In this guide
💡 The Short Version: The Latvian National Museum of Art (Latvijas Nacionālais mākslas muzejs - LNMM) is Latvia’s national art museum, housed in Wilhelm Neumann’s 1905 neo-baroque palace, with a modern underground exhibition hall and rooftop terraces. Adult entry to the permanent collection is €7.00 (€3.50 concessions); a combined ticket with the Great Exhibition Hall is €15.00 (€7.50 concessions), per lnmm.lv. The museum is open Tuesday to Thursday 10:00 to 18:00, Friday 10:00 to 20:00, and Saturday to Sunday 10:00 to 17:00 (closed Mondays). Or book a tour: Buy museum tickets at the museum’s ticket desk, and add an Art Nouveau and city parks walking tourad from €6, which covers the buildings around it, so you see the city’s architecture with a guide and the paintings at your own pace.
⚠️ The museum is closed on Mondays and open until 20:00 on Fridays. The ticket office closes 30 minutes before the museum does. The attic, with its exposed roof beams, glass-floor walkway and the two rooftop terraces, is up the stairs above the third-floor galleries.
Ticket prices and opening hours
The central ticket counter is located on the ground floor inside the main entrance off Jaņa Rozentāla laukums. Contactless card payment and cash are accepted.
| Ticket Category | Permanent Collection | Great Exhibition Hall | Combined | Requirements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adult | €7.00 | €10.00 | €15.00 | Full adult entry |
| Pupil, student or senior | €3.50 | €5.00 | €7.50 | Valid status card |
Family tickets cover the whole museum: €12.00 for one adult with one to four children (Family of Honour card holders included) and €20.00 for two adults with one to four children.
Schedule:
- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 10:00 to 18:00
- Friday: 10:00 to 20:00 (extended evening hours)
- Saturday and Sunday: 10:00 to 17:00
- Monday: Closed all day
- Ticket sales end: 30 minutes before closing time.
- Website:
lnmm.lvlists the current temporary exhibitions.
The Art Museum RIGA BOURSE (Mākslas muzejs RĪGAS BIRŽA) on Dome Square in Old Riga belongs to the same museum group and sells its own tickets.
Art Nouveau walking tours
Buy museum tickets at the museum, as above. These guided walks cover the Art Nouveau district nearby. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” prices per person.
Art Nouveau and city parks walking tour
From €6 · 4.6 stars from 53 reviews · 85 minutes · Art Nouveau façades
A guided walk through the stories behind the city’s best-known Art Nouveau buildings. Art Nouveau and city parks tour on GetYourGuidead
Two-hour Art Nouveau walking tour
From €33 · 4.8 stars from 153 reviews · 2 hours · Mikhail Eisenstein’s buildings
Covers the Art Nouveau district and the buildings of the architect Mikhail Eisenstein. Art Nouveau walking tour on GetYourGuidead
The Wilhelm Neumann building and modern restoration
The Riga City Council commissioned the building from the Baltic German architect, archaeologist and art historian Wilhelm Neumann, and it opened in September 1905 as the first purpose-built art museum in the Baltic provinces.
Neumann combined neo-baroque proportions with early Art Nouveau decoration:
- The facade: Peach-tinted, with ionic porticos, rusticated stone bases, sculpted pediment reliefs and sweeping access ramps facing the Esplanāde park.
- The central vestibule: A marble staircase with gilded wrought-iron banisters, vaulted ceilings and decorative plasterwork.
The 2010–2016 modern transformation
Between 2010 and 2016, the museum was restored and extended by the architectural studio Processoffice (led by Vytautas Biekša). The project doubled the museum’s public area and kept the historic palace:
- The Great Underground Exhibition Hall: Dug beneath the rear park lawn, this gallery covers over 2,000 square metres with polished concrete floors and shows large international contemporary art installations.
- Open-storage vaults: On the way to the underground hall, floor-to-ceiling glass walls look into the climate-controlled vaults, where paintings and sculptures hang on sliding racks.
- The glass amphitheatre: Above the underground hall is a sunken outdoor amphitheatre in light granite, used for outdoor lectures and as a place to sit in summer.
Permanent collections: from Rozentāls to Purvītis
The permanent display occupies the second and third floors and runs chronologically from the late 18th century to the mid-20th century.
The Latvian National Awakening (late 19th century)
In the late 19th century, Baltic painters trained at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg turned from academic salon painting to Latvian rural life, folklore and identity:
- Jānis Rozentāls (1866–1916): Painted portraits of Latvian peasants, village scenes and Symbolist compositions. From the Cemetery (1895) shows mourners leaving a rural churchyard. Princess with a Monkey (1913) is a portrait from Riga’s Art Nouveau period.
- Johans Valters (1869–1932): Impressionist landscapes and scenes such as Market in Jelgava and Bathing Boys, painted in Baltic light.
Vilhelms Purvītis: northern landscape
Vilhelms Purvītis (1872–1945), the museum’s first director from 1909 until 1934 and founder of the Art Academy of Latvia, has a dedicated gallery:
- He painted the northern seasons, above all early spring: ice floes breaking up on the Daugava, snowdrifts thawing in spruce forests and budding birches reflected in floodwater.
- Works on display include Winter Landscape, Spring Waters and Early Spring.
Early 20th-century modernism and the Riga Artists Group
The upper galleries cover the avant-garde that followed the founding of the independent republic after the First World War:
- Jāzeps Grosvalds (1891–1920): Painted Latvian refugees and the Latvian Riflemen (Latviešu strēlnieki) of the First World War in bold post-impressionist and cubist forms.
- Kārlis Padegs (1911–1940): A dandy and nonconformist graphic artist of 1930s Riga, known for satirical, macabre drawings and expressive portraits of urban decadence and the horror of war.
- Niklāvs Strunke (1894–1966): A Baltic Cubist, whose geometric canvas Man Entering a Room (1927) hangs here.
The restored attic and rooftop viewing terraces
Above the third-floor painting galleries, a steel-and-glass staircase leads into the roof attic.
The renovation exposed the original 1905 wooden roof trusses:
- The attic gallery: Pine beams, metal tie-rods and skylights frame a loft space for modern sculpture and temporary craft exhibitions.
- The glass floor: A reinforced glass walkway looks straight down through the core of the historic building.
- The two rooftop terraces: Automated glass doors open onto two wooden decks on the museum roof. To the south you see the golden domes of the Russian Orthodox Nativity of Christ Cathedral, the treetops of the Esplanāde and the Old Town church spires; to the north, the rooftops and turrets of the Art Nouveau Quarter on Alberta iela.
Practical visiting information and facilities
- Location: Jaņa Rozentāla laukums 1, along Krišjāņa Valdemāra iela, adjacent to the Esplanāde park.
- On foot: Eight minutes’ walk north from the Freedom Monument, and five minutes’ walk south from Alberta iela.
- Public transport: Trolleybuses 3, 5, 19 and 25 stop directly outside at Mākslas muzejs. Tram line 11 stops nearby on Krišjāņa Barona iela at Dzirnavu iela. Check our Riga public transport guide for fare and timetable details.
- Facilities: An art bookstore, free cloakroom lockers in the basement, wheelchair lifts to all floors, and a cafe with outdoor seating overlooking the park amphitheatre.
- Audio guide app: The free LNMM mobile app (iOS and Android) has English audio tours of thirty of the museum’s key works.
What to see next
- Riga Art Nouveau Quarter on Alberta iela: Five minutes’ walk north to Eisenstein’s sculpted apartment facades and the Art Nouveau Museum.
- KGB Corner House: Ten minutes’ walk north-east, for the guided tour of the former Soviet interrogation cells.
- Freedom Monument and Bastejkalns: Stroll south through the Esplanāde park towards the City Canal.
- Free things to do in Riga: Sculpture walks, parks and monuments nearby.
- Where to eat in Riga: Latvian bistros in the surrounding Quiet Centre.
Common questions
How much are tickets to the Latvian National Museum of Art?
Standard adult admission for the permanent collection is €7.00 (€3.50 for pupils, students and seniors). The Great Exhibition Hall is €10.00 (€5.00 concessions), and a combined ticket costs €15.00 (€7.50 concessions). These are the museum's own prices.
What are the opening hours of the Latvian National Museum of Art?
The museum is open Tuesday to Thursday 10:00 to 18:00, Friday 10:00 to 20:00, and Saturday to Sunday 10:00 to 17:00. The museum is closed on Mondays. The ticket office closes thirty minutes before museum closure.
Can you go onto the roof of the museum?
Yes. The attic level has two open-air wooden viewing terraces, open during regular museum hours, with views across the Esplanāde park and the Quiet Centre.
Which artists are in the permanent collection?
Latvian painters including Vilhelms Purvītis (Baltic winter landscapes and melting snow scenes), Jānis Rozentāls, Johans Valters, Jāzeps Grosvalds, Kārlis Padegs and Niklāvs Strunke.
Where is the Latvian National Museum of Art located?
At Jaņa Rozentāla laukums 1, on the northern edge of the Esplanāde park along Krišjāņa Valdemāra iela, roughly eight minutes' walk north of the Freedom Monument.
