Exhibitions

Vibrant shows fill our three exhibition spaces and change every Fall, Winter, and Summer. There is always something new to see at the Gardner!

The Gardner Museum offers new special exhibitions each season. Schedules are subject to change. 
All press inquiries should be submitted to press@isgm.org

Fall 2025 Exhibitions

The crossroads of humanity and holiness meet in the works of lifelong Bostonian Allan Rohan Crite (1910–2007), who will at long last be at the center of an exhibition in a major Boston museum. Presented in collaboration with the Boston Athenaeum, Allan Rohan Crite: Urban Glory will raise questions of whose legacy is preserved and what stories a metropolis reveals—and pay homage to a seminal African American artist whose work celebrated, recorded, and spoke to Boston’s Black community. 

An ornate alterpiece centered around a black-skinned Madonna
Fenway Gallery

Visions of Black Madonnas

Closing January 19, 2026

A parade of African American musicians march down a street with African American residents with people watching from the windows of adjacent brownstone buildings
Hostetter Gallery

Allan Rohan Crite: Urban Glory

Closing January 19, 2026

A large image on the facade of the Museum with a very tall, African American man with white hair standing among smaller groups of people, holding a paint palette.
Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade

Robert T. Freeman: Allan Crite - American Griot, 2025

October 23, 2025 – February 10, 2026

Image Credits: 
Innsbruck Court Glassworks (active Innsbruck, 1570-1591), Black Glass Madonna, 1570-1591. Lampworked and pressed glass on wood mount, 52.5 x 28.8 cm (20 11/16 x 11 5/16 in.) Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Allan Rohan Crite (American, 1910–2007), School's Out, 1936. Oil on canvas, 76.9 x 91.8 cm (30 1/4 x 36 1/8 in.) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from General Services Administration. Courtesy of the Allan Rohan Crite Research Institute and Library

Robert T. Freeman: Allan Crite - American Griot, 2025 [rendering] © Robert T. Freeman. Image courtesy of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Winter/Spring 2026 Exhibitions

Imagine you could be a different version of yourself. What parts of your identity might you reinvent? This winter/spring, three exhibitions explore the concept of persona and what its creation and depiction may reveal about an artist, their society, and ourselves. 

Black and white photo of Isabella Stewart Gardner holding a book in her hand.
Fenway Gallery

Picturing Isabella

February 19—June 21, 2026

Word logo for Persona Photography and the Re-imagined Self
Hostetter Gallery

Persona: Photography and the Re-Imagined Self

February 19—May 10, 2026

A woman in a sleeveless turquois long dress standing in a classical, stone building holding a baby doll with a small child hiding behind her.
Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade

Jamie Diamond: Monstra Te Esse Matrem, 2026

February 10—July 28, 2026

Image Credits: 
Otto Rosenheim (German, 1871–1955), Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1906. Gelatin silver print, 20.3 x 25.4 cm (8 x 10 in.) Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (P33w35)

Jamie Diamond: Monstra Te Esse Matrem, 2026 [rendering] © Jamie Diamond. Image courtesy of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston 

Past Exhibitions

Take a look back at our past exhibitions. 

Past Exhibitions