.crop_.result_listing.jpg "\"Pancama Ragini,\" about 1760")
Indian paintings depicting music visually evoke aspects of specific modes called ragas. The word raga is derived from the Sanskrit root ranj, which means “to color”—use of the word here implies that the affective emotional qualities of music are just as important as the notes...
In the 1920s and early ‘30s German photography was dominated by two distinct approaches to making images. The first, associated with the work and ideas of László Maholy-Nagy (1895-1946), championed unconventional forms and techniques, unexpected vantage points, and playful...
Since Japan dropped its longstanding policy of national isolation in the 1850s, there has been an immensely creative give-and-take between the cultures of Japan and the West. After World War II, especially, many Japanese artists began working in art forms derived from the international scene,...
Recent gifts and purchases have substantially added to the Museum’s collection of late twentieth-century art. This rotation features a variety of newly acquired works, including sculpture, decorative arts, jewelry, textiles, and works on paper.
The MFA celebrates the recent gift of more than forty works by Ed Rossbach in "Ed Rossbach Fiber Art from the Daphne Farago Collection." One of the pioneers in the field of American fiber arts, Ed Rossbach created works in almost every known textile technique during his five-decade-long...
Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, studio jewelry artists—working independently of the commercial jewelry industry—made innovative jewelry that explored contemporary art movements, social issues, and conceptual themes. Using both precious and nontraditional materials, they...
"Giant Inspirations" is an interactive video-projection technique that transforms people into monumental works of art. From October 2006 through May 2007, children between the ages of seven and twelve came to the MFA from eight community centers in Boston. They examined a broad range of...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "\"Koran Page,\" Egyptian, about 1400")
Koran verses from as early as the eighth century were embellished with elaborate gold illumination that was later extended to frontispieces and section headings. Artists developed techniques for transforming gold foil into a fluid pigment and then used brushes and reed pens to apply the gold....
Edward Hopper's luminous paintings captured classic images of middle-class America and made him one of the most popular artists of the twentieth century. This exhibition focuses on the period of Hopper’s greatest achievements—from about 1925 to mid-century—during which he...
Among the masterpieces in the MFA’s collection are three exceptional works inspired by contemporary political events: Edouard Manet's extraordinary “unfinished” canvas of the Execution of the Emperor Maximilian (1867), which closely followed the posthumous publication of...
For over sixty years, Mrs. Geneviève McMillan, a Cambridge resident, has collected African and Oceanic art, a lifelong passion that began when she was student in Paris during World War II. The more than one hundred objects in this exhibition, ranging from sculptures to textiles to musical...
The history of the Weng Collection reads like an epic novel. Assembled primarily during the nineteenth century, the collection has survived the tumult of the last one hundred years of dynastic changes and warfare; remarkably, it remains unscathed and in the care of the original family. Weng...
"SMFA Traveling Scholars" in the Foster Gallery presents recent work by five graduates of the School. All are working in a strong, individual style that is continually evolving. Bethany Bristow is a tourist memorializing her travels in emotional self-portraits. N. Sean Glover creates a...
“Donatello to Giambologna: Italian Renaissance Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” features a fascinating collection that has never been shown as a whole and that remains virtually unknown to the general public and to scholars alike. In fact, several of the masterpieces on...
Artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi uniquely combined the popular theme of beautiful women with his personal specialty, warrior prints showing legendary heroic figures from Japanese and Chinese history. From the historical woman warrior Tomoe to the fictional sorceress Takiyasha, from ancient empresses to...
This exhibition of twenty-five works, created from the late 1950s to the present, celebrates the New England painter and printmaker's gift to the MFA of his archive of editioned prints. The selection reflects Mazur's amazing diversity of style, from expressive figuration to lyrical...
“The Romance of Modernism” features selections from the private collection of Scott M. Black, including impressionist paintings by Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, and Renoir; post-impressionist paintings by Bernard, Denis, Luce, van Rysselbergh, and Signac; modern paintings by...
A selection of colorful mixed-media paintings by Ambreen Butt, recipient of the 2006 Maud Morgan prize, is on view in the Museum's Lower Rotunda through Dec 10. A native of Lahore, Pakistan, Butt attended the National College of Art where she studied Indian and Persian miniature painting,...
Photography and fashion have been inextricably linked since the early 1900s, when fashion magazines rocketed to popularity. In "Fashion Photography," on view in the Trustman Galleries, you can explore fashion photography of the past hundred years by the field's most significant image-...
Paris is the undisputed center of the fashion world, and "Fashion Show: Paris Collections 2006" demonstrates why fashion remains a fine art. Featuring runway garments from the spring and fall/winter collections of ten influential couturiers and designers, the exhibition explores the...
Cecily Brown’s passion for the medium of painting has resulted in grand and ambitious canvases revealing her respect for and inspiration from the history of art. From Goya, Poussin, and the British landscape painters to the abstraction of de Kooning and Mitchell, Brown excavates the past...
Celebrating recent acquisitions, this exhibition only hints at the breadth of ideas realized in a variety of media by artists today. From the sampling of video art in the compilation Point of View to the suggestive forms cast in traditional bronze by John Tracey, the sensitive and perceptive...
Enter the “Domains of Wonder” and explore how vibrant religious and cultural contexts informed the rich history of painting in India. From fourteenth-century paintings of Jain saints and religious manuscripts from Gujarat to vivid paintings from Rajasthan and the Punjab hills that...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Sara Galner, Paul Revere Pottery of the Saturday Evening Girls club, Tea Caddy and Bowl, 1914")
This installation in the Mary Stamas Gallery celebrates a recent gift of more than 130 works by the Saturday Evening Girls of the Paul Revere Pottery (1908–1942). Because of the design and color of the wares, and the reform-minded philosophy of the Pottery, products of the Saturday Evening...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Iizuka Rokansai, \"Longevity (Kotobuki) Basket,\" 1935-45")
Although woven bamboo containers have been used in Japan for thousands of years, it is only during the last century that basketry has emerged as a prestigious art form. From its roots in imitations of Chinese baskets to today’s sometimes extravagantly expressive sculptural works, Japanese...
While members of the Japanese Imperial household, samurai class, and wealthy merchants had the wherewithal to acquire luxurious silk garments and furnishing textiles, most Japanese used cloth made of ramie, a type of hemp fiber, and cotton, which was introduced to Japan in the fifteenth century....
The markets of West Africa are brilliant with color, and nowhere is this more true than in the stalls devoted to printed cloth. New patterns are introduced each year, including classic designs reflecting Indonesian batik patterns to designs showcasing contemporary culture. The six beautiful...
“Designing the Modern Utopia” paints a fascinating picture of a uniquely Soviet experiment in social and sartorial engineering. The exhibition features textiles and drawings from between 1927 and 1933, a short-lived but fascinating phase in Soviet history—when textile design was...
Within the world of Islam there are many different attitudes toward the arts. For sufis, those Muslims who follow a mystical path, creating art is itself a form of religious practice. The visual and musical traditions taught and performed at the Özbekler Tekke, a religious complex for sufi...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Dong Qichang, \"One Leaf from an Album of Landscapes, Rocks, and Trees,\" Ming dynasty, before 1636")
The controversial painter Dong Qichang (1555–1626) is alternately regarded as the greatest artist in Chinese history or simply clumsy with the brush. “Understanding the Master: Dong Qichang and His Circle” confronts Dong’s complexity by offering a rich selection of his...
Comprising 23 paintings and works on paper, “Sargent, Chase, and Cassatt: Master Paintings from a Private Collection” makes an excellent complement to the sweeping exhibition “Americans in Paris, 1860–1900.” This superb selection of paintings, on view in the Hilles...
"When today we look for 'American art' we find it mainly in Paris. When we find it out of Paris, we at least find a good deal of Paris in it." —Henry James, 1887 Explore the romance and magnetic attraction of the French capital to nineteenth-century American artists...
Laura McPhee’s stunning large-scale color photographs juxtapose idealized images of the land against the disarming reality of life in the twenty-first century. Boston-based photographer McPhee spent more than two years in a remote area of central Idaho capturing images that address...
“On Stage in Osaka: Actor Prints from the MFA Collection” includes distinctive prints made during the nineteenth century in Osaka that have never before appeared in an exhibition. Until recently, interest in Japanese prints has focused primarily on the works made in Tokyo (called Edo...
The best-known British artist of his generation, David Hockney portrays friends, family, and lovers—and himself—in works that have become icons of our times. For five decades, David Hockney’s portraits have expressed this influential artist’s passion for life. Curious,...
"SMFA Traveling Scholars" in the Foster Gallery presents recent work by seven graduates of the School. All seven share a passion and dedication to their work and a strong style that reflects the School's philosophy of nurturing individual artistic development. Working in a variety...
In the spring of 1966, the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium, two separate venues near the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco simultaneously began promoting weekly rock concerts by local musicians. The bands who played at these dance concerts—including Jefferson Airplane,...
Immediately following the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry’s “black ships” in 1853, Japan cast aside its self-imposed isolation from the international community and embarked upon an unprecedented program of modernization. The nation, under the leadership of Emperor Meiji,...
“Degas to Picasso: Modern Masters” is an ambitious, kaleidoscopic survey of European art from 1900 to the 1960s. This unprecedented panorama of modernism from the MFA’s collection occupies the Torf and Trustman Galleries as well as the Museum’s Lower Rotunda, presenting a...
Cubism was the watershed moment of twentieth-century art. In about 1907 Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque broke sharply with traditions in western painting. They discarded pictorial illusionism and linear perspective to create images that reflected a new experience of everyday reality. As Picasso...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Shelley Reed, \"Stealing Grapes (after Oudry),\" 2005")
A selection of striking paintings by Shelley Reed, recipient of the 2005 Maud Morgan prize, is on view in the Museum's Lower Rotunda through Dec 11. The works displayed include nine paintings created in 2005. Reed's haunting black-and-white paintings are inspired by seventeenth-century...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "\"Chief's Ring with Starburst,\" Akan, twentieth century")
The Akan peoples, one of the largest ethnic groups in Ghana and Ivory Coast, are culturally similar and speak closely related languages. They have always associated gold with wealth, power, and prestige. Rich local mines continue to provide this precious metal in an area of West Africa with a...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Katsumata Chieko, \"Coral Sculpture,\" 1998")
Japan today is home to the world's most vibrant ceramic culture, with many thousands of potters working the length and breadth of the country. Featuring 60 examples made by more than 35 artists over the last two decades, this exhibition-the first of its kind at the MFA-offers a snapshot of...
Innovation replaces tradition in the special exhibition of the luminous, textured shawls of cutting-edge designer Minagawa Makiko. Her sensual fabrics, such as the ikat-dyed silk doublecloth used in the stole Iznik Glass (above), are featured in the designs of Issey Miyake and now in her own line...
“Zhang Huan: Seeds of Hamburg” showcases a powerful performance by Chinese artist Zhang Huan, known for his ritualistic body art. In 2002, at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, Germany, the artist coated himself in honey and birdseed, and entered a cage where doves pecked the seeds away....
Founder of The Oxbow Group, one of the top 500 privately held companies in America, William I. Koch is an international businessman, chemical engineer trained at MIT, world-class sailor, and devoted father. A benefactor of the Museum, Koch is also a passionate collector, described by The New York...
Take a new look at the work of this great American landscape photographer through an outstanding selection of images from The Lane Collection. You’re likely to see an Ansel Adams you’ve never seen before. Because the exhibition is drawn from the largest private holding of his work in...
Explore the rich traditions of Asian music in this exhibition of intricately designed instruments from throughout the continent—from Japan to Turkey, Tibet to Indonesia. The exhibition features well over 100 instruments from the MFA’s collections, augmented by loans. Paintings, prints...
![Getsuzô, "By Destroying the Enemy Wire Entanglements [Japanese Forces] Capture the Enemy Fortress at Nanshan," 1904](http://www.mfa.org/sites/default/files/images/FPO_2000.449.1-3 By Destroying the Enemy Wire Entanglements.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Getsuzô, \"By Destroying the Enemy Wire Entanglements [Japanese Forces] Capture the Enemy Fortress at Nanshan,\" 1904")
The first major military conflict of the modern age, the fierce campaigns of the Russo-Japanese War were closely observed by Japan and the West alike. This exhibition of Japanese prints, photographs, and postcards from the era commemorates the centennial of the 1905 signing of the Portsmouth Treaty...
Inspired by the arrival of "Ansel Adams" in the Gund Gallery, we mined the riches of our collection of works on paper for prints, photographs, watercolors, and drawings that convey different visions of the Western landscape and its inhabitants—native peoples, gold miners, migrants,...
See the quilts The New York Times called “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced,” when this widely hailed exhibition stops in Boston on its nationwide tour. “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” features more than sixty quilts made between 1930...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Peter Wozena, “Proposal for an Oldsmobile,” 1958")
“Future Retro: Drawings from the Great Age of American Automobiles” showcases the beauty and ingenuity of American automotive design during the decades following World War II, a landmark period in car styling. Drawn entirely from the collection of Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf, this...
"Rockwell and the Red Sox" honors Opening Day of the World Champion Boston Red Sox season. The display centers on The Rookie by beloved American artist Norman Rockwell. This famous painting, briefly on loan to the Museum and rarely seen in Boston, depicts the Red Sox locker room in 1957...
.result_listing.jpg "1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe. The Ralph Lauren Car Collection. Photograph © 2004 Michael Furman")
More than any other modern artifact, the automobile dramatically changed the way we live. Like any art form, car design reflects changes in fashion, technology, and societal attitudes. In its first exhibition devoted to car design, the MFA displays sixteen magnificent automobiles from the...
Take advantage of this rare opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes view of our conservation staff at work. This intricate mosaic was excavated in the 1930s at the site of ancient Antioch, in what is now southeastern Turkey. The city was a center of culture and learning and its people were known...
Among the most influential living artists, Damien Hirst has received both praise and contempt for his thoughtful and often provocative paintings, sculpture, and installations. As an art student at the University of London’s Goldsmiths College, Hirst organized "Freeze" in 1988, an...
Ever since the 1890s, when Monet produced his influential serial paintings of cathedrals and haystacks, modern artists have been stimulated by the idea of working in series. From Kandinsky woodcuts, to Warhol screenprints, to Winters linocuts, twentieth-century artists have used prints to explore...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Anonymous, \"Goshawk Mews,\" 17th century")
The samurai of seventeenth-century Japan faced a perplexing new problem: peace. They needed new outlets for their military skills and energies. Falconry, the sport of hunting using trained birds of prey, suited these new needs perfectly. The fondness of early shoguns for falconry, both as a sport...
The mid-nineteenth century was a fascinating period of industrial expansion, technical innovation, and exuberant fashion. As machines began to replace traditional hand sewing and the first synthetic dye was invented (in 1856), women’s fashions in particular represented a confluence of style...
The work of Cerith Wyn Evans defies easy categorization. After graduating from London’s Royal College of Art in 1984, Wyn Evans directed experimental films and music videos. He gained a reputation during the 1990s as an artist who transformed complex issues of communication and perception...
Art Deco, arguably the most popular style of the twentieth century, is indelibly linked to the modern world. "Art Deco: 1910–1939" displays dazzling facets of the era, opening a door to an age of refined design, elegant lifestyle, and modern technologies. An overwhelming success at...
Josef Sudek, known as "the poet of Prague" was one of the most original photographers of the twentieth century. This exhibition features his lyrically expressive still lifes, landscapes, and architectural views from the recently acquired Sonja Bullaty and Angelo Lomeo Collection,...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Proto-Panaitian Group, \"Drinking cup (kylix) depicting pentathletes,\" 510-500 B.C.")
Athletics were a key component of ancient Greek life from the founding of the Olympic Games in 776 B.C. until the banishment of pagan festivals and games in the late fourth century A.D. The MFA has one of the best collections of such imagery. The objects in this tour represent a wide range of dates...
Bright lights, piles of rubbish, and shadowy figures characterize urban centers; they are also the primary elements in the art of the British team Tim Noble and Sue Webster. Since their 1996 London solo exhibition, "British Rubbish," Noble and Webster have created a thoughtful body of...