The Gardiner is now open from Thursday - Sunday, including free weekend admission! There's plenty of space to reconnect and amazing art to discover in all corners of the Museum. Clay Restaurant is still open Tuesday - Sunday. Reservations fill up fast, so book your table early. Please read our new health and safety policies before you visit.
From sticky to crusty, pliable to powdery, and shaped to shapeless, clay’s ability to transform in real time is prompting a new generation of artists to explore the possibilities of this ancient material. RAW features new work by four artists who are pushing boundaries with unfired clay: Cassils, Magdolene Dykstra, Azza El Siddique, and Linda Swanson. See it now!
We're firing up the kilns again! Join us on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 - 3 pm for drop in clay classes in our pottery studios. We've reduced our class sizes to allow for safe physical distancing, and instituted new health and safety protocols. Registration opens online at 10 am on the morning of the class. We can't wait to see you back in the studios!
Every object in our permanent collection can be accessed through our eMuseum portal. Learn about individual collecting areas, like Italian Maiolica or Modern and Contemporary Ceramics, or search the full collection by keyword. You'll be amazed by what you discover!
As we begin to welcome visitors back to the Gardiner, we need your support to continue offering innovative and engaging exhibitions, programs, and community projects on site and online. Make a donation and help us build community with clay.
Gardiner Friends are invited to bring their friends and guests for a full day of free admission to the exhibition Obsession: Sir William Van Horne’s Japanese Ceramics. As a Gardiner Friend, you can bring unlimited guests free of charge on this day!
Not a Gardiner Friend? Click here to learn more about the benefits of joining.
About the Exhibition
The second half of the 19th century was a golden age of collecting in Europe and North America. The epicenter in Canada was Montreal, then the country’s economic powerhouse. In a period of colonial expansion, its business leaders collected and displayed European and Asian art to convey their emerging power and status. Sir William Van Horne (1843-1915), the American-born builder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was one such collector.
Obsession: Sir William Van Horne’s Japanese Ceramics reunites for the first time what survives of Van Horne’s collection, alongside his exacting watercolors, elaborately annotated notebooks, letters, and related archival material. Together, these artifacts offer a remarkable case study in the history of collecting. Learn more
Header image: Tea bowl with design of baton, Kyoto ware, Kyoto, False seal of “Ninsei”, Edo-Meiji period, 19c., Stoneware, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1944.Ee.6, Adaline Van Horne Bequest