Great works of art can deepen our understanding of the world around us. As we confront the current events shaping this period in history, art can offer solace, clarity, and perspective. Through Art for This Moment, MFA staff, artists, and others share objects from across our collections that carry personal significance and global resonance.
Taihu Rock
Nancy Berliner
When you go to the beach, do you pick up pebbles or stones that appeal to you—that speak to you, so to speak? You feel strongly that you want this one…
Resisting Temptation
Linton Young
I have a secret. A shameful, potentially career-ending secret. I want to touch the art. I would never do it of course; I am a museum professional…
Ganesha with His Consorts
Laura Weinstein
Any day now when we step outside, despite our face masks, we will know the air has changed. Fall is approaching, and along with it, many other things…
Tribal Map
Marina Tyquiengco and Tess Lukey and Layla Bermeo
Artist and activist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith recreates the map of the United States, luring us in with its instantly recognizable shape, only to…
Striding Amazon
Nonie Gadsden
With head bowed, face taut, and fist clenched around a rock, this muscular nude figure of a woman practically vibrates with intensity, strength…
The Pool, Medfield
Erica E. Hirshler
A perfect summer day in New England with a clear blue sky. The musical burble of a small brook, birdsong, and the hum of insects. The air is hot…
Madonna of the Clouds
Marietta Cambareri
If a family owned one work of art in Renaissance Florence, it was likely a Madonna and Child, a devotional object around which domestic life and…
False Door of Khufuankh
Pamela Hatchfield
About 4,500 years ago in the western cemetery in Giza, Egypt, a great commotion stirred in the shadow of the newly built pyramids. Workmen were…
Bench with Back
Hannah Goodwin
July 26 marked the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the heart of which is made up of two goals: equality and an end to…
Head of a Priest (The Boston Green Head)
Lawrence M. Berman
Throughout history, events uncontrollable and unforeseen have intervened to derail our best-laid plans. One of my favorite objects in the MFA’s…
Prints and Drawings for This Moment
Patrick Murphy and Meghan Melvin
Of all the various media in the MFA’s collection, the graphic arts—prints and drawings—are among the most nimble. A draftsperson can pick up a pencil…
Appeal to the Great Spirit
Joseph Zordan
Statues and monuments across the world are being toppled, and in the process, so too are the myths that upheld them. A few years ago, when I was an…
Vote Quilt
Lauren Whitley
Over many generations, the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, a rural, majority Black community, have made quilts with remarkable innovation and creativity…
Elijah in the Desert
Maureen Melton
On February 4, 2020, the MFA turned 150 years old. We had just begun celebrating the auspicious anniversary when the COVID-19 pandemic forced this…
Rock Bottom
David Hilliard
When I was in seventh or eighth grade, I went on a school field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to visit an exhibition on the 18th-century…