Exhibitions
EXHIBITIONS
EVENTS
EXPLORE OUR WIDE RANGE OF ONGOING, UPCOMING, AND ONLINE EXHIBITIONS
There’s something new to experience every time you come to the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. Exhibitions change frequently allowing you to explore new facets of Island history and culture with each visit.
The Hollinshead, Cox, and Fleischner Galleries
Clifford: Our Big Red Dog
Clifford the Big Red Dog has been delighting readers for over 60 years. This exhibit invites children and adults alike to play, explore, and learn about Clifford and the man who brought him to life, Norman Bridwell, who called the Vineyard home for over four decades.
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The Adele H. Waggaman Community Gallery
Clearly Misunderstood: C.F. Giordano
The years of COVID were challenging, but for Islanders there were also moments of great creative expression. For some, it was a time for bringing to life projects that, under normal circumstances, would never have been imagined. This was the case for Charlie Giordano and the motorcycle he calls “Voodoo Doll.” Built over the course of two years in his West Tisbury shop, it is a love letter to art, motorcycles, and to perseverance.
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The Grain Family Gallery
Percy E. Cowen: My Own Dearest Jane
Percy Cowen was an accomplished illustrator when he was sent overseas to serve in World War I. While at war, he wrote to his wife, Jane, at home on Martha’s Vineyard. Passed by the censors, but still illuminating, these letters were filled with drawings of Percy’s experiences. This exhibition features Cowen's correspondence, as well as his paintings and original illustrations for popular magazines of the day.
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The Adele H. Waggaman Community Gallery
Eye on the Island: Portraits by Peter Simon
During his life, renowned photojournalist Peter Simon (1947 - 2018) captured portraits of famous musicians and political movements, but his heart was always here on the Island. For more than 50 years, Peter photographed the Island and its people in all seasons. Recently, the Museum acquired nearly 300 of Peter's candid portraits, taken during the 1990s. This exhibition features a selection of known and unknown faces, in the hopes that you can help us identify them!
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The Grain Family Gallery
Sailing to Freedom
Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was not limited to land, but included a network of maritime routes along the Atlantic seaboard. This groundbreaking exhibition sheds light on how freedom was achieved by sea, including the waters around Martha’s Vineyard.
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The Grain Family Gallery
The Secret Life of Seaweed
This immersive exhibition dives deep into the ways in which seaweed has played an important role in Vineyard life for centuries. From farming to cuisine, art to conservation, explore the history and future of these enigmatic organisms!
READ MOREONGOING EXHIBITIONS
The Aileen and Brian Roberts Gallery
One Island, Many Stories
This exhibit offers an introduction to Island history arranged in a thematic way. Visitors are able to learn about the diverse history of Martha’s Vineyard through the lenses of fishing, farming, changing, voyaging, creating, escaping, and belonging.
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The Linnemann Pavilion, Lower Level
Flashes of Brilliance
This exhibit chronicles the history of lighthouses on the Island diving into the details of the Gay Head Light in Aquinnah. Set in the midst of this space, and spanning two floors like a suspended jewel, is the magnificent first-order Fresnel Lens, which was first installed in the Gay Head Light from 1854 to 1952.
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The Linnemann Pavilion, Lower Level
The Challenge of the Sea
This exhibit explores the stories associated with shipping and navigation, lifesaving, and weather in Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds, the second-busiest waterways in the world in the 19th century.
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The Linnemann Pavilion, Lower Level
Hands-On History
This special place is “kid-scale.” A climb-in boat, a sea captain’s cabin, a fishing shack – these are some of the iconic experiences that will help kids to learn through discovery.
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The Johnston/Conrad Family Gallery
On This Site
This exhibit chronicles the historical significance of the site that the Museum sits on. Did you know a lighthouse once existed on the front terrace?
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The Lana and Willie Woods Orientation Theater
History Highlights
This gallery presents a brief animated program that introduces the Island’s timeline, from prehistory to present day. It is meant to provide context to visitors and an overview of Island history before they explore the other permanent and rotating galleries in the Museum.
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Doherty Hall
Doherty Hall is home to some of the larger objects in the Museum’s collection. Located inside are a number of boats, the original hearse from the town of Edgartown, the Mayhew peddler’s cart used for deliveries at Alley’s General Store, a Hawaiian canoe, surfboards, an Erford Burt kayak, the headlamp from the Island’s locomotive and much more. Located in the barn behind the main Museum building.
READ MOREONLINE EXHIBITIONS
100 Years, 100 Stories
In each month of MVM's centennial year we’ll explore a new theme and the many ways in which the Island’s past shapes its future.
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Treasured Beacon: The Edgartown Lighthouse
Explore the history, transformation, and importance of this beloved beacon.
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But… Such is War: Vietnam Reflections on Vineyard Waters
Sculpture and stories from Steve Maxner.
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Votes for Women: An Island Perspective
Explore how the fight for women’s suffrage intersected with life on the Island in the 19th and 20th century.
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Laura Jernegan: Girl on a Whaleship
Discover the story of 19th century whaling and the experiences of a young girl on a whaling voyage.
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