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Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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For other places with the same name, see Museum of Fine Arts.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas. The museum was founded in 1870 and its current location dates to 1909. In addition to its curatorial undertakings, the museum is affiliated with an art academy, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and a sister museum, the Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts, in Nagoya, Japan. The current director of the museum is Malcolm Rogers.

History

The Museum was founded in 1870 and opened in 1876, with a large portion of its collection taken from the Boston Athenaeum Art Gallery. Originally located in a highly ornamented terra cotta brick Gothic Revival building designed by John Hubbard Sturgis and located on Copley Square in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, it moved to its current location on Huntington Avenue, Boston's "Avenue of the Arts," in 1909.

The museum's present building was commenced in 1907, when museum trustees hired architect Guy Lowell to create a master plan for a museum that could be built in stages as funding was obtained for each phase. The first section of Lowell’s neoclassical design was completed in 1909, and featured a 500-foot façade of cut granite along Huntington Avenue, the grand rotunda, and the associated exhibition galleries. Mrs. Robert Dawson Evans then funded the entire cost of building the next section of the museum’s master plan. This wing along the Back Bay Fens, opened in 1915 and houses painting galleries. From 1916 through 1925, John Singer Sargent created the art that lines the rotunda and the associated colonnade. Numerous additions enlarged the building throughout the years including the Decorative Arts Wing in 1968 and the Norman Jean Calderwood Garden Court and Terrace in 1997. This wing now houses the museum's cafe, restaurant, and gift shop as well as exhibition space.

2000s expansion

In the mid-2000s, the museum embarked on a major renovation project. This includes the construction of a new wing for the arts of the Americas, redesigned and expanded education facilities, and extensive renovations of its European galleries, visitor services, and conservation facilities. This expansion will increase the size of the MFA by 28% with an additional 133,500 square feet of space.

The new wing is was designed in a restrained, contemporary style by the London architectural firm of Foster and Partners, under the directorship of Lord Norman Foster. Groundbreaking for the addition took place in 2006. In the process, the present garden courtyard will be transformed into a climate-controlled year-round glass enclosure. Landscape architects Gustafson Guthrie Nichol have redesigned the Huntington Avenue and Fenway entrances, gardens, access roads, and interior courtyards. The opening of the new wing is scheduled for late 2010.

Collection and exhibits

Some highlights of the MFA's collection include:

The Museum also maintains one of the largest on-line art catalogs in the world at http://www.mfa.org, with information about over 327,000 items from its collection available on-line, many with an accompanying photograph.

As a result of the ongoing expansion of the museum, a number of standing exhibits are still in storage.

Notable curators

Visiting

Admission to the museum is charged at most times, but there is free admission on Wednesdays after 4 p.m. The Museum is open until 9:45 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. The museum's University Membership program offers area college students free general admission and discounts on special exhibits upon presentation of a valid college photo ID. Participating institutions are listed below.

  1. Art Institute of Boston
  2. Babson College
  3. Berklee College of Music
  4. The Boston Architectural Center
  5. Boston College (includes graduate students)
  6. Boston Conservatory
  7. Boston Latin School
  8. Boston University (includes graduate students)
  9. The Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University
  10. Brandeis University
  11. Colby College
  12. Curry College
  13. Eastern Nazarene College
  14. Emerson College (includes graduate students)
  15. Emmanuel College
  16. Framingham State College (Arts and Humanities Program)
  17. Gordon College
  18. Harvard University (includes graduate students)
  19. Lasell College
  20. Lesley University
  21. Maine College of Art (MECA)
  22. Massachusetts College of Art (includes continuing education students)
  23. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (includes graduate students)
  24. McIntosh College
  25. Montserrat College of Art
  26. Mount Ida College
  27. New England College
  28. New England Conservatory
  29. New England Institute of Art
  30. New England School of Art & Design
  31. New England School of Photography
  32. New Hampshire Institute of Art
  33. North Bennett Street School
  34. Northeastern University
  35. Olin College of Engineering
  36. Pine Manor College
  37. School of Fashion Design
  38. School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  39. Showa, Boston
  40. Simmons College
  41. Stonehill College
  42. Suffolk University College of Arts & Sciences
  43. Tufts University (includes graduate students)
  44. University of Massachusetts, Boston
  45. University of New Hampshire, Durham
  46. Wellesley College
  47. Wentworth Institute of Technology
  48. Wheaton College
  49. Wheelock College

See also

External links



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