[2] The institution is widely known for its collection of American and European art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including works by Albert Bierstadt, Paul Cézanne, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Georges Seurat, and representation of many other notable artists.

The Smith College Museum of Art was first established in 1870, and has been led by many notable directors over the years, including Jere Abbott, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Charles Percy Parkhurst, and Jessica Nicoll.

Notable faculty members have included Harriet Boyd Hawes, Oliver Larkin, Charles Rufus Morey, Phyllis Williams Lehmann, and Edgar Wind.

At the tenth Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art, which took place in Rome in 1912, Smith was one of the only sixty-eight American institutions of higher learning with a professorship in art history.

Notable figures represented include Carmen Lomas Garza, Susan Rothenberg, Betye Saar, and Marja Vallila.