Erie Art Museum

06/26/2026

Gallery Night is TONIGHT and we are SO ready. 🎨🎉

26 galleries and venues across Erie are throwing open their doors for one epic night of art, community, and good vibes—and it's completely FREE.

Tonight | 5–10 PM | Downtown Erie & beyond

Come as you are. Bring everyone you know. This is the one you don't want to miss.

(Link to details in first comment)

06/26/2026

There are waiting rooms we never forget.

Eileen Woods' new exhibition, "The Waiting Room", opens this Friday during Gallery Night and runs through January 2027 in the Customs House first floor.

Drawn from her own experience surrounding major surgery, Woods spent time in the sterile, suspended quiet of medical waiting—and turned it into portraiture. Each piece is drawn from life and grounded in photographs she personally took of people absorbed in thought, lost in their phones, or quietly staring at nothing in particular.

The result is a body of work that holds space for something we rarely talk about: the uncertainty, resilience, and mortality woven into ordinary moments of waiting.

Meet Eileen at Gallery Night this Friday, June 26th, and experience "The Waiting Room" for yourself.

📷 Eileen Woods | The Waiting Room #43 | Woodburning, Acrylic, Graphite, Clocks | 2024

06/24/2026

He's spent decades tracking down artists who build entire worlds in their backyards, paint on whatever's available, and couldn't care less what the art world thinks. And he has stories.

Join Fred Scruton—retired PennWest Edinboro art professor, Erie local, and dedicated documentarian of outsider artists—for a lecture that's equal parts road trip, archive, and genuine love letter to the people making art entirely on their own terms.

Fred has built long-term relationships with self-taught and visionary artists across the country, capturing their lives and environments through photography, video, and writing. The result is something rare: an intimate look at creativity that exists completely outside the mainstream.

📅 Friday, July 24
🕕 6:00–7:30 PM
📍 Erie Art Museum
🎟️ Included with Museum admission

This one's for the curious, the art-lovers, and anyone who's ever made something just because they had to.

🔗 Event link in the comments

06/23/2026

Brunch plans: made. 🥂

Join us Saturday, June 27 from 11 AM – 1 PM for a Light Brunch & Mimosas with artist Sarah Jacobs—and yes, one complimentary mimosa is included with your museum admission.

The morning flows like this: settle in with food and a drink, then head into an artist talk with Sarah herself, and finish with a gallery walk through her work. It's a relaxed, up-close way to experience the art and the person behind it.

Sarah Jacobs is a contemporary maximalist and surrealist painter whose richly symbolic, dreamlike compositions explore existential themes through bold color, dramatic lighting, and layered imagery. Her work is the kind that rewards a slow look—and a good conversation.

📅 Saturday, June 27 | 11 AM – 1 PM
📍 Erie Art Museum, 20 E. 5th St.
🎟️ Included with Museum admission

Learn more and plan your visit at the event link in the comments!

06/23/2026

Our very own Jude Shingle was on Erie News Now to discuss Gallery Night happening this Friday from 5-10 PM.

You can find a full list of the 26 participating galleries on our website (🔗 link in the first comment)

See you there!

Click here to view this video from erienewsnow.com.

06/20/2026

Art is for everyone—and on Saturday, June 20, we mean that literally.
Thanks to the Art Bridges Foundation's Access for All initiative, admission to the Erie Art Museum is completely free from 10 AM – 2 PM. No tickets, no cost, just art.
Access for All happens every first Thursday of the month (11 AM – 3 PM) and every third Saturday (10 AM – 2 PM) so there's always a way in.
We'll see you Saturday.

06/19/2026

Gallery Night is a citywide event — and the best art doesn’t always live downtown.

These four destinations are a little further out, but they’re the kind of places you’d never stumble on by accident. Each one is a dedicated gallery, opened and run by artists who made a choice to bring their work to Erie — and tonight they’re all open, they’re all welcoming, and they’re worth the drive.

Think of it this way: while Downtown Erie is a scene, the Beyond Downtown route is a discovery. You might visit one, or you might make a night of it — but wherever you land, you’ll be somewhere most people don’t know to look.

🌊 Bay Breeze AirBnB & Gallery (545 W 2nd St, 5–8:30 PM) — Artists Winnie and Lee Lucian Shadeck welcome visitors into their home and gallery right on the bayfront. Paint on glass and marbled paper, views of the water, good conversation. An experience you genuinely can’t get downtown.

🪑 THE ARTISTIC CHAIR at Traditions Unlimited (1608 W 8th St, 5–8 PM) — Lene Currie restores antique chairs with new fabrics and finishes, giving them another 100 years of life. If you have an old chair that needs a new face, bring a photo — or bring the chair.

🎨 Artiques Gallery (716 Nevada Dr, 5–9 PM) — The former owners of the Bayfront Gallery are back. Artiques opens a new location in Northwest Millcreek tonight, featuring Erie art legends Plavcan, Ahlgren, Carl and Wilda Sundberg, and Eugene Iverd, alongside contemporary work and antique prints.

🖼️ D’Hopkins Denniston Gallery Fine Art (4960 Pittsburgh Ave, 5–8 PM) — A dedicated fine art gallery on Pittsburgh Avenue, open for the night with an artist meet & greet.
Gallery Night, June 26. Go where the art takes you.

06/19/2026

Thomas Nast emigrated from Germany to New York in 1848—his family fleeing civil unrest in Europe. He would go on to become one of the most influential illustrators in American history, eventually known as the father of the modern political cartoon.
In January 1863, just weeks after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect, Nast published this wood engraving in Harper's Weekly. The image is layered and deliberate: a central scene of an African American family gathered in domestic peace, surrounded by contrasting vignettes—the brutality of slavery on one side, the promise of wages, education, and home on the other.
It was a vision of what freedom could look like, made at a moment when that future was still far from certain.
Art has always done this—held history still long enough for us to look at it honestly. On Juneteenth, we're grateful to be an institution where that work continues.
Happy Juneteenth. 🕊️

06/19/2026

Not every great gallery is on a main drag — and the Cemetery Route proves it.

The Cherry Street and 19th Street corridor is Erie’s West Side at its most creative: a print shop, a gallery space, a crêpe café, and a courtyard full of vendors and food trucks, all within a few blocks of each other. It feels less like an art crawl and more like a block party with really good art.

Here’s what’s waiting June 26:

🛹 Grounded Print Shop / Leadhead Screenprinting / Liminal Space (1902 Cherry St, 5–10 PM) — Three creative businesses, one address, a lot happening. Leadhead’s Combo Moves Score Big brings 30+ artists’ work on skateboard decks — hanging right alongside Grounded Print Shop’s own exhibition. Upstairs, Liminal Space features Ashley Pastore’s the importance of time travel — handmade paper and photographs exploring the nature of memory. Live entertainment, refreshments, artist meet & greet throughout.

🥞 Give a Crepe (1909 Chestnut St, 5–9 PM) — Part of the 19th Street gallery cluster, and your best excuse to eat a crêpe while doing something cultural.

🛒 The Shop 19 (357 W 19th St, 5–9 PM) — The courtyard comes alive with artists JayArt23, ErieIn3D, Nicole Catalfamo, Paper Owl Press, BOTH Studios, Todd Steffy, and more. Live entertainment, Before The Barrel, and a Tropical Breeze food truck round it out. Sketch. Sing. Shop. Eat.

Gallery Night, June 26, 5–10 PM.

06/18/2026

Your lunch break just got a whole lot better. 🎶
Mid Day Art Break is back! Join us on the Dana & Pete Zaphiris Family Patio for live music every first Wednesday of the month from 12–1 PM—free admission, good vibes, and the perfect excuse to step outside.
Kick off the series with local artist Brian Hed on July 1, then come back for Jack Stevenson on August 5. Rain or shine—if the weather doesn't cooperate, we move the party indoors to the Holstein Gallery.
Mark your calendars. 🌞 https://www.erieartmuseum.org/eam-events/mid-day-art-break-4-rdbwz