“Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane, Master Drawings from the Casa Buonarroti” features a rich and varied selection of 26 works from the master’s collection, preserved in the artist's family home, the Casa Buonarroti, in Florence. The exhibition includes many of...
"Blue and white" means, at its simplest, cobalt pigment applied to white clay. Over the course of a millennium, blue-and-white porcelain has become one of the most recognized types of ceramic production worldwide. With roots in the Islamic world and Asia, and strong presence in Europe and...
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...
Watch the story of the Triumph of the Winter Queen unfold in an immersive media experience, as Gerrit van Honthorst’s painting is brought to life. The tale is dramatized through passages from the royal couple’s letters, maps, music—and even falling snow. On view in the Loring...
This exhibition celebrates the MFA’s recent acquisition of the 43 prints by renowned New York photographer Bruce Davidson that were originally showcased in his groundbreaking show, “East 100th Street,” at the Museum of Modern Art in 1970. These powerful images capture the...
“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...
The international poster mania of the 1890s made fine art accessible to the masses, bringing it out of the salon into the streets and shop windows. Great posters proliferated, however, long after this “golden age,” as revealed by the standout images in “Art in the Street”...
Chinese lacquer, derived from the sap or resin of trees native to China, has been made for more than 2,000 years. Technically challenging and time-consuming to create, lacquer was considered a luxury material, on par with gold and silver, and was created for the Imperial court and wealthy elite,...
The official philosophy of Korea’s Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) was Confucianism. Buddhism was suppressed during this period, but in practice, many, including the royal family, continued to believe in Buddhism and to support temples financially. Many temples moved out of the towns to...
“Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Royalty on Paper” features examples of the various ways in which European rulers and their aristocratic followers have been represented on paper from the sixteenth century to 1900. In several instances (as with Emperor Maximilian I of Austria, Henri II...
Shortly after photographer Mario Testino went to England from his native Peru in 1976, he took his first photograph of British royalty, an impromptu shot of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and her grandson, Prince Edward, as they passed by crowds gathered in London’s streets to...
Beginning in the first decades of the nineteenth century, artists and writers were drawn to the pristine beauty of north New Hampshire's natural wonders: majestic peaks in the Franconia and Presidential ranges crowned by Mount Washington, the highest summit in the northeast; Crawford, Pinkham...
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.