Located in a landmark facility -- a significant portion of which was designed by renowned Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius -- on a 52-acre site the Museum holds a varied collection,which began with a gift of paintings, prints, English silver and Islamic prayer rugs. Holdings have grown to include glass, particularly that from the Ohio Valley; Appalachian folk art; American furniture and firearms; 19th- and 20th-century American and European paintings; Middle Eastern arts; Caribbean art, and sculptures by Calder and Rickey.
Permanent collection galleries include British Portraits and Silver, a Firearms Gallery, a Near Eastern Gallery, and a Glass Gallery where 1000 glass objects (of 4,000 pieces in the collection) are on view in a visual storage format.
Overall, only about 10% of the Museum's collection is on view at any given time.