BOSTON -- Isabella Stewart Gardner opened her museum on New Year's night 1903, marking the occasion with a performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and plying her guests with the unusual combination of champagne and doughnuts.

A century later, the museum is marking its birthday with a series of celebrations that include artist Joseph Kosuth's neon creations, special exhibits, concerts and lectures.

Born in 1840, Gardner was one of the foremost female patrons of the arts. She founded the first art museum in the United States created solely from a personal collection, says Cathy Deely, the museum's director of marketing.

She was a supporter and friend of leading artists and writers of her time, including John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler and Henry James.

Plans bring in visitors

Over three decades, Gardner, also known as "Mrs. Jack" in reference to her husband John L. "Jack" Gardner, traveled the globe amassing a remarkable collection of master and decorative arts. In 1903, she realized her life's dream, unveiling "Fenway Court," a neo-Renaissance palace on Boston's Back Bay Fens that made the collection available to the public.

Museum director Anne Hawley hopes the special 100th anniversary events over the next 18 months will keep bringing people to the museum, even after the next year.

"In Gardner's time, she says, 'America is a very young country and people don't have much chance to see beautiful things,"' Hawley says. "Today we have so many museums in America, but they all struggle terribly.

"We're hoping this centennial will lift people's appreciation of the museum," she says.

Gardner had the museum designed around a central flowering courtyard, a reflection of her love of flowers. In April, 8-foot-long nasturtiums are hung from the balconies in honor of her birthday on April 14.

When concerts are held in the Tapestry Room, the music can be heard wafting through the museum. In May, Vivaldi concerts, which are already sold out, will be performed in the courtyard.

Others just choose to read or relax in the courtyard.

"It's a place of contemplation. You often see people sitting on the edges of the courtyard gazing. Sometimes people are reading there," Deely says. "In the dead of winter when you come in from that gray cold outside and you see that gorgeous garden, it's really a special treat. You can transport yourself to a Mediterranean sculpture garden," Deely says.

Anchoring the centennial exhibit is Kosuth, a contemporary artist described as a "pioneer of the conceptual arts movement."

On an exterior wall of the museum's Monk's Garden is a white neon installation, "Whistler's Warning," based on a lecture by Whistler in which he fired back at his critics.

Kosuth's other contributions include "Guests & Foreigners: Three Faces of a Correspondence," a series of timelines about and surrounding the creation of the Gardner Museum.

For the piece, Kosuth, the museum's artist-in-residence, pulled phrases drawn from the documents inside exhibit cases and embroidered them onto protective cloth coverings. Visitors are allowed to lift up the covers to reveal the treasures hidden underneath.

One cloth conceals a copy of Beethoven's death mask, given to Gardner by her friend Clayton Johns, a composer and pianist who taught at the New England Conservatory of Music. Another covers a Viola given to her by musician Charles Loeffler.

From April 23 to Aug. 21 the museum will feature an exhibit entitled, "The Making of a Museum: Isabella Stewart Gardner as Collector, Architect & Designer." This exhibit will feature photos of the museum's construction, as well as the diary of architect Willard T. Sears. It marks the first time these items will be on display to the public.

Also included will be a blueprint of the museum's rear interior courtyard wall, a charcoal John Singer Sargent sketch and a journal Gardner kept during her travels to Japan.

Unfortunately, visitors don't get to appreciate all the museum once had to offer. In March 1990, two thieves posing as police officers brazenly entered the museum and made off with 13 art works, including three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a Manet and five works by Degas.