Past Exhibitions
Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese
Rivals in Renaissance Venice
March 15–August 16, 2009
In the sixteenth century, Venice was one of the largest and richest cities in Europe, and steady demand for paintings from both local and...
Mad on Color
Paintings of Nineteenth-Century Venice
March 7–August 2, 2009
In keeping with the MFA's Venetian theme this spring and summer, a display of European and American canvases is on view in the Upper Hemicycle in "Mad...
Showa Sophistication
Japan in the 1930s
February 11–November 8, 2009
The Museum recently acquired seventeen Japanese paintings largely produced and exhibited in Tokyo in the 1930s—the early Shōwa era—an overlooked...
Splendor and Elegance
European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection
January 22–May 17, 2009
"Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection" features aristocratic European furniture and...
Celebrating Kyoto
Modern Arts from Boston's Sister City
December 10, 2008–September 7, 2009
Celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston-Kyoto Sister City relationship at this vibrant exhibition focusing on contemporary ceramics and...
Photographic Figures
November 19, 2008–May 10, 2009
Artists have long taken advantage of the camera’s ability to capture expressive images of the human form—from gesture or body language, to...
Gentlemen of Suzhou
November 8, 2008–July 13, 2009
In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), Suzhou was a center of beauty, thought, and culture. Many of the period's greatest minds eschewed civil service in...
“And so to Bed”
Indian Bed Curtains from a Stately English Home
November 5, 2008–June 21, 2009
Samuel Pepys, the famous British diarist who often ended his daily entries with "and so to bed," wrote in 1663, "...bought my wife a chintz, that is...
Rachel Whiteread
October 15, 2008–January 25, 2009
"Village...simultaneously encourages and thwarts voyeurism, inviting viewers to peer into one empty room after another. Eventually it turns the tables: the illuminated windows become hundreds of Lilliputian eyes." —The New York Times
Zen Mind/Zen Brush
Japanese Ink Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection
October 1, 2008–January 4, 2009
From the thirteenth through the fifteen centuries Zen monasteries were important centers of religious and cultural learning, but as a spiritual...