Museum of Russian Icons, Art museum in Clinton, Massachusetts, United States.
The Museum of Russian Icons is an art museum in Clinton, Massachusetts, dedicated to Eastern Christian icons from Russia and other regions. The collection spans several floors and covers works from many centuries and geographic origins within this tradition.
Gordon B. Lankton bought his first icon at a Moscow market in 1989 and gradually built a private collection over the following years. By 2006 that collection had grown large enough to open a public museum in Clinton.
The icons in this collection come from many different regions, including Russia, Greece, and the Middle East, and the differences in style are easy to notice as you walk from room to room. The same religious subjects are painted in very different ways depending on where and when each work was made.
Visiting all floors takes some time, so it is worth setting aside at least a couple of hours to move through the galleries without rushing. The museum is in a small town center, which makes it easy to combine a visit with a short walk around the area.
The building that houses the museum was once a mill, a courthouse, and a police station, and the original jail cells are still visible on the premises. This unusual past makes the building itself worth noticing, as the old structure sits in an odd contrast with the religious paintings displayed inside.
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