The Fairfield University Art Museum is set to host three exhibitions during the 2025-26 year, which commemorates the United States semiquincentennial with two opening in the fall of 2025 followed by a major multi-gallery loan exhibition in the spring of 2026.
The museum has achieved national accreditation and remarkable growth during the past 15 years, establishing itself as a highly respected educational resource for the Fairfield community and beyond, and this year’s programming continues to build on that legacy. This past year alone, the museum saw more than 13,000 in-person visitors, and over 100,000 digital engagements with their virtual programming.
“It has been incredibly gratifying to see the growth of the museum over the past decade and beyond,” said Frank and Clara Meditz Executive Director Carey Mack Weber. “As we celebrate our 15th anniversary this year, we are thrilled to welcome the community to our galleries for three very timely exhibitions, each of which provides a fascinating artistic lens through which to examine the complex history of the United States.”
Stitching Time: Social Justice Collaboration Quilts Project and Give Me Life: CPA Prison Arts Program runs Sept. 12 – Dec. 13, 2025, in the museum’s Walsh Gallery located in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. These dual exhibitions feature artwork created by current or formerly incarcerated individuals at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola Prison) and York Correctional Institution in Niantic, Conn. These works of art focus the attention on the artists—people who are often forgotten by society when discussing the history of the U.S. criminal justice system.
Monuments: Commemoration and Controversy, organized by The New York Historical, runs Sept. 19 – Dec. 20, 2025, in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries. This exhibition explores monuments and their representations in public spaces as flashpoints of fierce debate over national identity, politics, and race that have raged for centuries. Offering a historical foundation for understanding today’s controversies, the exhibition reveals how monument-making and monument-breaking have long shaped American life, as public statues have been celebrated, attacked, protested, altered, and removed.
For Which it Stands… runs Jan. 23 – July 25, 2026, in both the Bellarmine Hall Galleries and the Walsh Gallery. Curated by Weber, this exhibition will focus on depictions of the American flag over the course of the last century, ranging from the straightforwardly patriotic to overtly political works that interrogate just who the American flag represents, and whether justice is available to all.
To learn more about the upcoming exhibitions and the Fairfield University Art Museum, visit fairfield.edu/museum.