Free First Thursdays at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Who would you like to embody for an evening at the Gardner? Take a cue from current exhibitions&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/exhibition/persona-photography-and-re-imagined-self">Persona: Photography and the Re-Imagined Self</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/exhibition/picturing-isabella">Picturing Isabella</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/exhibition/jamie-diamond-monstra-te-esse-matrem-2026">Jamie Diamond:&nbsp;Monstra Te Esse Matrem,&nbsp;2026</a>&nbsp;and fashion yourself as the persona you’d like to inhabit for a night. Impromptu photo studios and a wandering street-style photographer will memorialize your most creative, daring, or romantic side. Let the Gardner Museum reveal who you really are.&nbsp; <a href="https://tnew.gardnermuseum.org/36083/36091">GET TICKETS HERE</a> &nbsp; Program Persona: Through Their Lens&nbsp; 5–8 pm, Calderwood Hall, Living Room, and throughout the Palace Style yourself to come face to face with award-winning Boston photographers who will use their own unique portraiture skills to capture the persona you present to them.<ul><li>Artist-in-Residence Olivia Slaughter welcomes you to join them in the Living Room, surrounded by plants and props, as they work to craft a lush new image of you through their lens.</li><li>Step into Mari Saxon’s studio in Calderwood Hall as she beckons you into a fairytale, making magic with you to create a dream-like image.</li><li>Salon Luminary KNSZWRTH, aka Kenny Mascary, will capture you at your best: enjoying the evening with friends as he snaps your new favorite street-style candid in the Palace.</li></ul>Crafted Self-Portraits&nbsp; 5–8 pm, Bertucci Education Studio&nbsp; After viewing&nbsp;Persona: Photography and the Re-Imagined Self&nbsp;(Hostetter Gallery), drop by the Bertucci Education Studio and use the exhibition as inspiration to craft your own self-portraits as the persona of your dreams through instant photography, drawing, and collage. DJ LDER 6–8 pm, Courtyard&nbsp; Let DJ LDER soundtrack your evening with his playful, electronic blend of upbeat percussion and melodic sounds.&nbsp; In the Bertucci Education Studio, try your hand at the long-lost art of letterlocking: how papers were folded and sealed before the invention of the envelope. Artist and scholar Jana Dambrogio will teach you some fun and usable locks and then send you on a scavenger hunt through the galleries.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.gardnermuseum.org/visit/cafe">Café G</a>&nbsp;is closed for repairs from January 29 through February 16, 2026, but you can shop&nbsp;<a href="https://gift.gardnermuseum.org/">Gift at the Gardner</a>&nbsp;while you’re here. Admission is free from 3 – 9 pm.&nbsp;

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

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Free First Thursdays at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

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