works of art in the Broad collection, which is among the most prominent holdings of postwar and contemporary art worldwide, and has launched an active program of rotating temporary exhibitions and innovative audience engagement. The 120,000-square-foot, $140-million building features two floors of gallery space and is the headquarters of The Broad Art Foundation’s worldwide lending library, which has actively loaned collection works to museums around the world since 1984.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has found a happy medium between artwork and the very essence of LA. Though it contains 100,000 objects dating from ancient times to the present, LACMA takes things to a new level by blending art and film as it does with its annual art and film benefit. Among the museum’s special strengths are its offerings of Asian art, housed in part in the Bruce Goff-designed Pavilion for Japanese Art; Latin American art, ranging from pre-Columbian masterpieces to works by leading modern and contemporary artists including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and José Clemente Orozco; and Islamic art, of which LACMA hosts one of the most significant collections in the world.The seven-building, 20-acre complex also happens to be the largest art museum in the western United States.

The Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center (AHMACC) has a serious pedigree. The museum was founded by Dr. Armand Hammer, former Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, and designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. Today, the museum, which is located by UCLA, contains the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts and the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden. It contains everything from works by Gustave Moreau to Edgar Degas to Paul Cézanne to Vincent van Gogh and Fred Grunwald. Make sure to check out the Armand Hammer Collection, an homage to the museum's founder that features works of art from the sixteenth through the twentieth century. Selections from the collection are on permanent display at the museum, offering visitors a small but distinguished group of European and American paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, with special emphasis on French art of the nineteenth century.

The Getty Museum is not only one of the most beautiful in the world, but also one of the most storied. Over one million visitors a year fall in love with the J. Paul Getty Trust's flagship location. From the breathtaking views of Los Angeles atop a modernist hilltop landscape designed by Richard Meier to the Central Garden, designed by contemporary artist Robert Irwin, the Getty doesn't just contain art: it IS art.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is a go-to spot for modern art lovers in Los Angeles. The museum, best and most lovingly known as MOCA, currently contains 5,000 objects in varying forms of visual media, from abstract expressionism and pop art to pieces from young and emerging artists. Here you'll find everything from work by Julian Schnabel to Jackson Pollock to Willem de Kooning under the watchful eye of MOCA's director, Philippe Vergne.