Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Steve McQueen’s powerful ‘Lynching Tree’ on view at Gardner Museum for just two weeks.

A dress is the centerpiece of Haitian American visual artist Fabiola Jean-Louis’ exhibition “Rewriting History” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, though the term hardly seems sufficient to describe this artwork.

With its flower-filled courtyard and Monk’s Garden, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has always been a home to both horticulture and fine art. Now through Sept. 17, its exhibition “Presence of Plants in Contemporary Art” presents works by eight artists that incorporate living plants.

Famed contemporary artist and assemblage creator Betye Saar and 19th-century museum founder Isabella Stewart Gardner may seem like unlikely artistic fellows.

Isabella Stewart Gardner’s legacy is one of innovation in her time. “Metal of Honor,” running at the Gardner Museum through Jan. 16, 2023, illustrates an eye for artistic importance both in her longstanding collection and in works she might collect if she were alive today.

Growing up in Massachusetts, Colin Barnicle had heard the stories about the 1990 robbery at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum from his parents around the family dinner table. “It was a place where I had been, a place my mom talked about a lot, and a crime my dad talked about a lot,” says Barnicle in a recent call with the Banner. As the years went by, the mystery of the theft only intrigued him more and more.