For Immediate Release
Contact:
Patrick Fecher
publicrelations@emilydickinsonmuseum.org
The Emily Dickinson Museum and Amherst Historical Society to Co-Host Exhibition Featuring Paintings by Mabel Loomis Todd
Opening reception to be held on Tuesday, November 10, 5:30pm ET at the Amherst History Center and Emily Dickinson Museum. Opening remarks at the Amherst History Center, 6pm.
(AMHERST, Mass., October, 21, 2026) – The Emily Dickinson Museum and the Amherst Historical Society are pleased to announce The Preferred Flower, an exhibition illuminating the expressive botanical paintings of Mabel Loomis Todd (1856–1932). Best known as the primary editor of Emily Dickinson’s posthumously published poetry, Todd was also an accomplished painter whose vivid renderings of flowers captured the natural world with precision and vitality.
The exhibition title originates from an 1882 letter Emily Dickinson wrote to Todd after receiving a painting of “Indian Pipes” (Monotropa uniflora): “That without suspecting it you should send me the preferred flower of life, seems almost supernatural.” A few days later, Dickinson followed up with one of her favorite poems “A Route of Evanescence” indicating “I cannot make an Indian Pipe but please accept a Humming Bird.” Todd’s “Indian Pipe” illustration went on to grace the cover of every 19th-century edition of Dickinson’s poetry.
Mabel Loomis Todd was a founder of the Amherst Historical Society, the Amherst chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Amherst Woman’s Club. Her love of nature led her to encourage tree planting as a member of the Village Improvement Society, and later to greater involvement in the emerging American conservation movement. The Historical Society holds many objects related to Mabel Loomis Todd, including additional artworks and art supplies.
The exhibition features eighteen floral studies, including detailed renderings of Monotropa uniflora, trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens), cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), fringed gentian (Gentianopsis crinita), arrowheads (Sagittaria latifolia), wild mountain pinks (Silene caroliniana), bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata), witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), and more. The 18 paintings on view were donated to the Emily Dickinson Museum by 40-year Emily Dickinson scholar and former guide at both Amherst History Museum and the Emily Dickinson Homestead, Ruth Jones. Nine of the paintings will be on view at the Emily Dickinson Museum and nine at the Amherst History Center on Boltwood Walk.
Gigi Barnhill, President, Board of Trustees of the Amherst Historical Society says, “We are delighted to partner with the Emily Dickinson Museum to showcase the artistic endeavors of Mabel Loomis Todd, a writer, editor, musician, conservationist, and proponent and editor of Emily Dickinson’s poetry. She was an accomplished artist as well and we are so pleased that this aspect of her life is being promoted.”
Jane Wald, Keiter Family Executive Director of the Emily Dickinson Museum says, “The Emily Dickinson Museum is enormously grateful to Cinda and Evan Jones for this gift of eighteen remarkable paintings by Mabel Todd, and to their mother Ruth Owen Jones, who left her own indelible mark on the Town of Amherst as a historian and as a guide at the Museum. These paintings represent the confluence of many different streams of nineteenth-century American culture, and pinpoint a moment when Todd’s increasingly nuanced compositions met Emily Dickinson’s wholly unprecedented poetry.”
Cinda Jones writes, “Thank you Jane and Gigi for honoring both the invincible Mabel Loomis Todd, and my mother by showcasing both the Amherst Historical Society and the Emily Dickinson Museum, two organizations they both loved.”
The joint exhibition will open on Mabel Todd’s 170th birthday, Tuesday, November 10, 5:30 to 7:30 pm at both the Emily Dickinson Museum at 280 Main Street and the Amherst History Center, the Society’s satellite location at 45 Boltwood Walk, just a five-minute walk from each other. Participants are encouraged to begin their evening at the Amherst History Center where opening remarks will occur at 6:00 pm. A shuttle between sites will be running between 6:15 pm and 7 pm. The public is warmly invited to attend; refreshments will be provided.
The Emily Dickinson Museum is exhibiting these paintings in an area of the Homestead undergoing restoration. This historic wing, where most of the family’s domestic labor once took place, is currently undergoing forensic study ahead of a full-scale restoration.
For additional information regarding exhibition hours, museum access, and upcoming public programming, please visit EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org.
For additional photography, please contact publicrelations@
ABOUT THE EMILY DICKINSON MUSEUM
The Emily Dickinson Museum is dedicated to sparking the imagination by amplifying Emily Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice from the place she called home.
The Museum comprises two historic houses—the Dickinson Homestead and The Evergreens—in the center of Amherst, Mass. that were home to the poet (1830-1886) and members of her immediate family during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Museum was created in 2003 when the two houses merged under the ownership of the Trustees of Amherst College. The Museum is overseen by a separate Board of Governors and is responsible for raising its own operating, program, and capital funds.
ABOUT THE AMHERST HISTORY CENTER
From hands-on artifact preservation to storytelling sessions that bring the past to life, there is something for everyone at the Amherst History Center. Whether you are a history buff or just curious about the stories that shaped our community, we invite you to be part of our journey through time.