Dear Friends,

Our world needs museums, cities need museums, people need museums. When we initiated our strategic plan MFA 2020 in 2017, we committed to building and deepening our current audiences, to being a museum for all of Boston. We wanted to reach for the future by forging new connections in our communities, while deepening links to the past, to our founders’ vision of a museum encouraging civic pride and engagement. Establishing the Museum as a welcoming, inclusive place for all has been a critical goal and focus for us, every day.

We welcomed just under a million visitors to the MFA this year—966,525 to be exact—and, through traveling exhibitions that originated at the Museum, extended our scholarship and collections to 1,497,290 others worldwide. Our work is sharing: sharing the collection, our knowledge, and the joy found in the power of art. Our message is: everyone can find something of themselves here at the MFA, encounter a creative moment to cherish, nurture a spark through art to discover something new in the world.

The Museum has a long commitment to presenting cultures, communities, and artists from across the world. In the past five years, the MFA created new galleries for Dutch and Flemish art; ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine art; Italian Renaissance art; Islamic art; and ancient Egyptian art—each affirming our commitment to present global collections in dialogue with one another. As we re-present our collections, we strive to put ideas and experiences in context, especially in connecting history and legacy to the vibrant present. This year we added our first dedicated space for Judaica, reopened our gallery for jewelry with a new display, and presented our renowned collection of Japanese art in new and renovated galleries. These projects came into being thanks to a generous community of individuals, families, foundations, and corporate partners, whose gifts enable us to realize our vision without compromise.

Our expansive, beautifully designed Arts of Japan galleries, along with renovated spaces including the beloved Japanese Buddhist Temple Room, display an extraordinary selection from the MFA’s great legacy, one of the most comprehensive collections of Japanese art in the world. In May 2024 a delegation of monks from the Japanese temple of Miidera conducted a ritual to rededicate the Japanese Buddhist Temple Room and invoke blessings—a moving reminder of the histories to be honored in every object and setting we create here.

“Intentional Beauty: Jewish Ritual Art from the Collection,” in the Bernard and Barbara Stern Shapiro Gallery, is the first space at the MFA dedicated to Judaica, Jewish arts and culture. Metalwork, textiles, paintings, furniture, and works on paper represent Jewish life and values, spanning eras and geographies as they explore the splendor of religious experience at home and in the synagogue.

Exceptional objects tell complex stories of human history in “Beyond Brilliance: Jewelry Highlights from the Collection,” on view in the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation Gallery. This freshly designed presentation in a dedicated gallery demonstrates how precious ornament exemplifies the art and culture of its time and celebrates our growing collection of jewelry and adornment.

These new spaces, along with the year’s strong schedule of exhibitions and programs, invited visitors to connect with art, artists, and each other. In fall 2023 “Fashioned by Sargent” debuted in Boston, quickly becoming a destination for many travelers who made the MFA the focus of their visit to the city. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue were produced in collaboration with Tate Britain, presenting John Singer Sargent’s portraits from the Gilded Age in context of the costumes from the paintings and the period. Innovative scholarship, sumptuous design, and beautifully conserved artwork resonated with audiences, who shared creative responses in person and on social media.

Curators drew attention to artists, makers, and media in new ways this year, reimagining our collections in engaging, accessible, and relevant presentations. “Tiny Treasures: The Magic of Miniatures” showcased diminutive works of art ranging from ancient Egyptian amulets to sculpted Japanese netsuke to a pint-sized painting by Pablo Picasso, reminding us that miniaturization can be the distillation of larger ideas, and certainly the creation of a world unto itself. “Toshiko Takaezu: Shaping Abstraction” featured paintings, weavings, and closed-form ceramics in a flowing presentation tracing Takaezu’s development from potter to multimedia installation artist. Drawn almost exclusively from our collection, through works in many media, “Strong Women in Renaissance Italy” highlighted the presence of female creativity, power, and agency in Renaissance arts. “Dress Up” elegantly brought together selections of 20th– and 21st–century clothing, jewelry, accessories, illustrations, and photographs, declaring fashion to be the realization of what our imagination encourages us to express. “Tender Loving Care: Contemporary Art from the Collection,” featured more than 150 works in the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, in two powerful iterations. The exhibition’s expansive design and content, diverse in media, makers, and scale, underlined the values and compassion with which artists communicate ideas, mirroring the MFA’s own mission to warmly welcome and engage our visitors every day.

“Hallyu! The Korean Wave,” highlighted Asian art and dynamic contemporary movements, linking the 21st-century global impact of Korean culture with art and artists here at the Museum. Originating at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the MFA’s presentation combined exceptional works from our historic Korean collection with state-of-the-art media to outline the historic rise of Korea’s “wave” of global cultural appeal in the arts, technology, music, cinema, and fashion. We welcomed new audiences of all ages, from university and college students to teen fans and their families from throughout New England, creating access through Late Nites events and other opportunities to dance to K-Pop, make art, and explore our galleries.

The MFA is dedicated to artists, their voices, and their legacies. This year, through gifts and additional support, we made a special commitment to build collections of record for John Wilson and Hyman Bloom, two Boston-based artists with deep connections to our communities and with the Museum. For both, the MFA was a place of childhood wonder. Our commitment to modern and contemporary art received further support, as we concluded an agreement with the Cy Twombly Foundation for a gift of five sculptures by the artist. In addition to the gift of art, the foundation pledged $3 million to endow the Cy Twombly Conservator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

In the spring of 2024, we announced to our board a transformative $25 million gift from the Wyss Foundation that enables the MFA to reenvision our presentation of modern art for the first time in a generation. Prioritizing care, research, and display of the Museum’s collection, the gift supports two new staff positions for a curator and a conservator, and funds a major renovation project to create four new galleries—5,665 square feet of space dedicated to the MFA’s holdings of 20th-century art.

We confirmed our pledge to support young scholars and diversify the pipeline of future museum leaders this year, finalizing an additional $15 million commitment to launch the next chapter for MFA Pathways, our comprehensive undergraduate and graduate paid internship program, one of the largest of its kind in an American art museum. Since its launch in 2021, we have raised just under $40 million for MFA Pathways, whose next phase includes fully-endowed graduate internships and funding to support program growth.

Access to the arts builds strong communities; this year we were able to advance a major collaboration with the City of Boston. In January 2024 Mayor Michelle Wu announced an unprecedented partnership between the city’s leading cultural institutions to make Boston Public Schools students feel at home in the places that show them the world. The program builds on access programs at each institution while creating a common free experience coordinated by the city. We look forward to welcoming all Boston students and their families through the program’s next stages—a bold invitation and a declaration that cultural institutions are places where all belong.

It is satisfying to see initiatives, programs, and partnerships that invite, welcome, and engage diverse audiences, come to life. And it’s particularly gratifying that many, conceived and implemented through our strategic plan MFA 2020, have endowment support to ensure that we build a more inclusive community of visitors, staff, volunteers, and supporters well into the future.

As I announced in June this year, it is with this spirit of accomplishment and gratitude that I will retire from the MFA in August 2025, when my decade of leadership comes to an end. It has been a great honor to serve as the Ann and Graham Gund Director, leading the Museum and working with one of the most remarkable collections in the world, alongside a staff without parallel. We have held and acted upon the belief that art can change perceptions of the world, create strong trust in the power of community, and center artists as advocates for creative change. The MFA’s best years are ahead—grounded in the commitment of its staff, board, volunteers, and visitors. Together we believe in the MFA and the many ways it can share joy and encourage civic understanding—now more important than ever.

Matthew Teitelbaum
Ann and Graham Gund Director