In 1989, Hawley became the fourth museum director of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. Hawley made it her mission to ensure that the institution would not only preserve Isabella Stewart Gardner’s extraordinary collection, but also serve as a dynamic cultural resource for artists, musicians, scholars, visitors, and the Greater Boston community, just as it did in Mrs. Gardner’s day. Modeled after a Venetian palazzo, the galleries surround a verdant courtyard and are home to paintings, sculptures, textiles, furniture, books, journals and letters, that seek to inspire generations of artists and visitors. Included in the collection are masterpieces by Rembrandt, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo, Whistler, and Sargent.