Clinton, Massachusetts, holds the only museum in the United States devoted entirely to Russian icons. Its collection is the largest of its kind in North America, and the story of how it landed in a Central Massachusetts mill town is worth hearing before you go.

Practical details come first in this guide, followed by a walk through the museum year by year.

Hours, Tickets And Where To Park

Find the Icon Museum and Study Center at 203 Union Street. It opens Thursday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm, and closes on Easter, July 4, Thanksgiving, and from December 24 through January 1.

• Adults $15, seniors $12, students and under 18 free

• Free admission on first Sundays

• Docent tours for groups of 10 or more with advance notice

Families get a scavenger hunt and magnifying glasses, and a trip to the shop costs nothing. Parking is street-side only, since the museum has no lot of its own. Free spots are marked around Central Park on Union, Church and Walnut Streets, and a free lot is on Walnut Street.

Why A Private Car Service Fits This Route



Riders coming from the MetroWest towns can book a private transportation service and skip the street parking search. MetroWest Car Service is one local name to check for the Clinton trip. Its history page calls the museum a major attraction for visitors to Clinton and Central Massachusetts.

Docent tours are also set up for groups of 10 or more, so a shared ride and a shared tour fit together without extra steps.

1989 A Market Stall Starts A Collection

Gordon Lankton, who lived from 1931 to 2020, was a plastics engineer from Peoria, Illinois. In the early 1960s, he went to work at Nypro, an injection molding company in Clinton, and he eventually became its president.

In 1989 he travelled to Russia to set up a joint plastics venture between American and Soviet partners. At an open-air market in Moscow, he bought his first icon, a small image of Saint Nicholas, a type made for private prayer and known for its simplicity and sincerity.

2006 Former Textile Offices Become A Museum

Lankton kept collecting for over 20 years, and eventually gave his entire collection to the museum. In 2004, he showed several hundred icons in a small exhibition inside Nypro, and the museum was incorporated that same year.

Opening day came on October 15, 2006, with green building technology throughout. Its historic facade belongs to a late 1800s building that once held the executive offices of the Bigelow Textile Company. Its aluminum-clad addition, finished in 2008, brought a South Gallery, a library and offices. In October 2008, a joint exhibition with a Moscow gallery opened, and in 2009, a traveling exhibition carried icons from the collection across the country.

2010 The Old Courthouse Joins The Campus

Right next door stands a 150-year-old former courthouse and police station, and its jail cells are still intact. Renovation in 2010 turned it into gallery space with a green-roof terrace and a room for lectures and concerts.

Later that year, the museum opened an exhibition of icons from a Moscow museum, the largest show of Russian icons ever assembled in the United States.

2015 And After Brings Research And Recognition

By 2015, the collection had passed 1,000 icons and artifacts, a big milestone for a young museum. Founded in 2012, the Center for Icon Studies published the first Journal of Icon Studies that same year. Later conferences covered Collecting Orthodox Art in the West in 2021 and The Visual Culture of Iconoclasm and Atheism in 2022.

In May 2015, an exhibition brought the famous icon known as Black George, from late 14th-century Novgorod, to Clinton on loan. It was the first time the lender had ever sent out Black George or an icon of Saint John the Baptist from Constantinople, dated around 1300. Clinton's museum also became the youngest in the country to earn national accreditation, and it was reaccredited in 2020.

Its founding director led it for over sixteen years, a story told in a report on the founding director's retirement.

Planning Around The Four Open Days

With only four open days, Thursday through Sunday decides everything. Adults pay $15 and seniors pay $12, while students and anyone under 18 get in free, so a group's total depends on who is coming. Check the holiday closures before choosing a date, since the winter break runs from December 24 to January 1.

Tell MetroWest Car Service the day and the tour time when you book, so the pickup lines up with a docent slot or the 4pm closing.