The Gardiner Museum is open seven days a week. Explore our permanent collection, discover special exhibitions, get hands-on with clay in our studios, dine, shop, and more. We look forward to welcoming you!
Enter a world at once familiar and uncanny. The exhibition hall has been transformed into an immersive reimagining of Montreal-based artist Karine Giboulo's home. Brought to life by over 500 miniature polymer clay figures, this is no ordinary house. The figures tell stories that reflect our most urgent social issues, from the pandemic and climate crisis to food insecurity and housing instability. Get tickets!
A new season of clay classes is open for registration! Sign up for stoneware, hand building, wheel throwing, and special exhibition courses. Winter is the perfect time to stay warm in the studio and learn a new skill. Register now!
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!
Limited time offer! Purchase or renew a Gardiner Friendship before January 1, 2023 and receive a free Get Acquainted pass (valued at $30) to gift to the art lover of your choice. Become a Gardiner Friend today!
This focus exhibition documents the rise of the faience industry in 17th and 18th-century France. Appreciated at all levels of society, faience (tin-glaze earthenware) provided a less costly, yet still highly refined and elegant alternative to porcelain.
Featuring approximately 40 objects for everyday use and ornamental wares, this exhibition surveys the production of the foremost faience centres, including Nevers, Rouen, Marseille, Moustiers and Strasbourg. The selection will offer insights into the social life and customs of the time, while reflecting the assimilation of technological advances and aesthetic influences that converged into France; from the initial introduction of the medium by Italian potters, to the diffusion of stylistic models from the Netherlands and the impact of cultural contacts with Asia.
The pieces featured in this exhibition were recently donated to the Gardiner Museum by Pierre Karch and Mariel O’Neill-Karch, and now constitute one of the rare collections of French faience in a public institution in North America.