The Future is Now: Gallery Renewal
The MFA would like to thank the following donors for their gifts to support gallery renewal projects:
The Museum's planned Daily Life in Ancient Greece Gallery, which will offer a thematic display of art and life in Greece in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, received support from the following donors: Trustee Peter C. Aldrich and his wife Widgie; The Barrington Foundation; Jeffrey A. Choney and Pamela Dippel Choney; Daphne and George Hatsopoulos; Honorary Overseer Betsy Heide and her husband Ulf; Honorary Trustee Amos Hostetter and Overseer Barbara Hostetter; The Stavros Niarchos Foundation; Honorary Overseer Michael Ruettgers and his wife Maureen; and J. David Wimberly.
Honorary Trustee Kathleen Feldstein and her husband Martin made a gift to support gallery renovations in the Art of the Ancient World.
The MFA has named the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Paintings Conservation Studio in honor of Honorary Trustee Rose-Marie van Otterloo and her husband Eijk, who made a gift to support the renovation of the Museum's Paintings Conservation, Objects Conservation, and Scientific Research Laboratories. The new conservation space will be a state-of-the-art facility where conservators can treat and study works of art using the most advanced equipment and technologies. This gift supplements generous grants from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and an anonymous foundation for the renovation project.
Many members of the Visiting Committee for the Art of Asia, Oceania and Africa, along with other supporters, made contributions in honor of Jane Portal, the former Matsutaro Shoriki Chair of the Department, to support the MFA's newly installed space exploring art from China’s Song Dynasty, housed in the Paul and Helen Bernat Gallery. The improved gallery, which also displays the Museum’s newly conserved Guanyin sculpture, was unveiled in February.
The MFA is home to one of the largest and finest collections of Japanese art outside of Japan. The Museum is currently involved in a fundraising initiative to renovate our seven galleries dedicated to Japanese art and to present our outstanding collection in thematically-organized spaces aimed to push the boundaries of display and interpretation for the 21st-century museum visitor. The MFA has received a generous award from the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund, a capital grant program of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that is jointly administered through a collaborative arrangement between MassDevelopment and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, to support the first phase of this monumental undertaking. The initiative has also received funding from Trustee Bettina Burr and her husband Craig; Honorary Trustee Charles C. Cunningham, Jr. and his wife Georgia; Chair of the Board of Trustees Lisbeth Tarlow and her husband Stephen B. Kay; the Vance Wall Foundation; and Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co. Ltd. in Japan, and we are actively seeking other supporters. It is our goal to secure a significant portion of the financial commitment required for this project from sources in Japan, where we are engaged in developing key relationships with the corporate sector.
Trustee Lizbeth Krupp and her husband George made a gift to establish the new Krupp Gallery featuring Homer and the Epics. The Museum also received a gift from an anonymous donor to support the renovation of two galleries dedicated to Dionysos and the Symposium and Theater and Performance. Together, these spaces make up a state-of-the-art Classical suite that was unveiled in September 2014.
The Vance Wall Foundation funded the renovation of the Museum’s beloved Sidney and Esther Rabb Gallery featuring Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in France. The gallery re-opened in June 2014, presenting MFA visitors with our masterpieces in a transformed setting.
Achim Neuse and Volker Wurster and an anonymous donor made possible the creation of a new Kunstkammer Gallery, recently named the Alyce Morrissey Gallery, which explores the intriguing history of European “cabinets of curiosity” through a display of virtuoso objects from the 16th and 17th centuries. The gallery opened in June 2014.
In September 2013, the MFA unveiled the Benin Kingdom Gallery with support from the Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc. and the Vance Wall Foundation. Dedicated to the Robert Owen Lehman Collection of bronzes and ivories created in the ancient Kingdom of Benin (located in present-day Nigeria), the gallery tells the story behind these magnificent works—sculptures, relief plaques, ritual objects, and regalia—as well as the complex history and traditions of the Edo peoples who inhabit the Kingdom.
The renovation of the Museum’s gallery dedicated to Dutch and Flemish art was made possible by a gift from Honorary Trustee Rose-Marie van Otterloo and her husband Eijk. Unveiled in May 2013, the new Art of the Netherlands in the 17th Century Gallery—one of the MFA’s grand spaces—features paintings by masters including Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens and decorative art objects such as furniture, Delft pottery, glass, and silver.