After more than a year of gallery closures, members of the public can see every part of the new and improved Longmont Museum.
On Saturday, the museum will celebrate the grand reopening of its galleries, which have been closed for construction since July 2025. The massive renovation project was supported by a $10.2 million capital campaign. The Stewart Family Foundation donated over $6 million to the expansion project. Bill and Lila Jean Stewart also have their name attached to the museum’s Stewart Auditorium, which opened in 2015.
From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, people can visit the museum at 400 Quail Road to check out the new exhibitions for free. Guests can step inside the completed feature and children’s galleries as well as the in-progress history gallery.
The Bill Stewart Feature Gallery holds “Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Portrait,” an exhibition showcasing letters of correspondence between the iconic Mexican artist and other individuals. The exhibit also features roughly 100 photographs taken by and of Kahlo, including some taken by her father.
“These were photographs that she had and touched,” said Jackie Hobbins, senior manager of exhibitions for the Longmont Museum. “So it’s a pretty exciting show.”
Because the new feature gallery is nearly twice the size of the old one, the museum can fit multiple shows in the room at the same time. Temporary walls for the art allow staff to configure the space however they want, Hobbins explained.
Standing alongside the Kahlo exhibition in the Bill Stewart Feature Gallery is “Women Artists: Four Centuries of Creativity,” which displays original artwork by female artists throughout history. Featured artists include French painter Rosa Bonheur and Pablo Picasso’s former partner Françoise Gilot.
“We felt like these shows complemented each other really well,” Hobbins said. “Obviously, the Frida show is a lot more detailed about her life, specifically, which is just so fascinating. But this kind of shows the breadth of women who have similar stories to share.”
A dragon sculpture is seen above the Dragon Sky Castle exhibit in the new permanent, hands-on children’s exhibit area, DreamLab, at the Longmont Museum on Tuesday. People can see DreamLab for free on Saturday during the museum’s grand reopening celebration. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)
DreamLab, the children’s exhibit, fills every corner of the gallery with hands-on activities for kids. Visitors can walk into a mushroom house or climb a towering castle guarded by a dragon. Lila’s Children’s Gallery is a permanent, dedicated space for kids that replaced the “Front Range Rising” history exhibition.
The galleries weren’t all that received attention during construction. The first phase of the expansion project revamped the museum’s outdoor courtyard in 2024. The building’s front entrance also has a gift shop with products that tie into current exhibits, including books about Kahlo and dragon plush toys.
“Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Portrait” will be up through Jan. 31. After that, the feature gallery will accommodate an exhibit displaying bird-themed quilts.
Joan Harrold, who runs marketing and communications for the Longmont Museum, shared that the new gallery spaces total 9,110 square feet. Harrold said the museum wanted to reopen its galleries with an exhibit that showed off the building’s “dynamic programming.”
“Frida Kahlo is a big name,” Harrold said. “It’s nice for the Longmont Museum to be able to bring this kind of scale of exhibition to the community, and to help the community understand that the museum isn’t just a small local history museum. We have internationally significant shows here.”
The Longmont Museum’s new Bill Stewart Feature Gallery is seen on Oct. 8. (Dana Cadey/Staff writer)