Exhibitions

In addition to the Kirwan Collection on permanent display in the Wendt Room, the Athenæum hosts several exhibitions each year showcasing materials from the collections and related works. Subjects have included Salem imprints, children’s books and their illustrators, decorated book covers, Jacob Bigelow’s American Medical Botany, works on insects, archival records about the planning and construction of Plummer Hall in 1907, and popular reading from 1760-1810.

We encourage members to curate an exhibition of their interest or of their own collections.

Digital Exhibitions

Honorary curator, Elaine von Bruns, has created most of the exhibitions in recent years, and has now helped us create our first digital exhibition. Displaying rich marbling, tiny decorative patterns, and mood-setting illustrations, Under the Covers: The Hidden Art of Endpapers is now a permanent on-line feature. Click below to take a tour under the covers of the Salem Athenæum collection.

View Under the Covers

Current Exhibition — 2024
Enchanted Lands

Past Exhibitions

The following is a partial list of past exhibits. Binders for many of these are available for viewing in the Wendt Room.

Fashion Through the Pages

Salem Confidential

Love for All Seasons

Cosmos: Sand Dollars to Stars

The Grand Tour

The Language of Flowers

Food for Thought

Quinton Oliver Jones (1903-1999)

What Hawthorne Read
from the Collections of the Salem Athenaeum

Elections: Winning the Vote

Celia’s Salon: America’s First Artists’ and Writers‘ Colony

Samuel Hall: Patriot Printer of the Revolution

Early Birds: Portraits by the Fathers of American Ornithology

Upcoming Events

View Entire Calendar