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A museum in Clinton, Mass. that began as a collection of Russian icons is now giving a permanent place to Greek ones, part of a broader effort to present the Orthodox world in full.
The Icon Museum and Study Center opened its Greek Icon Gallery on Oct. 16, 2025. The gallery traces Greek icon painting after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when iconographers fleeing the expanding Ottoman Empire found work in places such as the Venetian colony on Crete. According to the museum, the installation shows how these Cretan workshops combined Western artistic movements with the spiritual forms of Byzantium.
The gallery draws on the museum’s permanent collection, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the private collection of Emmanuel and Argie Tiliakos. Some of the icons have not been on public view in years.
The Icon Museum and Study Center grew out of the collecting of plastics engineer Gordon B. Lankton (1931-2020). During a 1989 business trip to Moscow, he bought a small icon of St. Nicholas an an open-air market, struck by its “simplicity and sincerity.” The museum notes Lankton had no prior interest in icons, and thus affectionately regards this icon as its own “wonder-working” one.
Lankton continued collecting icons for more than 20 years, and donated the collection to found the Museum of Russian Icons, which opened on Oct. 15, 2006. Today, the institution remains the only U.S. museum devoted solely to iconography.
In October 2023, the institution took its current name as part of an effort to expand its collection to include sacred art from a wider range of Eastern Christian traditions. The Greek gallery is one result of this renewed vision.
> Previously: Icon Museum and Study Center marks 20th anniversary with rare loans, scholarly symposium
The museum marked its 20th anniversary on Oct. 15 and 16, 2026 with a two-day international symposium and a special exhibition, Light from the East: Masterpieces from the Ikonen-Museum Recklinghausen, featuring icons on view in the U.S. for the first time.
Aiming to serve as a resource for Orthodox communities in the region, the museum hosts study days, themed tours, dance and music performances, and a contemporary Russian literature book group.
Upcoming events
- Dec. 11, 5 to 7 p.m. The Yale Russian Chorus will perform sacred music inspired by the museum’s icons at a holiday gathering and tree lighting.
- Dec. 18, 1 to 2 p.m. “Mary, the Winter Rose Tour,” led by Museum Registrar Laura Garrity-Arquitt, will explore the Christmas story through icons of the Theotokos and the Nativity.
- May 22 to 31, 2027. Associate Curator and Study Center Manager Elliot Mackin will lead a 10-day tour of Northern Greece with Fr. Ilya Gotlinsky of Orthodox Tours.
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