Current and Past Art Shows - Arnold Arboretum

Please note that all in-person exhibitions are suspended due to the closure of the Hunnewell Building and Visitor Center as part of Harvard University’s COVID-19 response. Exhibitions are currently online.

When our Visitor Center reopens, on-site exhibitions will resume and continue to be free and open to the public in the Hunnewell Building at 125 Arborway, Boston.

Artists interested in mounting solo exhibits in the Hunnewell Building Lecture Hall should review the exhibition guidelines [pdf]. Proposals may be submitted to arbweb@arnarb.harvard.edu with the subject heading “Exhibition Proposal.”

Growth Spurts, Knobs, and Knuckles: An Environment of Trees by Lizi Brown

Summer 2021 - Fall 2021

Watching, listening, and appreciating the woods, Lizi Brown brings us an environment of trunk gestures, affected by the events and seasons that have a lasting influence on a tree’s aspect and structure. Her concern for the trees, their lives caught in climate shifts, is recorded with fluidity and simple rendering. Soaring images, executed in ink and paint on panels of paper, create patterns in light and dark intertwined with elemental observation. Brown shows the sweeps of growth as well as the knobs and knuckles of their lives!

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Detail painting of willow tree — Willow, Detail, copyright 2021 Lizi Brown

a walk in the arboretum: digital photo collages by amy ragus, look again: seeing nature through a different set of eyes, online exhibition: arboretum haiku & you, over time: through art, the impact of change in the arboretum landscape, resilience: art in the time of covid-19, if winter comes…, urban ponds: essential ecosystem for the enjoyment and discovery of nature, the art of wood: woodturner virtual exhibition, inspired by nature: five printmakers at the arnold arboretum, the path taken: photographs of the arnold arboretum by lawrence mullings,

A Walk in the Arboretum: Digital Photo Collages by Amy Ragus

Spring 2021 - Summer 2021

Photographer Amy Ragus specializes in multiple frame images of New England landscapes—digital photocollages. Important to the artist are discoveries she finds just off a road or path, as well as the people who share this space and enjoy nature throughout the seasons.

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Look Again: Seeing Nature through a Different Set of Eyes

Photographs by Joel Kershner

Spring 2021

Arnold Arboretum Field Guide volunteer Joel Kershner brings his creative mind's eye to a virtual show of images, aiming his camera at aspects of nature that we might miss in our own everyday wanderings.

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Online Exhibition: Arboretum Haiku & You

Images shared by participating haiku poets with their nature-inspired haikus.

2020

Take your own haiku hike in the outdoors, write a haiku about what you experience, and send it to the Arnold Arboretum to be a part of a special online exhibit! Check our Arboretum Haiku and You webpage, share expressions about the natural world through photography and this wonderful and creative form of poetry.

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Over Time: Through Art, the Impact of Change in the Arboretum Landscape

Monotype Paintings by Ginny Zanger

Winter 2021 - Spring 2021

The ethereal quality of Ginny Zanger’s artwork brings organic and exuberant life to images in this exhibition. Zanger works in watercolor and a technique she developed that she calls monotype painting—paint appears to float over and under surfaces, always with a focus in nature.

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Resilience: Art in the Time of COVID-19

Art of the Arboretum by Lois Cremmins

Winter 2020 - Winter 2021

Lois Cremmins found a sense of calm walking in the Arboretum, and it become a spiritual outlet and artistic focus during this exceptional year. This virtual show offers viewers a similar experience of calm and uplift in the contemplation of nature.

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If Winter Comes…

The Promise of Each Year in the Paintings of Anthony Apesos

Fall 2020 - Winter 2021

Tony Apesos’s oils open our eyes to the changes winter brings to plants and places—the flat meadows, rocky slopes, ponds, or intimate copses of the Arnold Arboretum. His art is alive and jubilant in its expression and astute rendering of the spirit within the season of winter.

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Urban Ponds: Essential Ecosystem for the Enjoyment and Discovery of Nature

Photographs by Bruce Wilson

Summer 2020 - Fall 2020

Aesthetic and elemental properties of water come into view in the three ponds in the Bradley Rosaceous Collection. Wilson’s images, like the ponds, are alive with fauna and flora, beckoning visitors who relish a connection to nature and water in an urban community.

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The Art of Wood: Woodturner Virtual Exhibition

Spring 2020 - Fall 2020

In 2015, the Arnold Arboretum hosted its first three-dimensional exhibition in the form of a comprehensive and splendid woodturning show with woodturning clubs from around New England. For 2020, Massachusetts South Shore Woodturners exhibited their work virtually.

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Inspired by Nature: Five Printmakers at the Arnold Arboretum

Bandes, Goldberg, Maisel, McGregor-Radin, Smalley

Spring 2020 - Summer 2020

For five printmakers, sketching trips to the Arnold Arboretum solidified what they already had in common—the many ways that nature and plants, especially trees, inform their art. Their media covers a wide range of print techniques, and each artist has a unique approach to their art.

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The Path Taken: Photographs of the Arnold Arboretum by Lawrence Mullings

Fall 2019 - Winter 2020

Photographer Lawrence Mullings ventured off the paths, literally and figuratively, from the traditional format for Arnold Arboretum art exhibitions with his photographs of people and plants. In turn, we ventured off the traditional path with this first virtual art exhibition of his work.

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