BOSTON -- As one of this city's most popular cultural attractions, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum could easily rest on its laurels.
(Actually, as anyone who's been there can tell you, laurels are the least of the Gardner's botanical charms. Following a longtime tradition, the museum keeps its skylight-covered courtyard filled with palms, ferns, orchids and other exotic plants.)
But the Gardner, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, isn't resting. In fact, it's gearing up for a year-long marathon of events and exhibits that will celebrate both the museum and its famously independent-minded founder.
This month, for example, the Gardner opens "The Making of a Museum: Isabella Stewart Gardner as Collector, Architect & Designer." The exhibit (April 23-Aug. 21) uses diaries, photo albums and other biographical materials to trace Gardner's evolution from shy society wife to world-class art collector and museum builder.
Highlights include some of Gardner's own watercolors, as well as a suite of rarely seen mural studies by her close friend and sometime art adviser, John Singer Sargent.
Also on display will be blueprints for Fenway Court, the Renaissance-style palazzo Gardner built between 1899 and 1901 in Boston's Back Bay section, and where it was once rumored -- falsely, it turns out -- that lions and other exotic animals prowled the halls.
Yet even as it happily toasts the past, the Gardner has its eyes fixed firmly on the future.
Contemporary work
The museum began the year with a three-part installation by Joseph Kosuth (through Sunday), a contemporary artist who's known for his brainy, text-based art projects.
The installation, which wends its way throughout the museum and and includes a series of outdoor neon text-sculptures, explores the connections between Gardner and two members of her social circle: painter James MacNeill Whistler and art dealer Bernard Berenson.
Nor is Kosuth a one-time deal. His installation follows shows devoted to two other contemporary artists: German jewlery-maker Manfred Bischoff and Jamaican-born sculptor Nari Ward.
Another contemporary work, Madam I'm Adam, debuts this month (April 26-May 10). Created by textile artist Elaine Reichek, it marks the Gardner's first leap into the field of online art.
"I'm sure there are a lot of people think of us as that sleepy little place over by the Museum of Fine Arts," says Gardner director Anne Hawley. "Some of them probably even want us to stay that way. But the truth is, we can't just freeze things the way they are. To remain vital, museums have to adapt and change with the times."
A petite dark-haired woman who enjoys a good laugh, Hawley knows what she's talking about. Since taking over the Gardner in 1989, she's seen plenty of changes -- some good, some bad.
The worst by far happened on the night of March 18, 1990.
That's when two gunmen dressed as Boston police officers bluffed their way into the Gardner's service entrance, then bound and gagged two night watchmen. When the thieves left several hours later, they took with them three masterpieces of 17th-century Dutch art: Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black by Rembrandt, and The Concert by Vermeer.
Also taken were a small portrait by Edouard Manet, several prints and drawings by Edgar Degas and an ancient Chinese goblet known as a "ku."
At the time, the stolen artworks were conservatively valued at more than $200 million. Today, the still-missing works would be worth a great deal more.
"It was, as you can imagine, a very traumatic time, and not just for me" says Hawley. "But I also think it really galvanized me to take the positives I could from it. It awoke the community to the importance of the museum, and we found many new supporters who wanted to assure the museum's future."
In the wake of the theft, the museum was also accused of neglecting its collection, which includes works by Raphael, Velazquez, Botticelli, Michelangelo and other artistic heavyweights. It's a charge Hawley vehemently denies.
"After the theft, media all over the world expressed a lot of different views on what, or who, was to blame" she says. "But I would disagree with any assertion that the museum and its staff did anything less than perform its stewardship duties."
Film and music
In the ensuing years, Hawley and her staff have tried to soften the Gardner's starchy tea-and-cakes image. Popular programs such as the museum's lecture and chamber music series have been expanded. So have the museum's education and outreach efforts, including links with local schools.
And more programs are being added this year as part of the Gardner's centennial. Among them: an all-day reading of Dante's Inferno on April 26, an outdoor film series (July 22-24) and a summer music festival (June-August) that includes Latin, jazz and classical performances.
(For more information, call (617) 566-1401 or visit the museum's Web site at www.gardnermuseum.org. A list of the museum's centennial events is available in PDF format at www.gardnermuseum.org/centennial_highlights.pdf.)
One initiative close to Hawley's heart is the Gardner's residency program for contemporary artists and scholars.
"People often forget that Mrs. Gardner was very interested in the art and artists of her own time," says Hawley. "In one sense, that's a tribute to her skill as a collector of Old Masters. But it also overlooks her commitment to and support of living artists. The visiting artist program allows us to carry on that part of her legacy."
In the same spirit, the museum is gearing up for a major fund-raising campaign in the coming years.
Hawley says the money will be used to endow museum programs, many of which currently depend on year-to-year funding from grants and other sources. The Gardner also wants to expand its back-office facilities, including classrooms, staff offices and a new visitor orientation center.
"When the museum was built, no one could have forseen the demands that would be placed on it at the start of the 21st century," Hawley says. "Physically, we've simply run out of room."
Art and ambience
What would "Mrs. Jack," as Gardner was known, make of such changes?
"I think she'd be very supportive," says Hawley. "Mrs. Gardner didn't get as far as she did by being very conventional and conservative. She was a risk-taker."
At the same time, Hawley insists that none of these changes will affect the Gardner's unique mix of fine art and old-world ambience. After all, this is one of the few museums anywhere that inspires words like "cozy" and "homey," and where even casual visitors feel like pampered guests.
In fact, on a recent tour the museum looked much as it always has -- chock full of everything from Old Master paintings to 18th-century French porcelain to medieval stained glass, yet still charmingly unpretentious.
Despite a slushy carpet of snow outside, the Gardner's central courtyard was ablaze with flowers, including orchids, lilies and and rare nasturtium vines from South America. In a few weeks, the floral symphony will expand to include jasmines, cineraria, freesias and camellias.
Then it was on to the Spanish Cloister -- so-called because the room sports a number of Spanish design motifs, including wrought-iron grills and elegant "Moorish" arches.
In keeping with the Spanish theme, the cloister is also the home of Sargent's El Jaleo, an 1882 painting of a whirling flamenco dancer that fills most of the room's end-wall. Look long enough and you can almost hear the sound of strumming guitars and clicking castanets.
Local art fans will also want to visit the McKnight Room, named for Providence-born painter Dodge McKnight (1860-1950). Though McKnight is all but forgotten today, his brightly colored pastels and watercolors were once sought after by collectors, including Gardner.
Located at the eastern end of the first floor, the McKnight Room is the museum's only room named for a single artist.
A small gallery
Also on the first floor is a small gallery set aside for changing exhibitions. Here, chief curator Alan Chong and contemporary-art curator Pieranna Cavalchini organize temporary exhibits that explore -- sometimes in unconventional ways -- different aspects of the Gardner's permanent collection.
Last year, for example, the museum mounted an exhibit devoted to the work of 15th-century Italian artist Cosme Tura. For that show, the Gardner augmented its own collection of Tura's works with loans from London's British Museum, Washington's National Gallery and New York's Pierpont Morgan Library.
The result was something you don't see much in today's blockbuster-crazed art world: a small, scholarly exhibit that nonetheless managed to attract huge crowds and stacks of sparkling reviews.
Currently, the gallery is one of the sites for Kosuth's Artist, Curator, Collector: James McNeill Whistler, Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner -- Three Locations in the Creative Process.
Among other things, the work, which continues in the Gardner's upstairs galleries and on a street-facing outside wall, is a kind of extended conversation among three key elements of the art world: the collector (Gardner), the creative artist (Whistler) and the dealer (represented by Berenson, a noted Renaissance art scholar who acted as a go-between for a number of important collectors, including Gardner).
In the temporary gallery, Kosuth has created a time-line chronicling the activities of Gardner, Whistler and Berenson from around 1890 to 1925. In the museum's upstairs galleries, removable covers have been placed over some of the Gardner's display cases.
And outdoors, selected quotes from Whistler's writings have been turned into glowing neon sculptures.
"I think he [Kosuth] was really fascinated by the connections between these three very strong-willed people, and their connections to the larger history of art" says Cavalchini. "In a sense, he's showing you some of the personal history that lies behind this museum, or any museum."
Before heading upstairs, you can also fortify yourself at the museum's cafe, which serves lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 11 to 4 on weekends. However, since the food is excellent and seating is limited, especially right at noontime, it's best to call ahead for reservations (the cafe's number is (617) 566-1088) or plan for a late lunch.
Old Masters
Most of the Gardner's Old Master paintings are tucked away on the second and third floors.
It's here you'll find works by a veritable Who's Who of Western art, including a rare fresco panel by Piero della Francesco, Raphael's great Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami and Titian's Europa (considered by many to be the finest Italian Renaissance painting in America).
Sadly, you won't find the missing Rembrandts and Vermeer, which are commemorated by empty picture frames in the Gardner's Dutch Room. Below each frame are the words "This painting was stolen from the Museum on March 18, 1990."
Hopefully, one day that will change, too.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is at 280 The Fenway in Boston. Hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is adults $11 ($10 on weekdays), seniors $7, students with current I.D. $5 and children under 18 free. (Note: The Gardner and the Museum of Fine Arts are offering $2 off their regular adult and senior admission prices for same-day visits to both museums.) Guided tours, free with museum admission, are given each Friday at 2:30 p.m.
Parking for the Gardner is available at the Museum of Fine Arts parking garage on Museum Road, off Huntington Avenue.
On public transportation, take the Huntington Avenue No. 39 bus or the Green Line E-train to the Museum of Fine Arts stop. Cross Huntington Avenue (toward the Texaco Gas Station) to Louis Prang Street. Walk down Louis Prang two blocks. The museum is on the left.
For more information, call (617) 566-1401 or visit www.gardnermuseum.org.
