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
October 23, 2025 - January 19, 2026
Allan Rohan Crite: Urban Glory
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.
This exhibition, presented in Hostetter Gallery, will be accompanied by:
Visions of Black Madonnas | Fenway Gallery
Robert Freeman: Allan Crite - American Griot, 2025 | Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade
February 19, 2026 - May 10, 2026
Persona: Photography and the Re-Imagined Self
With work spanning from the early 20th century to the present, Persona: Photography and the Re-Imagined Self explores the often liberating re-imagining of self. Ranging from playful to political, confrontational to aspirational, these images time-travel and gender-bend, mask and mirror. Evolving from an artist’s personal and cultural history, the creation of a persona may ultimately be a strategy toward finding one’s voice and inspiring empathy.
This exhibition, presented in Hostetter Gallery, will be accompanied by:
Picturing Isabella | Fenway Gallery
Jamie Diamond: Monstra Te Esse Matrem, 2026| Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade
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
Allan Rohan Crite (American, 1910–2007), Parade on Hammond Street, June 1935. Oil on canvas board. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, Acquired 1942 (0351). Courtesy of the Allan Rohan Crite Research Institute and Library
Jamie Diamond (American), 1.21.11, I Promise to be a Good Mother, 2011. Archival pigment print, 66.67 x 88.9 cm (26 1/4 x 35 in.) © Jamie Diamond. Courtesy of the artist and Kewenig Gallery.