Explore Maine’s maritime heritage as seen through works in the PMA collection. Beginning with the birch bark canoe featured in the PMA’s exhibition Passages in American Art—its construction and cultural significance to the Wabanaki people—Goldstein will expand to consider broader traditions of boat and shipbuilding imagery across the galleries. Seth Goldstein is Director of the...
Join Museum Educator, David Smith, for a tour through the decades of PMA architecture. Learn about the history of the PMA’s building and grounds from the early 1800s to the present as we move through the different spaces.
Join us for a lecture and conversation with artist Chitra Ganesh, alongside Sayantan Mukhopadhyay, PhD, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Portland Museum of Art (PMA). Across a twenty-year practice, Chitra Ganesh has developed an expansive body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings,...
Third Thursdays at the PMA is Art for All! On the third Thursday of every month, the PMA offers free admission all day and evening for all. Explore the galleries, enjoy family-friendly art-making and activities, or experience a dynamic lineup of rotating music, food trucks, films, performances, and programs. What gives a piece of jewelry...
Take a break from the routine and recharge with art. Connect with other new parents and caregivers, share stories, and enjoy a moment for yourself at the PMA. Join a guided visit exploring artworks through the lens of parenthood and caregiving, led by PMA Educators. All are welcome to feed, soothe, or step out as...
"The PMA Teen Zine has launched! Pick up your copy in the Great Hall, chat with the authors, and join us for a gallery activity lead by the Teen Council at 4:30pm! The Teen Council program brings together former Homer High School Fellows to create a PMA Teen Zine and to advice staff with a...
Create a custom, four-strand bracelet using Japanese glass beads, leather cord, and a button toggle closure. Participants will choose from a range of colorways and be guided step by step through the process. All materials included. Recommended for ages 8 and up.$25; registration required. About the Museum of BeadworkLocated in Portland, Maine, the Museum of...
Brian Smith discusses Gay Bar, a meticulously beaded sculpture that foregrounds surface, repetition, and ornament as sites of meaning. Drawing from his broader practice, Smith considers how labor-intensive processes and material excess intersect with queer aesthetics, transforming notions of preciousness into something both sensorial and conceptual. Brian Smith is a Portland, Maine-based artist working across...
Take a midday pause with a closer look at works with connections to Japan in the PMA’s Collection. This informal gallery talk will explore themes of nature, seasonality, craftsmanship, and storytelling, offering insight into artistic traditions and cultural contexts across time. Led by Museum Educator, Lynda McCann-Olson
The Portland String Quartet's final program of the 57th season promises to be pure, weightless, soaring delight. Blending the luscious sounds of William Walton's String Quartet in A minor, Haydn’s airy Quartet in C Major (Op. 33, No. 3 “the Bird”), and a volitant folk tune composed by the Danish String Quartet, Airborne is bound...
Through a mixed media practice that combines both artificial and natural materials, Baker creates abstracted landscapes that explore various topographies and how we move, see, and explore within them. This program is generously funded by the Will Barnet Foundation.
Join artist Shane Charles as he discusses his recent installation Into the Sun, as part of the PMA’s long-standing exhibition Passages in American Art. Charles’ installation practice intersects performance, sculpture, and mixed-media work within a cartographic and archaeological framework. Born in Bangor, Maine, and raised along the Penobscot River between Old Town and the Penobscot...
The PMA and Opera Maine's prestigious Studio Artist Program present a special summer engagement, performing a diverse repertoire spanning multiple genres in response to artworks in the PMA collection. Alfred Thompson Bricher, United States, 1837–1908, Coastal Scene (Bay of Fundy, Canada) Ships Along the Shore, 1885–1890, oil on canvas, 15 13/16 x 32 inches, Courtesy...
Third Thursdays at the PMA is Art for All! On the third Thursday of every month, the PMA offers free admission all day and evening for all. Explore the galleries, enjoy family-friendly art-making and activities, or experience a dynamic lineup of rotating music, food trucks, films, performances, and programs.
Take a break from the routine and recharge with art. Connect with other new parents and caregivers, share stories, and enjoy a moment for yourself at the PMA. Join a guided visit exploring artworks through the lens of parenthood and caregiving, led by PMA Educators. All are welcome to feed, soothe, or step out as...
10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. Juneteenth Open House, Free Admission for all 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Juneteenth Lecture: “Portland’s Historic Black Community and the Underground Railroad” with Seth Goldstein
Portland’s Historic Black Community and the Underground Railroad: Historian Seth Goldstein offers tours of the Portland Freedom Trail and has translated some of his tour content for this presentation. Using artwork from the PMA collection Seth will provide an examination of Portland’s historic Black community. Community members purchased their homes in the Munjoy Hill section...
10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Wander or cool off in the galleries. Take an art break with free admission all day. 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Meet near the Seven sculpture for drop-in, family-friendly activities and Parade watching. 1:00 p.m. Pride Portland! Parade The Portland Museum of Artists at the heart of the Arts District...
Join Sayantan Mukhopadhyay, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, for a gallery talk in the exhibition Precious: The Value of Ornament. Learn about the genesis of the exhibition, provenance and significance of select works, and how ideas of beauty, material value, and ornament shape the ways museums collect and interpret objects today.
Third Thursdays at the PMA is Art for All! On the third Thursday of every month, the PMA offers free admission all day and evening for all. Explore the galleries, enjoy family-friendly art-making and activities, or experience a dynamic lineup of rotating music, food trucks, films, performances, and programs.
Take a break from the routine and recharge with art. Connect with other new parents and caregivers, share stories, and enjoy a moment for yourself at the PMA. Join a guided visit exploring artworks through the lens of parenthood and caregiving, led by PMA Educators. All are welcome to feed, soothe, or step out as...
With Historian Seth Goldstein At the turn of the twentieth century, as Maine’s shipbuilding, ice harvesting, and quarrying industries declined, a new identity began to take shape: Vacationland. Inspired by images of Maine’s pastoral beauty, visitors from across the Northeast sought respite along its coasts and in its towns—many calling themselves “rusticators.” Join historian Seth...
Third Thursdays at the PMA is Art for All! On the third Thursday of every month, the PMA offers free admission all day and evening for all. Explore the galleries, enjoy family-friendly art-making and activities, or experience a dynamic lineup of rotating music, food trucks, films, performances, and programs.
Take a break from the routine and recharge with art. Connect with other new parents and caregivers, share stories, and enjoy a moment for yourself at the PMA. Join a guided visit exploring artworks through the lens of parenthood and caregiving, led by PMA Educators. All are welcome to feed, soothe, or step out as...