Children’s Museum of the Arts

Children’s Museum of the Arts maintains a permanent collection of over two thousand paintings and drawings of children’s art from over 50 countries and dating back to the 1930s. The overall Permanent Collection is made up of these stunning subcollections.

Explore our permanent collection.

The International Collection

In January 1990, the museum sent letters to hundreds of countries asking children to send artwork to the museum for the exhibition A Child’s World. The response was astounding. The museum received paintings, drawings, and collages from all over the world, including countries such as China, Pakistan, Argentina, Norway, Australia, Indonesia, Senegal and Russia. These donations were the founding artworks of CMA’s Permanent Collection and also represent the first international collection children’s art ever assembled.

The Kuniyoshi Collection

In the early 1990s Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s widow, Sara Mazo Kuniyoshi, donated 19 paintings, created by children during the late 1930s in WPA-sponsored Community Art Centers in New York City, to the Children’s Museum of the Arts. Yasuo Kuniyoshi was an American painter, printmaker, and photographer who worked as a teacher at the New School for Social Research and The Art Student’s League during the Great Depression. While our research has not been able to confirm that Kuniyoshi himself taught the students whose artwork makes up this collection, like many artists during this time period he collected children’s art as a source of inspiration for his own work. The collection was featured alongside The Young Artists Residency Program collection in CMA’s 2011 exhibition Art Within Reach: From the WPA to the Present. For more information on the collection visit the exhibition’s website.

The Young Artists Residency Collection

In the spring of 2010 CMA began a residency program for young artists ages 9-14 to explore the medium of painting. Modeled after classes held at Community Art Centers during the WPA/FAP, two professional artists, Jamie Kelty and Gabriela Salazar, led 21 students in 3-hour sessions for 6 weeks. The classes were held free of charge and brought children from all five boroughs and New Jersey together to create. In addition to instruction in art making, the students participated in discussions about the Great Depression, the WPA/FAP, and art education. After viewing works from the Kuniyoshi Collection, students were asked to create paintings inspired by the time and place in which they live. The goals of the Young Artists Residency Program were to enable children to explore and interpret their world through their paintings, and to spark a dialogue about growing up in New York City during the Great Depression compared to growing up in the city today. The Young Artists Residency Program collection in CMA’s 2011 exhibition Art Within Reach: From the WPA to the Present. For more information on the collection visit the exhibition's website.

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Solman Collection

Artist Joseph Solman collected artwork during the 1930’s and 40’s from his own students, as well as the students of artists such as Ben Zion and Mark Rothko. This collection, comprising 45 pieces of artwork, provides a view into how artists and teachers influence one another. Joseph Solman’s motivation in collecting children’s artwork was to one day give it to a place like CMA. He felt that children’s work was fresh and honest.

The Henry Schaefer-Simmern Collection

The Henry Schaefer-Simmern Collection is a set of 155 paintings and drawings created between the 1930s and 70s by children ages 3-15 in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and the United States. The artwork was originally collected by art educator Henry Schaefer-Simmern in order to illustrate his theories on art education for children in his book The Unfolding of Artistic Activity (1948). The collection was donated to CMA in the spring of 2011.

Operation Healing Collection

Immediately following September 11, 2001 CMA created programming with art therapists to work with the museum’s community. Much of the art from these workshops was collected and added to other donated work to form the collection.

The Sona Kludjian Collection

The Sona Kludjian Collection is a set of 61 graphite drawings, collages, and watercolor paintings created in the 1960s by 8th graders at Harlem's Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts under the tutelage of art teacher Sona Kludjian. The collection was donated to CMA in the Spring of 2011.