The Gardiner Museum is open seven days a week! Explore our permanent collection, discover special exhibitions, and get hands-on with clay in our studios. We look forward to welcoming you.
Discover an exhibition of new work in our lobby by members of Inspirations Studio, a unique low-barrier ceramics program in Toronto for women and gender diverse people who have experienced marginalization.
Our Joy of Ceramics fundraiser returns on October 27, featuring a presentation by Sarah Milroy, Chief Curator at the McMichael Gallery, who will talk about a work by Shary Boyle, including its many meanings and her decision to donate it. This event sells out every year!
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!
Help us continue to offer innovative and engaging exhibitions, programs, and community projects in person and online, as well as plan for the future. Please consider making a donation today.
Women, Art & Social Change tells the inspirational story of a group of women in the Deep South who achieved economic independence through making and selling pottery, and by establishing Newcomb Pottery, one of the most iconic arts and crafts brands of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Set against a backdrop of social change and women’s rights, the Smithsonian exhibition features the largest, most comprehensive collection of Newcomb Pottery to tour North America in three decades, with more than 125 objects of the iconic pottery on display, along with lesser known textiles, metalwork, jewellery, bookbinding and historical artifacts.
Women, Art, & Social Change: The Newcomb Pottery Enterprise is organized by the Newcomb Art Gallery of Tulane University and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
Exhibition Programs & Events
Wednesday February 11, 6:30 to 8 pm The Next 36 Debate Moderator: Claudia Hepburn, Executive Director and Co-Founder, The Next 36
Wednesday March 11, 6:30 to 8 pm Justice for Women & Girls with Disabilities Speaker: Shantha Rau Barriga, Director of Disability Rights, Human Rights Watch
Thursday April 16, 6:30 – 8 pm The Arts & Crafts of Newcomb Pottery Speaker: Martin Eidelberg, Professor Emeritus of Art History, Rutgers University
Acknowledgments
The Gardiner Museum is grateful to Exhibition Supporters VERITY, Susan Crocker, Laura Dinner, Senator Nicole Eaton, Lorna Marsden, Lynda Palazzi, Lynda Reeves, Senator Nancy Ruth, Karen Sheriff, and Deborah White. These women brought this exhibition to Toronto and continue the story of the Newcomb Pottery Enterprise through their own careers.
Exhibition Partners include CAMH, Far & Wide Collective, House & Home, Human Rights Watch, The Linden School, The Next 36, and The Women’s Canadian Club of Toronto. Farrow & Ball is the Official Paint Sponsor, and The Globe and Mail is the 2015 Media Partner.
Representing 45 years of achievement in decorative arts from 1895 to 1940, the exhibit is supported by grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works, which were matched by supporters of Newcomb Art Gallery.
About the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES)
SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D.C., for nearly 60 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play. Exhibition descriptions and tour schedules are available at sites.si.edu.