Wild Things: Planning for children in a traditional art museum

Abstract In 2022, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum opened the temporary exhibition Drawing the Curtain: Maurice Sendak's Designs for Ballet and Opera . Predicting most visitors would know Sendak as the creator of children's books such as Where the Wild Things Are , the Gardner team decided to consider families with children as potential visitors. Though the Gardner regularly offers family guides and children's programming, this would be the first time the Museum would explicitly welcome children in an exhibition. The result was a unique exhibition experience that visitors of a variety of ages could enjoy together. This article describes the process the team used to develop and design the exhibition, told from the perspectives of the fine arts curator and children's museum designer who worked together to make it happen.