New Haven is home to more than 500 works of publicly accessible art throughout the City, with the City itself owning about half of this number. The City-owned collection includes monuments and murals, Percent-for-Art projects, Mayoral portraits, Federal Art Project works of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and many miscellaneous works difficult to categorize. Many monuments are housed in the City’s expansive park system. In addition, Yale University, the State of Connecticut, the Federal government and numerous private owners own hundreds more works of public art that contribute to the City’s ambience, and support the historical and cultural vitality in the Elm City.

The Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism is a participant in a national database that document and highlight the expansive and varied public art collections in cities across the United States. The Public Art Archive, a storehouse of information which is the first publicly accessible national public art database to utilize digital technologies and follow professional standards in art history and collections management. New Haven, along with Denver and Las Vegas, are the first participants in this project, which will become a valuable resource to document public art in America.

The documentation of the City of New Haven's public art collection was possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

In addition, support from the Johanna Favrot Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the CT Trust for Historic Preservation made possible the GIS mapping portion of this documentation project.