Past Exhibitions

Paper Telephone
The Artist Project for the Community Arts Initiative

May 15–July 12, 2009

Boston's individual communities may appear to be unrelated, but by considering the city as a whole, we can begin to understand what we share, and...

SMFA Traveling Scholars

March 28–May 25, 2009

This year's "SMFA Traveling Scholars" exhibition presents work by seven recipients of the 2007 Traveling Scholarship Awards given annually by the...

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...