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.
Saltzman Cabinet of Curiosities
Vanity: The Last Working Catboat
Built over the winter of 1928-29 by Edgartown boatbuilder Manuel Swartz Roberts for commercial fisherman Thomas Pease and his son Oscar, the catboat Vanity worked the waters of Martha’s Vineyard for over half a century. In this exhibit, explore the life of the last working catboat of Martha’s Vineyard through artifacts, photographs, archival materials, and film footage.
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The Grain Family, Hollinshead, Cox, and Fleischner Galleries
Jaws at 50: A Deeper Dive
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of JAWS, the Martha’s Vineyard Museum is proud to present the first-ever comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the film's production on Martha’s Vineyard. Through photographs, oral histories, original art, and movie props, this exhibit will delve into how the Island became the fictional Amity Island, showcasing the Vineyarders who brought the movie to life and the enduring legacy of Spielberg's blockbuster.
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Adele H. Waggaman Community Gallery
Mermaid Farm: Beauty & Struggle
Curated by seasonal visitor Lexi Van Valkenburgh, this exhibition explores the past and present of farming on Martha’s Vineyard. Once predominantly agricultural, the Island has seen much of its farmland lost to development. Through a series of photographs taken by Van Valkenburgh at Mermaid Farm—one of only two remaining dairy farms—the exhibit traces the Island’s agricultural history and tells the story of a family deeply rooted in the land.
READ MOREUPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Waggaman Community Gallery
The Lost History of Innisfail
Once the heart of a lively summer community on Lagoon Pond, Innisfail—a grand hotel built in the failed 19th-century development of Oklahoma—became a vibrant gathering place for music and theater. This exhibit explores its heyday, destruction by fire in 1906, and the neighborhood it left behind.
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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 is located behind the main building, adjacent to the Bodman Courtyard and Rose Styron Garden.
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.
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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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