St. Johnsbury Athenaeum
Art Museum · St. Johnsbury, Vermont
A public library on Main Street in St Johnsbury with an art gallery behind it that has not been rehung since the 1870s. Horace Fairbanks built it in 1871 and added the gallery in 1873 as a setting for one painting - Albert Bierstadt's Domes of the Yosemite, ten feet by fifteen, still on the wall it was hung for. It is a National Historic Landmark and it is described as the oldest unaltered art gallery in the United States: the pictures hang where they hung, in frames mostly original to them, lit the way a Victorian gallery was meant to be lit. It is a working town library in the Northeast Kingdom and you can walk in off the street.
1171 Main Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, 05819, United States
FREE - both the working public library and the National Historic Landmark art gallery, with no ticket at any time. ⚠ THESE ARE LIBRARY HOURS, NOT MUSEUM HOURS: a weekday schedule with limited Saturday opening, generally closed Sundays and public holidays, and the hours change - phone 802-748-8291 before making a special trip. This catches weekend travellers regularly. Free street parking on and around Main Street. Group and school visits, and guided tours, are arranged in advance and are worth arranging because the gallery's significance is the unaltered ROOM rather than any single picture. ⚠ NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY near the paintings; reproduction and commercial use need written permission. It is a working library and quiet is expected. DONATIONS are welcomed and are the reason a landmark of this standing has no gate.
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