.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Artist unknown, \"To Tomita Beach,\" early Showa era, 1936")
During the first decades of the twentieth century, the new medium of the postcard quickly replaced the traditional woodblock print as the favored tableau for contemporary Japanese images. Hundreds of millions of postcards were produced to meet the demands of a public eager to acquire pictures of...
The dragon was considered the king of animals in Chinese culture and the symbol was often incorporated into lavish costumes brocaded and embroidered with silk and gold-metallic yarns. The jifu, or dragon robe as it became known in the West, was the most common type of dress worn by Chinese court...
Thanks to the generosity of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MFA had the unparalleled opportunity to exhibit a beautiful and rare painting: Johannes Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher. For a limited time only, this work was on view in the Matthew and Edna Goodrich Brown Gallery...
The essence of immortality—6,000 years of jade on view The Chinese appreciate jade for its beauty, but also as a symbol of five human virtues: kindness, integrity, wisdom, courage, and purity. Jade is also believed to provide protection from harm and to preserve immortality. "Chinese...
Jacques Callot (1592-1635) was one of the most important European graphic artists of his time, and his neat, precise etching style influenced printmakers for nearly three hundred years. Born in Lorraine, Callot learned printmaking in Italy, where he created a multitude of sprightly prints for the...
The MFA has acquired the most important paintings, drawings, and sculpture from an exceptional collection assembled by the late Melvin Blake (a maxillofacial surgeon) and Frank Purnell (radiologist), both of New York. Beginning in the 1960s and throughout the next four decades, they assembled a...
At a moment in time when large format, digitally manipulated color photographs compete with paintings for our attention, Adam Fuss continues to make pictures of unrivaled beauty and mystery with traditional and historical photographic techniques. His exploration of the processes for making...
Cuddly lions are generally not associated with Egypt, where these awesome beasts often serve as temple guardians or symbolize the power of kingship. However, this lovable feline from the Met--its head resting puppylike on its paws--dates to the Early Dynastic Period, a formative era in Egyptian art...
, 1973.result_listing.jpg "Joseph Beuys, untitled (Blackboard), 1973.jpg")
The artworks in "Building a Collection" share two important qualities: each is a significant addition to the Museum’s distinguished collection, and each was recently acquired through donation or purchase. This gathering of work reveals the broad definition of contemporary art at the...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "\"Ruby cup with plum blossom,\" Chinese, early 18th century")
"Earth Transformed: Chinese Ceramics in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston," was a special installation of 79 Chinese ceramics from the museum's renowned collection, including 30 new acquisitions, that coincided with the publication of the catalogue: Earth Transformed. Seventy-nine...
In the late 90's, Photographer William Wegman began making large-format Polaroid portraits of his dogs dressed in contemporary designer fashions. This exhibition, which featured the artist's favorite models wearing couture clothing as well as stylish hats, handbags and shoes, was organized...
"A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston 1870-1940," presents over eighty of the finest paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts created by women at the turn of the last century. Drawn equally from the MFA's holdings, other museums and institutions, and private collections, the...
For more than a millennium, the integral relationship between nature and art has been a highly revered belief in Chinese culture, particularly among the literati (scholar-gentlemen). These men had great respect for nature’s ability to create its own "works of art." They avidly...
A lively display of extraordinary objects created by ordinary people, “American Folk” is the first major exhibition of folk art at the Museum. Showcasing our pioneering collection and enriched by important works lent by area collectors, the exhibition features monumental family...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "F. Holland Day, \"The Seven Last Words,\" 1898")
This exhibition presented the multifaceted aspects of the life and work of the fascinating Boston figure Fred Holland Day, a turn-of-the-century eccentric who made significant contributions to artistic photography. Initially, Day made his name in fine book publishing, founding with his friend...
The sophistication and elegance of fin-de-siècle Boston was expressed in this exhibition of drawings, prints, posters, and books by artists working in Boston in the decades around 1900. Some one hundred works on paper, as well as a few oil paintings and decorative objects, explored the...
From the royal courts of Europe to the fans at Woodstock, the guitar has captivated audiences for centuries. In the first exhibition dedicated to its visual design and evolution, "Dangerous Curves: Art of the Guitar" revealed how fashion, technology, and musical tastes have literally...
In response to personal tragedies and a world darkening with the rise of Nazi persecution, a young German Jewish woman created a series of small paintings remarkable for their inventiveness and the intimate story they reveal. However, equally impressive is the fact that, unlike their creator, who...
The simplicity of the materials used to create "Reflexion" belie the overwhelming effect of this evocative installation conceived by contemporary French artist Christian Boltanski (born 1944). Although a generation apart from Charlotte Salomon, Boltanski has also found his biography...
Whether made by schoolgirls to practice their needlework skills, by amateur embroiderers to collect stitches and patterns, or by professionals to provide examples of their work, samplers have served to display the best in embroidery techniques. For centuries, both designs and stitches have remained...
In 1927, a noted critic proclaimed photography "the new art of the twentieth century" and Edward Weston among its few "unquestioned masters." Weston (1886-1958) is best known for his still-lifes of peppers and shells, his heroic portraits, and his abstract close-ups of nudes,...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Nan Freeman, \"Tiara I,\" 1999")
Tiaras, long associated with grand occasions and glamorous women, were once at the top of the hierarchy of jewelry. From the late eighteenth century until well into the twentieth, tiaras were potent symbols of high rank and affluence and were displayed at court ceremonies, gala evenings, and the...
Paper marbling, ebrû in Turkish, is a traditional art of the Islamic world. The marbler creates the colorful, swirling patterns of ebrû by floating paints on a liquid and picking them up on paper. Feridun Özgören, a Turkish artist living in Boston, adapts traditional ebr...
This exhibition brought together working and presentation drawings and watercolors for the decorative arts from the Renaissance to the present. Based on the Museum’s permanent collection, including many recent acquisitions, and enriched by loans from private collections, "Drawn to Design...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Ram's head rhyton, Near Eastern, Iranian, Persian, Iron Age, 3rd century B.C.")
The greatest concentration of gold and silver treasure from ancient Europe has come to light in the Republic of Bulgaria, the heart of the territory of the ancient Thracians. The finest of the Bulgarian finds form the core of this exhibition. Some of Bulgaria’s gold treasures date from...
Art of the ancient Mediterranean world has been a vital and enduring source of inspiration for artists. Since Rome’s conquest of Greece and adoption of its artistic legacy, artists have looked to the classical world in search of forms to lend beauty and prestige to art of their own era. While...
Through the eye of his camera, Abelardo Morell explores with the ways in which we perceive our everyday world. His pictures magically transform the familiar, forcing us to look at objects of daily life from new and surprising points of view. Morell started taking pictures that explore reality and...
In 1893 the Museum of Fine Arts acquired its first important carpet: an action-packed pictorial rug woven during the reign of Mughal Indian emperor Akbar (1556–1605). Donated by the widow of Boston capitalist Frederick L. Ames, this carpet had been selected for Ames’s house by the...
This exhibition explored the multiple nature of original prints. From the 1890s on, the Museum’s print collection has been characterized by the collecting and exhibiting of more than one impression from a single engraving or etching plate, woodblock, or lithography stone. The comparison of...
In his exploration of color and form, the American modernist painter Arthur G. Dove (1880-1946) pushed the limits of the materials he used in his finished pieces, creating strongly evocative images. This installation presents watercolors, studies in mixed media, and other works on paper that are...
Wallace & Gromit, Aardman Animation's Oscar-winning clay animation duo, were featured at the MFA in 1998. Daily screenings of the acclaimed trilogy "A Grand Day Out," "The Wrong Trousers," and "A Close Shave" invited visitors to become fully acquainted...
This exhibition celebrated London's Victoria and Albert Museum—the largest and most important museum of the decorative arts in the world. Its collections of more than four million objects include furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, sculpture, paintings, books, prints, drawings...
Drawing has always played a vital role in American art-making. The traditional practice of drawing from the human figure (which originated in European art academies in the sixteenth century) was an essential component of artistic training from the founding of the first art academies in the United...
The imaginative style of decoration known as chinoiserie reflects a fascination by Westerners with the luxurious wares of Asia that reaches back into antiquity. For centuries, exchange between East and West was sporadic, and Cathay (China) remained more a myth than a reality. But during...
The German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was one of history's most creative graphic artists. The central figure in Northern European printmaking in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Dürer bridged the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The MFA...
"Dressing Up: Children's Fashions 1720-1920" illustrated the developments in children's clothing from the early eighteenth century through the beginning of the twentieth century. More than forty costumes, predominantly from the Museum's permanent collection, were on view along...
.crop_.result_listing.jpg "Alfred Stieglitz, \"Music: A Sequence of Ten Cloud Photographs (No. 1),\" 1922")
Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), photographer, editor and gallery owner, was the key figure in America's acceptance of photography as a serious form of artistic expression. He was also a passionate promoter of modernist art, both European and American. Stieglitz forms a living bridge between...
Of the United States, Walt Whitman wrote, "Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations." The great movement of peoples to the United States, and to Canada, Central America, and South America, provided a cultural matrix within which developed many rich artistic traditions...