We're delighted to announce that the Gardiner Museum will reopen to the public with two days of free admission on Saturday July 11 and Sunday July 12. From July 13 onward, we'll resume our regular hours and admission rates. It seems we've been gone so long—we miss you and can't wait to welcome you back! Please read about our new health and safety protocols before your visit.
During our temporary closure, we're posting exhibitions and selections from our collection online. Discover Inuit ceramics, Chinese and Japanese porcelain, pottery from the Ancient Americas, and more!
We're excited to present a new live series hosted by Chief Curator Sequoia Miller in which an artist will share three of their artworks and speak about them in connection to a larger theme. On Thursday July 9 at 1 pm, Azza El Siddique, a Sudanese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, painting, photography, and film, will discuss three of her artworks in the context of the theme “Absence”. Registration is free!
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!
We’re closed until further notice, but we’re planning for the day when we can again welcome visitors. We encourage you to make a gift to the Gardiner. This will be vital for when we reopen, and is the optimistic message we all need.
A chat with Gardiner Shop artist Daumante Stirbyte about her familiar yet uncomfortable ceramic sculptures that mimic creatures in a natural history museum.
We chat with artists Michelle Mendlowitz and Robin Tieu about their collaborative Gardiner Shop exhibition, Causality, a fascinating exploration of impact using clay.
Originally made for export to the Netherlands in the 1630s, this extraodinary lacquerware chest mysteriously disappeared in the 19th century.
Artist and writer janet romero-leiva reflects on The Sin Fronteras Monarch Butterfly Project, a Community Arts Space exhibition that brings attention to the ongoing migrant crisis and the decline of the monarch butterfly.
To get the most out of your next visit to the Gardiner, we’ve compiled a list of objects and experiences you don’t want to miss while you’re here.
We’ve taken some of the most interesting objects from our collections storage and put them on display for you to discover! For a limited time in our new Rosalie Wise Sharp Gallery, see a selection of objects from our permanent collection, spanning different time periods and geographies.
Christopher Smith dives into the complex history of ‘cruising’ and offers a glimpse into Intimate Encounters ~ Animate Histories, a Community Arts Space exhibition opening on August 1.
Heidi McKenzie is a Toronto-based ceramic artist. In 2009, she apprenticed in her father’s ancestral home of India under the mentorship of Mansimran Singh, a student of the acclaimed British studio potter, Bernard Leach. McKenzie’s new exhibition in the Gardiner Shop, Family Matters, speaks to her family’s histories through photographic imagery coupled with abstract representation.
Dr. Cheryl Thompson writes about Hair We Are, a Community Arts Space exhibition that explores self-care and beauty through the eyes of racialized young women and girls.
Historically associated in the West with the decorative and the domestic, ceramics has long been regarded as a feminized practice with a particularly strong queer dimension because of its status as a subaltern to painting and sculpture.