A Museum of and for the world, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, celebrates 50 years of traveling exhibitions.
Since 1973, our traveling exhibition program has partnered with museums and cultural institutions around the world to share MFA collections and scholarship.
Over the last decade, MFA traveling exhibitions have welcomed more than 15 million global visitors. We invite you to experience the MFA in Boston and around the world.
Upcoming Traveling Exhibitions
Dutch Art in a Global Age: Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
In the 17th century Dutch merchants sailed across seas and oceans, joining trade networks that stretched from Asia to the Americas and Africa. The unprecedented movement of goods, ideas, and people fueled the economy and sparked an artistic boom. “Dutch Art in a Global Age” presents highlights from the MFA’s collection with an innovative thesis: arranged thematically, the exhibition explores the intersections between art, commercial networks, and colonial expansion. See paintings by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Gerrit Dou, Jacob van Ruisdael, Rachel Ruysch, and other celebrated artists, complemented by exquisite silver and ceramic decorative arts and superb impressions from the Museum’s world-renowned print collection.
North Carolina Museum of Art
Raleigh, North Carolina
September 16, 2023–January 7, 2024
Kimbell Art Museum
Fort Worth, Texas
November 10, 2024–February 9, 2025
Check back soon for additional host museums.
Hokusai: Inspiration and Influence—from the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Thanks to the popularity of the instantly recognizable Great Wave—cited everywhere from book covers and Lego sets to anime and emoji— Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) has become one of the most famous and influential artists in the world. This major exhibition takes a new approach to the work of the versatile master, pairing more than 100 of his woodblock prints, paintings, and illustrated books from the MFA’s collection with more than 200 works by his teachers, students, rivals, and admirers. Explore Hokusai’s impact through the centuries and around the globe, on artists from Winslow Homer and Yoshitomo Nara to Loïs Mailou Jones and John Cederquist.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Boston, Massachusetts
March 26–July 16, 2023
Seattle Art Museum
Seattle, Washington
October 19, 2023–January 21, 2024
Check back soon for additional host museums.
Tattoos in Japanese Prints from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Some of the world’s most popular tattoo motifs trace back to early 19th-century Edo (present-day Tokyo), where tattoo artists took inspiration from color woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e. Today, the global popularity of tattoos has brought renewed attention to the centuries-old Japanese tradition. Drawn from the MFA’s world-class collection of Japanese art, “Tattoos in Japanese Prints” looks closely at the social background, iconography, and visual splendor of tattoos through the printed media that helped carry them from the streets of Edo-period Japan to 21st-century tattoo shops all over the world.
Asian Art Museum
San Francisco, California
May 31–August 18, 2019
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Boston, Massachusetts
November 20, 2021–February 20, 2022
Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens
Jacksonville, Florida
October 21, 2023–January 14, 2024
Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Quilts and coverlets have a unique capacity to tell stories: their tactile, intricate mode of creation and traditional use in the home impart the deeply personal narratives of their creators, and the many histories they express reveal a complex portrait America. Upending expectations about quilt displays, which are traditionally organized by region, form, or motif, “Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories” is a loosely chronological presentation that voices multiple perspectives. See and hear from a diverse group of artists, educators, academics, and activists, including both known and unidentified female and male urban and rural makers; immigrants; and Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, and LGBTQIA+ Americans. Celebrate the artistry and intricacy of quilts and coverlets and the lives they document while also considering the complicated legacies ingrained in the fabric of American life.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Boston, Massachusetts
October 10, 2021–January 17, 2022
Skirball Cultural Center and Museum
Los Angeles, California
November 17, 2022–March 12, 2023
Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens
Jacksonville, Florida
July 5–September 29, 2024
Check back soon for additional host museums.
Thinking Small: Dutch Art to Scale
“Thinking Small: Dutch Art to Scale” explores an intriguing selection of small-scale works in various media from the 17th-century Netherlands that were designed to elicit slow, intimate, and contemplative engagement on the part of their original audiences. In their size or intricacy, the objects compel viewers to reconsider their relationship with the world around them. This exhibition is part of a series of collaborations between the Center for Netherlandish Art (CNA) and its academic partners that draws on the MFA’s collection of Dutch and Flemish art in new ways, bringing diverse perspectives to the forefront while showcasing cross-disciplinary scholarship. Curated by graduate students at Yale University and organized by the Yale University Art Gallery in partnership with the Center for Netherlandish Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
February 17–July 23, 2023
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Boston, Massachusetts
November 18, 2023–November 3, 2024
Recent Traveling Exhibitions
Ancient Nubia
This exhibition of magnificent jewelry, pottery, sculpture, metalwork, and more from the MFA’s collection of ancient Nubian art examines power, representation, and cultural biases in the ancient world, in the early 20th century and today. The majestic display of art and objects confronts past misinterpretations and offers new ways of understanding Nubia’s history and contemporary relevance. Undertaken between 1913 and 1932, the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition was among the first to conduct scientific excavations in Sudan, leading the way in recovering ancient Nubian material culture. As a result, the MFA houses the largest and finest Nubian collection outside Khartoum.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Ancient Nubia Now
Boston, Massachusetts
October 13, 2019–January 20, 2020
Saint Louis Art Museum
Nubia: Treasure of Ancient Africa
Saint Louis, Missouri
April 18–August 22, 2021
The Getty Villa
Nubia: Jewels of Ancient Sudan
Los Angeles, California
October 12, 2022–April 3, 2023
High Museum of Art
Ancient Nubia: Art of the 25th Dynasty from the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Atlanta, Georgia
June 2–September 3, 2023
Ansel Adams in Our Time
“Ansel Adams in Our Time” traces the iconic visual legacy of Ansel Adams (1902–84), presenting some of his most celebrated photographs—from the symphonic view of snow-dusted peaks in The Tetons and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming (1942) to the aerial shot of a knotted roadway in Freeway Interchange, Los Angeles (1967). The exhibition looks both backward and forward in time: Adams’s black-and-white photographs are displayed alongside prints by 19th-century government survey photographers who greatly influenced the artist, as well as work by contemporary artists whose modern-day concerns about the environment, land rights, and the use and misuse of natural resources point directly to Adams’s legacy.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Boston, Massachusetts
December 13, 2018–February 24, 2019
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Bentonville, Arkansas
September 19, 2020–January 3, 2021
Portland Art Museum
Portland, Oregon
May 5–August 1, 2021
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, de Young
San Francisco, California
April 8–July 23, 2023
The Heroes—Chronicles of the Warriors: Japanese Swords x Ukiyo-e from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Of the 100,000 works of Japanese art in the MFA’s collection, the roughly 50,000 ukiyo-e prints and close to 600 swords are known to be among the highest caliber in the world, both in quantity and quality. This exhibition uniquely highlights the Museum’s parallel collections of Japanese swords and tsuba in juxtaposition with select ukiyo-e prints. With 27 tsuba and 20 swords carefully selected by sword expert Harada Kazutoshi, “The Heroes” offers a novel exploration of iconic stories, characters, and moments in history, as prints depicting warriors are brought to life by the presence of their actual armaments.
Mori Arts Center Gallery
Tokyo, Japan
January 21–March 25, 2022
The Niigata Bandaijima Art Museum
Niigata, Japan
April 23–June 19, 2022
Shizuoka City Museum of Art
Shizuoka, Japan
July 2–August 28, 2022
Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art
Kobe, Japan
September 10–November 20, 2022
Partner with the MFA
For information about hosting traveling exhibitions, connect with us at [email protected].