Free Neighborhood Night at Gardner Museum Tonight
Celebrates 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Admission to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is free tonight for the final event in the museum’s summer Neighborhood Nights series, which offers hands-on activities and live music. Photo courtesy of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
One of Boston’s most popular destinations—the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—offers free admission tonight as its concludes its Neighborhood Nights, a free summer series of art, music, and family fun.
Each of the Neighborhood Nights is built around a different theme and tonight’s celebrates the 150th anniversary of the publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The evening features special self-guided tours of the museum for all ages, hands-on art activities, and live music courtesy of the all-female Boston-based band Zili Misik, known for its African and Caribbean-infused repertoire.
Housed in a majestic four-story Venetian-style palace inspired by Venice’s 15th-century Palazzo Barbaro, the museum is home to an estimated 2,500 works of art, many considered masterpieces. Among them are Titian’s The Rape of Europa, John Singer Sargent’s El Jaleo, and Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, Aged 23. Tonight’s free admission is an opportunity to see some of the world’s great paintings up close, as well as to revel in the museum’s multistory courtyard, filled with tropical and flowering plants and a Roman mosaic floor that dates to AD 117-138.
For the uninitiated: the Gardner’s collection is one of the most intimate and eccentric anywhere. Opened in 1903, the museum was the creation of Boston arts patron and noted art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner. In addition to paintings, visitors can view furniture, textiles, and manuscripts spanning an astonishing 30 centuries in its 22 rooms. It is the only private art collection in the world whose building, collection, and installation were all created by a single person. In fact, when Gardner died in 1924, the terms of her will stipulated that not only could nothing in the collection be sold, but the artwork had to remain just as she had hung it. Should the terms of her will be violated, the entire museum will go to Harvard University. Visitors can catch a glimpse of Gardner in a portrait of her painted by John Singer Sargent in 1888. The two were close friends, and at one point Sargent had his own studio in the museum.
The museum’s Neighborhood Nights are designed to draw people from the surrounding neighborhoods of the Fenway, Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, Dorchester, and Roxbury, but are open to anyone. And with activities designed for all ages and tonight’s celebration of Carroll’s beloved children’s book, it’s an excellent outing for families with young children. Tickets are free, but are limited because of the museum’s size, so it’s best to arrive early. Guests can purchase food in the museum’s Café G, situated in a new wing designed by architect Renzo Piano, which opened in 2012. The café has both indoor and outdoor seating.
Tonight’s Neighborhood Night at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 25 Evans Way, Boston, is from 5 to 8 p.m.; phone: 617-566-1408. Tickets are free, but are limited because of museum capacity. Find directions here.
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