Marvelous Museums

Contemporary art. Local history. Cultures from around the world. Tour the museums of North Central Massachusetts, and you can explore an Egyptian tomb, see Eastern European icons up close and personal, or learn about the changing face of New England forests. And along the way, you can revel in the blazing colors of fall foliage, see crystalline branches sparkling in the winter sun, or simply enjoy the bright green fields and forests of spring and summer.

Fitchburg Art Museum

The Fitchburg Art Museum, in downtown Fitchburg, is the leading cultural institution in North Central Massachusetts, and has been an important part of the region’s identity, culture, and history for almost one hundred years.

FAM was founded through a bequest from Fitchburg native and American Impressionist painter, Eleanor Norcross (1854-1923). Norcross was motivated by two beliefs: that exposure to the fine art and crafts would be beneficial to the lives and productivity of the city’s millworkers, and that great cities were marked by great public institutions. At FAM, on permanent display, is the exhibition Evoking Eleanor, which includes Norcross’s paintings, artworks that she collected during her art career in Paris, and information about her life and legacy.

Another popular permanent exhibition at FAM is Discover Ancient Egypt, several galleries devoted to telling the story of ancient Egyptian civilization through authentic artworks and artifacts, reproductions of important treasures, and hands-on learning activities for kids and families. These activities can also be found throughout the Museum, in FAM’s colorful and engaging Learning Lounges.

FAM has a collection of over 8,000 works of art, with particular strengths in American Art, African Art, and photography, which can be seen in changing exhibitions throughout the museum. Through February 23, 2025, visitors can enjoy Africa Rising: 21st Century African Photography, a visually stunning exhibition of over fifty photographs created by artists from across the continent in a wide range of styles. And through January 5, 2025, FAM will feature G.O.A.T (Greatest of All Time): The Sports Photography of Walter Iooss. Iooss’s dramatic color images of American athletes graced the covers of over 300 issues of Sports Illustrated magazine.

FAM is also New England’s leading presenter of the work of contemporary artists in our region, and the 2024-2025 exhibition season includes solo exhibitions by three prominent artists. In the fall of 2024, the Museum will present Bob Dilworth: When I Remember Home. Dilworth, from Providence, Rhode Island, creates enormous multi-media paintings about the people from the African American community of his childhood in Virginia. The winter/spring of 2025 will feature the career retrospective exhibition of Worcester photographer Stephen DiRado, and emerging Boston photographer Tara Sellios. DiRado’s black-and-white images are documents of his life with family and friends in Central Massachusetts and Martha’s Vineyard, and Sellios’ wildly creative color photos are based on constructed images of natural materials like bones, bugs, and foliage.

FAM’s Community Gallery is a showcase for artists in our local community, and presents exhibitions organized by local schools, artist organizations, and non-profits that offer art programs for their clients. This year’s roster includes shows organized by the North County Land Trust, the Aldrich Astronomical Society, and Making Opportunity Count.

The Museum’s activities are not limited to exhibitions! FAM offers a wide range of events and public programs, and engages in collaborations with the Fitchburg Public Schools, Fitchburg State University, and other partners. FAM sponsors public art projects for the City of Fitchburg, and is currently working with NewVue Communities on the Fitchburg Arts Community, a campus of 68 units of artist-preference affordable housing, right across the street from the Museum, which will be ready for occupancy in January, 2025. FAM is also a fully bilingual English/Spanish museum.

Icon Museum & Study Center

The small industrial town of Clinton may seem an unlikely home for the largest collection of icons in the United States. After heading a successful company in town, Gordon Lankton decided that when the time came to display the icons he had collected while traveling the world, he would establish his museum in a historic building here.

The whole family will find the icons fascinating—children will enjoy examining the icons with magnifying glasses and taking an all-ages scavenger hunt in the galleries.

But, you may ask, what is an icon, and why is this museum so special? Although they’re intriguing art works, don’t think of icons as paintings; icons are “written” rather than “painted”—a complex set of interwoven symbols that have evolved over centuries to form a refined and sophisticated visual language. When “reading” an icon, colors, clothing, hairstyles, gestures, and objects the subject holds all offer insight into what the iconographer was trying to convey. Icons range in size from the very small (for home use) to very large (for cathedrals). They are not worshiped, but are, rather, venerated and used in prayer. Traditionally unsigned, icons are considered a window or portal into a divine realm.

And right here in Clinton, you can visit the United States solely dedicated to Russian icons, holding the largest collection of Russian icons in North America, and one of the largest private collections outside of Russia!

Fisher Museum

If you think a forest is a forest is a forest…and the landscape you’re seeing today is the same as the landscape the Colonists saw two centuries ago, think again!

The Fisher Museum at Harvard Forest in Petersham tells a different story—the story of the pre-settlement forest and how it changed as the early settlers cleared land for homesteads and farming, and changed again as farming was abandoned and different species of trees began to fill in the empty fields. (If you’ve ever hiked through local forests, you’ve no doubt seen the remnants this evolution—the stone walls that long ago marked the edges of a farmer’s field.)

At the Fisher Museum, the changing landscape is a story told in dioramas, or models—and it’s about more than just fields and trees. Learn about the effects of forest fires on the land, about wildlife habitats, and about conservation. And you’ll be fascinated by the new panorama honoring Nipmuc land stewardship and collaboration. The kids can enjoy a scavenger hunt, too, as they take a closer look at the highly-detailed dioramas.

Want to stretch your legs? The Fisher Museum is located in a 3,850-acre forest with 32 miles of trails! Feel free to visit any time—the trails are open 365 days a year. Brochures are available for a half-mile self-guided reflective trail (new in 2024) centering on local Indigenous land-kinship concepts; a self-guided ecology and Colonial history trail that begins at the Fisher Museum and covers 2.5 miles; a self-guided nature and Colonial history trail that begins at the museum and covers 0.5 miles (marked with red blazes); and more.