There are many reasons to come to Peabody Essex Museum. Sometimes, looking at a work of art with someone special by your side is all the motivation you need. Sitting in the light-filled Atrium, having lunch outside in the Garden Restaurant, watching the expression on a child's face as she makes a collage — each experience is worth the trip. PEM is the place to come for enjoyment, enrichment, sharing with family and friends, and creative stimulation.

The mission of the Peabody Essex Museum is to celebrate outstanding artistic and cultural creativity by collecting, stewarding and interpreting objects of art and culture in ways that increase knowledge, enrich the spirit, engage the mind and stimulate the senses. Through its exhibitions, programs, publications, media and related activities, PEM strives to create experiences that transform people's lives by broadening their perspectives, attitudes, and knowledge of themselves and the wider world.

To engage the mind and spirit, the PEM collection offers outstanding works primarily from the 1700s to today: paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, textiles, architecture and decorative objects. The PEM's African, American, Asian, maritime, Native American and Oceanic art emphasizes the lively conversation that occurs through creativity across time, place and culture.

Approximately 1 million works — many of them the first to be collected in this country — offer experiences unique among American art museums. At PEM, you can explore art and the world in which it is made — revealing and comparing concepts of creativity, individuality, community, tradition, spirituality and even emotion. And the connections you make, because of your own experiences, inspire a journey as important as the artworks themselves.