Two of Stockbridge's best-known seasonal programs end this Saturday, October 31: Chesterwood's visitor season and Naumkeag's Pumpkin Show. Two weeks later, on November 14, the Norman Rockwell Museum opens Exploring Calvin and Hobbes, its most ambitious show of the year. It runs through May 31, 2027.
The exhibition the Boston Globe called "the first touring exhibition to include Watterson's original drawings" will be on Glendale Road for one Thanksgiving, one Main Street at Christmas weekend, all of winter, and almost all of spring. In practical terms, this is a show for the off-season.
Closing dates before November 14
Several things close in Stockbridge over the next ten days. If you meant to get to any of them this year, here they are in order:
- Saturday, October 31. Chesterwood, at 4 Williamsville Road, ends its 2026 season, which ran from May 15. Its two 2026 exhibitions, The Minute Man and In the Open, close the same day.
- Saturday, October 31. Naumkeag's Pumpkin Show has its last evening, 5 to 9 p.m. Timed tickets must be bought in advance, and most parking is off-site with shuttle service.
- Saturday, October 31. Berkshire Theatre Group's Summer, 1976 plays its final 7 p.m. performance at the Unicorn Theatre, 6 East Street.
- Saturday, October 31. The museum's last scheduled fall walking tour, Norman Rockwell's Stockbridge, leaves from Main Street at 1 p.m. It costs $20 a person, with museum admission separate. Reservations are required.
- Sunday, November 8. Rockwell's Studio closes for the season. Studio tours last 30 minutes and cost $10 on top of museum admission. Daily tour tickets are limited, so the museum suggests buying them online ahead of time.
The Mission House at 19 Main Street is already listed as closed until spring 2027. Its garden stays open all year. The museum's big 250th-anniversary show, American Stories: Revolution to Rockwell, closed October 26. Norman Rockwell Paints the Presidents stays up through December.
From November 8 to November 14, Chesterwood, the Mission House and Rockwell's Studio are all closed for the season and the new shows haven't opened yet. When they do open, they open together.
What opens on November 14
The museum is opening three exhibitions on the same day. Exploring Calvin and Hobbes is the anchor. George Herriman, Krazy Kat, and the Path to Calvin and Hobbes is a companion show about the cartoonist Watterson learned from. Norman Rockwell: The Human Touch rounds out the opening. All three run through May 31, 2027. Earlier announcements gave November 7 for the Herriman show. The museum's current exhibition page lists November 14.
The Watterson material comes from the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University. The library holds more than 3,000 of his original daily and Sunday strips. Jenny E. Robb, its head curator, organized the exhibition with Watterson. The two main sources count the show a little differently:
- The Billy Ireland's traveling exhibition page lists 133 framed original strips and paintings, examples of Watterson's tools, and nine framed original cartoons by artists who influenced him.
- The Berkshire Eagle reported in January 2026 that the show has 140 works, including watercolor originals and three oil paintings, plus nine works from Watterson's own collection by artists such as Charles Schulz, Ralph Steadman and Garry Trudeau.
The museum's own announcement adds more names to the influence wall: Walt Kelly, Pat Oliphant, Alex Raymond, Berkeley Breathed and George Herriman. In the same release, Chief Curator Stephanie Haboush Plunkett speaks about how these artists connect across generations. Russell Lord, chief of curatorial affairs, traces how Herriman's imaginative settings shaped Watterson. Lord's point explains why the Herriman show is opening alongside the Watterson one. The companion exhibition tells the story of where the strip came from.
One detail has been garbled in some retellings. The museum says it is the first venue to show Exploring Calvin and Hobbes "in its entirety." The Billy Ireland's tour schedule shows the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York, hosted the exhibition from September 13 to December 31, 2025. So Stockbridge is the first full presentation. It is not the first stop on the tour.
A loan with a departure date
The tour schedule also shows when the show leaves. After Stockbridge, it goes to the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, from October 9, 2027 to January 23, 2028. The Ohio State schedule lists Stockbridge through June 1, 2027. The museum's own pages say May 31.
Here is how the run lines up with the town's calendar:
| Window | What is open in Stockbridge |
|---|---|
| Through October 31 | Chesterwood, Pumpkin Show, Summer, 1976 |
| Through November 8 | Rockwell's Studio |
| November 14 to May 31, 2027 | Exploring Calvin and Hobbes, Herriman companion show, The Human Touch |
| November 20 to February 20, 2027 | Many Lights, One Season |
| November 27 to January 2, 2027 | Naumkeag Winterlights |
Almost the whole run falls in the months when Chesterwood and the Mission House are closed. Unless the dates change, the show will have left Stockbridge before summer starts.
The opening weeks, by date
For anyone hoping to hear the curators speak, November matters more than the six months that follow. The museum has set up a series of programs around the opening:
| Date | Program | Time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friday, November 13 | Member exhibition preview reception | 5 to 7 p.m. | Free for members, reservation required |
| Saturday, November 14 | Opening family day | 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Free with admission, no reservation |
| Saturday, November 14 | Curator talk with Jenny Robb | 4 to 5 p.m. | $15, limited seating, reservations required |
| Friday, November 20 | Gallery talk with Russell Lord | 9:30 a.m. | $20 plus admission, $10 for members |
| Friday, December 4 | Gallery talk with Stephanie Haboush Plunkett | 9:30 a.m. | $20 plus admission, $10 for members |
The museum's September announcement listed Robb's talk at $35. Her current event page shows $15, a reduced fee funded by the Art Bridges Cohort Program. She plans to play exclusive recordings of Watterson talking about the strip and how he worked. The event page doesn't say whether museum admission is included, so check when you book.
Planning a visit around a Wednesday
The museum is open all year from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed every Wednesday and on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. That rules out Thanksgiving Thursday, a natural day for a family visit. Admission is $25 for adults, $23 for seniors and retired military, $22 for Massachusetts teachers, $15 for college students, and $5 for ages 6 to 18. Members and children five and under get in free. The museum's visit page recommends booking online because availability is limited. It doesn't say that ordinary admission is timed.
The holiday shows open just after the November 14 opening. Many Lights, One Season opens November 20 with holiday illustrations by Rockwell, Thomas Nast, Jerry Pinkney, William Steig and others, and runs through February 20. Naumkeag Winterlights begins November 27 and runs Wednesdays through Sundays until January 2, 2027. It closes December 24 and 25, and regular evening visitors park off-site and take a shuttle, as at the Pumpkin Show. On Saturday, December 5, during the 37th annual Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas weekend, the museum brings back its walking tour at 10:30 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. For school break, its Let It Snow drop-in art days run December 19, December 26 to 29 and December 31, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The walking tour stops at Rockwell's first studio on Main Street, the Old Corner House and the Red Lion Inn. In December, walkers will also pass the restored 1881 horse trough at Main and Elm Streets. According to Stockbridge Updates, it began going back into place on September 18. Its carved line reads "Utility is Preferable to Grandeur."
The galleries at 9 Glendale Road will be full of Watterson's strips all winter. The Calvin and Hobbes originals are here until May 31, 2027, and the next stop on the tour is Pennsylvania in October 2027.
If you have guests coming for the holidays and want help planning a Stockbridge winter weekend around the new exhibitions, George Cain is glad to share what he knows about the town in the off-season. Let's Connect.
