Hippie Chic
“She Who Tells a Story” introduces the pioneering work of twelve leading women photographers from Iran and the Arab world: Jananne Al-Ani, Boushra Almutawakel, Gohar Dashti, Rana El Nemr, Lalla Essaydi, Shadi Ghadirian, Tanya Habjouqa, Rula Halawani, Nermine Hammam, Rania Matar, Shirin...
Another visiting masterpiece has arrived as part of the 2013 Year of Italian Culture. Piero della Francesca’s 15th-century tempera and oil on panel, the Senigallia Madonna (1470s) is normally on view in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, in the Ducal Palace of Urbino. This exceptional...
American art of the 1940s and ’50s was dominated by the gestural style known as Abstract Expressionism. In love with spontaneity and happy accidents, and favoring inspiration from the subconscious, artists invented a highly original American art language that triumphed internationally....
In the era of Art Nouveau, from the 1890s through the turn of the century, there was a flourishing of new, imaginative art and craft throughout Europe. Holland also saw an explosion of inventive art and design in this period, including many expressive works on paper—posters, decorative...
Etching as a printmaking medium emerged in the early 16th century in Germany and Italy, but its full creative potential only was realized with Rembrandt Harmensz. Van Rijn’s activity as an etcher from 1630 to 1661. This exhibition of 45 works, drawn primarily from the MFA’s collection,...
As author and illustrator of The Birds of America, John James Audubon (1785–1851) traveled thousands of miles throughout the United States and Canada to seek out and draw North American birds in their natural habitats. In the book’s enormous pages—each more than three feet high...
“Sacred Pages” offers visitors a way to broaden their understanding of the Qur’an, Islam, and Islamic art. Drawing upon the MFA’s rich collection of loose pages from Qur’ans dating from medieval to modern times, this exhibition showcases 25 examples, illustrating their...
This exhibition celebrates the Lane Collection, renowned for its deep holdings of the work of major American modernist photographers, including Charles Sheeler, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams—and given to the MFA by Saundra Lane in 2012. In addition to the early 20th-century American works...
Mannerist artists went to extremes in their treatment of the human body. In the years after Raphael’s death in 1520, complex poses, intricate gestures, and esoteric symbolism replaced the harmony and balance of the High Renaissance. A self-consciously “stylish” style, Mannerism...
Since graduating from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA 1999), Ridley Howard has explored how 21st-century painting might capture intense yet oblique emotion. He pares down color and geometry into delicately composed portraits, landscapes, and abstractions that recall the cool psychology...
What would it be like to live with works of art? This is the question artist Andrew Oesch posed to children from the MFA’s eight partner community organizations in this year’s Community Arts Initiative Artist Project. Through drawings, writing, and performance exercises, the...
Nineteenth-century Japanese color printing’s highest level of accomplishment is seen in the small, exquisite works known as surimono, which were produced on commission for private, individual customers. Because they were not sold to the general public, these prints were not limited either by...
“Loïs Mailou Jones” presents 30 paintings and drawings by the distinguished, internationally acclaimed graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Born and raised in Boston, Jones attended the SMFA during high school and earned a scholarship that enabled her to receive her...
Contemporary art has a dynamic home at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, located in the MFA’s dramatic I. M. Pei-designed building. The wing features seven galleries introducing innovative approaches to contemporary art within the context of...
What is a gem? "Jewels, Gems, and Treasures: Ancient to Modern," the first exhibition in the Museum's new Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation Gallery, examines the various roles and meanings associated with a wide range of gem materials. Drawn from the MFA...
The centerpiece of the MFA’s historic expansion is a spectacular new wing for the Art of the Americas collection, which will double the number of objects from the collection on view, including several large-scale masterpieces not displayed for decades. Learn more about the new wing.
