If you live in Boston, you’ve probably visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a beloved local museum that preserves the impressive art collection of philanthropist and socialite Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924). Fewer of us, though, are familiar with the museum’s complicated legal history, and the …
“It disgusted me even to move,” wrote an artist to his younger brother, “and nothing would have been so agreeable to me as never wake up again.” The year was 1889; the place, the Saint-Paul Asylum in Paris; the artist, Vincent van Gogh. We’re accustomed …
Content warning: this post includes discussion of vandalism against museums and markers honoring women, Black Americans, and Jewish individuals. On September 26th, 2021, a fire engulfed the back porch of the Susan B. Anthony Museum & House in Rochester, New York. The fire department was …
Though it might seem paradoxical to expect blind and low-vision visitors to enjoy a visit to an art museum—after all, the contents of art museums are often called the visual arts—museums have a long and rich history of proving that this is absolutely not the …
The Smithsonian Institution felt the same pains that museums around the world experienced in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its global shut downs —massive economic loss, sweeping reductions in staff, and an intense burnout as they, and museum professionals across the globe, struggled …