Chef Bianca Azupardo presents inspired seasonal menus that showcase locally-sourced ingredients, complemented by stunning views of the city.
Join us for a full summer of free community programming inspired by the transformative power of clay. Four public projects explore how justice and pleasure can co-exist as counterpoints to calling out, gaslighting, and exhaustion. Register for free talks, clay workshops, and more!
There's still time to register for our popular clay camps, now with earlier start times, art-filled field trips, and fresh new themes. Sign up now for a week of hands-on creativity!
The Gardiner Museum is among the few museums in the world focused on ceramics, and is one of the most important specialty museums internationally. It houses approximately 4,000 objects, including European porcelain, ceramics from the Ancient Americas, Chinese porcelain, Japanese porcelain, and contemporary ceramics. Search the collection online!
Everyone can love clay! Become a Friend at one of the world’s great specialty museums and enjoy the benefits, including unlimited admission, invitations to exhibition previews and special events, discounts on lectures and clay classes, and more.
At the heart of some of the most important developments of the twentieth century is the opposition between ceramic as a functional form, and ceramic as art. The first approach was expressed through the revival of studio pottery which is well illustrated in the Gardiner Museum’s collection of international ceramics. The movement originated in Britain by Bernard Leach in the 1920s and promoted hand-crafted pots for everyday life as a reaction against industry. At the same time, other artists working under the influence of Modernism, including Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, sought to liberate pottery from the imperative of function, treating the vessel as an art form. The collection also includes works by contemporary artists who use clay as a medium of sculptural expression.
The Gardiner Museum’s collection of international contemporary ceramics was established by Aaron Milrad, and has since been enriched by gifts from Claude and Christine Bissell, and Helen Gardiner, Iris and Jack Lieber, Elizabeth Lipsett, Michael and Mary Mason, Cawthra and Julyan Mulock, Diana Reitberger, and many others.
1. Gertraud Möhwald (1929-2002), Head with a Dim of Hair (detail), 2002, Gif of Alan Mandell, G14.6.1a-b
2. Gertraud Möhwald (1929-2002), Head with a Dim of Hair (detail), 2002, Gif of Alan Mandell, G14.6.1a-b
3. Adrian Saxe (b.1943), D'Nile (detail), C.2004, Gift of Helen Gardiner and Frank Lloyd, G05.8.1a-c
4. Greg Payce (b.1956), Apparently (detail), c.1999, Purchased with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program, G04.19.1; Gift of the Artist, G05.13.1. Photographer: Toni Hafkenscheid