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32 Quincy Street / 485 Broadway
Cambridge, MA
Phone: 617 495 9400
Tty:
Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum,
Straus
Center for Conservation.
The mission of the Harvard University Art Museums is to serve as a catalyst for instruction and scholarship in the history of art by acquiring and conserving works of art, teaching, researching, preparing and implementing exhibitions, publishing catalogues and special studies, offering lectures, organizing symposia, and working closely with students and other faculty of Harvard University, the faculties of other universities, the curatorial staffs of other museums the world over, and all interested members of the general public, in the use of our collections and resources for scholarly and pedagogical purposes, as well as for personal pleasure and inspiration, and in training future museum curators and conservators in the details of our profession.
The Harvard University Art Museums include the Fogg Art Museum (founded in 1891, opened in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (founded in 1902), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (opened in 1985). Their mission is to provide resources for the teaching of art history and related fields in the humanities; to serve as a catalyst for research in the humanities; to expose undergraduates to the importance of art in all cultures; to train professionals in the field of art museum administration; and to encourage the broader understanding of art and its history among the general public.
The Harvard University Art Museums comprise three museums, all located on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, MA, at the intersection of Quincy Street and Broadway, adjacent to Harvard Yard and five minutes walking distance due east of the Harvard Square MBTA Red Line stop, Church Street exit. The Busch-Reisinger Museum is located in Werner Otto Hall. Enter through the Fogg Art Museum at 32 Quincy St. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum is located at 485 Broadway across from the Fogg. The Harvard University Art Museums' facilities are wheelchair accessible (enter the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger through the Fine Arts Library on Prescott Street).
Walk through the galleries of the Fogg Art Museum and you will recognize major paintings and sculpture by American and European artists such as Copley, Monet, van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso, Rothko and David Smith.
In the Sackler Museum you will discover Indian sculpture, ancient Chinese jades and bronzes, Korean ceramics, Greek and Roman coins, and Greek vases.
In the Busch-Reisinger you will find the finest collection of modern German and Northern European art with works by Beckmann, Beuys, Feininger, Kandinsky, Klee, Kirchner, Kokoschka, Klimt, Moholy-Nagy, Marc, and Munch.
As well as being major public art museums, the Harvard University Art Museums are part of one of the world's greatest universities. Professors, museum directors, and curators from around the world have studied at Harvard. Today, the Harvard University Art Museums along with the Straus Center for Conservation, are a major center for art historical research and training.
Each year, leading scholars at Harvard and from around the world arrange major exhibitions at the Art Museums, many of them the first of their kind in America. This tradition began in 1911, with the first American exhibition of Edgar Degas, and it has continued ever since. Visit these exhibitions and you will be on the forefront of new discoveries and revelations about the world of the visual arts.
The collections of the Art Museums consist of more than 150,000 objects in all media, with works ranging from antiquity to the present and from Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.
They range from antiquity to the present and are divided among eight curatorial departments (Ancient, Asian, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Drawings, Islamic and Later Indian, Prints, Photographs, and Western Paintings and Sculpture). They are comprehensive and encyclopedic within their areas.
Developed with an emphasis on their value for teaching and research, the collections comprise a unique resource in terms of breadth and quality, and are one of the finest university art collections in the world.
Fogg Museum: The drawings collection comprises 10,000 European and American drawings from the 14th century to the present. Major strengths include French 17th and early 19th centuries (in both fields the most comprehensive holdings in any U.S. collection), 16th century Italian and 18th century Venetian, German 18th and 19th centuries, and American and English 19th century works.The collection of 50,000 prints is particularly strong in old-master etchings, engravings, and woodcuts with extensive representation of the works of such masters as Schongauer, Dürer, Rembrandt, and Goya. It also includes outstanding examples by Blake, Turner, Constable, Daumier, Manet, Degas, Picasso, and Munch. The collection of 2,000 Western paintings is especially strong in early Italian Renaissance, 19th century French, 19th century British, and American painting (including the largest holdings of Copley in the country.) The largest segments of the collection are 19th and 20th century American, 19th century British, 17th century Dutch, 19th and 20th century French, and 14th-16th century Italian, although nearly 30 cultures and over 850 artists are represented. The 1,000 works of sculpture include significant holdings of French and Spanish Romanesque stone pieces, Italian Renaissance placquettes, an important group of 17th century Roman terracotta studies by Bernini and others, 19th century French sculpture (notably Rodin and Barye) and varied 20th century holdings. The photograph collection includes 7,000 works, 3,500 of which are by Ben Shahn, the primary collection of his photographic oeuvre. The 3,750 objects in the collection of Western decorative arts include 17th and 18th century American and English silver, 18th century Wedgewood pottery, 17th and 18th century clocks, Renaissance Limoges enamels, tapestries, and considerable quantities of European and American furniture.
Photography of the Middle East Reveals History of Western
Impressions at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum
The Harvard University Art Museums’ dedication to collecting and presenting drawings has its roots in the work of pioneering scholars who played a significant role in shaping the Art Museums. During the middle of the 20th century, the Fogg Art Museum was the epicenter in North America of the study of drawings. The Fogg’s then associate director, Paul J. Sachs, and its distinguished curator of drawings who served for 45 years, Agnes Mongan, presented a wide range of works from local private collections and the Fogg’s holdings. Konrad Oberhuber, curator from 1975 to 1987, carried on their legacy with distinguished exhibitions and acquisitions.
Since 1988 the drawings collection has been curated by William W. Robinson, Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings.
The Drawings Collection
The collection encompasses drawings, watercolors, pastels, sketchbooks, and albums, as well as 9,000 manuscript pages of drawings and notes by Stuart Davis. Unusual in its breadth and depth, the collection combines masterpieces from the American and principal European schools with large numbers of works of secondary and tertiary significance. The holdings’ teaching and research potential are enhanced by the balanced representation of the art of many periods and schools.
Major strengths include:
The collection is also distinguished by the strength of its holdings of works by individual artists:
The drawings collection includes the following works:
Coins of Alexander the Great
LONG-TERM INSTALLATIONS IN THE PERMANENT COLLECTION GALLERIES
Listed below are descriptions of thematic installations in the permanent collection galleries. These installations usually hang for one to three years. If you are planning or organizing a trip to the Harvard University Art Museums in the future please check with the Public Relations office on the status of these installations.
LONG-TERM INSTALLATIONS IN THE PERMANENT COLLECTION GALLERIES
Listed below are brief descriptions of a selection of thematic installations in the permanent collection galleries. These installations usually hang for one to three years. If you are planning a trip to the Art Museums in the future please check with the museum on the status of these and other long-term installations.
American Art after 1950
Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Sketches in Clay
Wall Drawing #830: Four Isometric Figures with Color Ink Washes Superimposed
The Art of Identity: African Sculpture from the Teel Collection
The Art of Ancient Rome: Roman Gallery Re-Installation
SEMINARS
Marking
Places: Spatial Effects of African Art
Fogg Art Museum
This exhibition
explores the ways in which African objects articulate certain types of
spaces and the layers and changes within them. The exhibition covers a
wide expanse of Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting some of the
continent’s most prolific and renowned art-producing cultures such as
the Senufo, Yoruba, Bamum, and Kuba. Comprised of a range of objects
from architectural elements to masks, the show includes works such as
Benin plaques, which once covered the palace exterior and created a
boundary between royal and non-royal spaces, and Dan masks, whose
presence in the village makes visible the coexistent and coeval spirit
world and temporarily transforms public space into ritual space. Works
are largely drawn from the outstanding collection of the Peabody Museum
of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University as well from local
collectors.
The
Art of Ancient Rome
Arthur M. Sackler Museum
This collection includes a number of stone masterpieces, such as
the monumental statue of emperor Trajan (2nd century) and
the late-second-century sarcophagus depicting the battle between the
Greeks and the Amazons, as well as dozens of small household objects in
bronze, glass, terracotta, and bone. The exhibition is organized into
thematic groups—Portraiture, Everyday Life, Funerary Arts, Gambling,
Spectacles, and the Taste for the Exotic—to place the objects in
context. Used daily by students and scholars from around the world,
this collection serves as an important resource for the study of
classical art and culture at Harvard and beyond. The exhibition opened
in September 1999.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Sketches in Clay
Fogg Art Museum
In one of its
most important purchases ever, in 1937 the Fogg acquired 27 terracotta
sculptures, 14 of which can be associated directly with Gian Lorenzo
Bernini (1598–1680), the greatest sculptor of the Roman Baroque. A
fifteenth was added in 1995. These works are studies for some of
Bernini's most important projects and cover nearly the whole of the
artist's career. They include saints, allegorical figures, and the
extraordinarily vivid angels, seemingly descending directly from a
heavenly realm in swirls of flowing drapery. The installation, which
marks the quatercentenary of Bernini's birth (1998), was organized by
Ivan Gaskell, Margaret S. Winthrop Curator, and Colette Czapski
Hemingway, 1996–1998 Andrew W. Mellon Intern, Department of Paintings,
Sculpture, and Decorative Arts, with contributions by Jeannine O'Grody,
1995–1996 National Endowment for the Arts Intern. The exhibition opened
February 28, 1998.
Wall
Drawing #830: Four Isometric Figures with Color Ink Washes Superimposed
Arthur M. Sackler Museum lobby
This major wall drawing by conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, one of our
generation's premier draftsmen, occupies four walls in the lobby of the
Sackler Museum. Comprising four large-scale geometric shapes on fields
of primary colors, the drawing dramatically amplifies and energizes the
Sackler's double-height entry space. The project was organized at the
Art Museums by Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director and opened in
1997.
Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums is one of the leading arts institutions in the United States and the world. It is distinguished by the range and depth of its collections, its groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of its staff. For more than a century, it has been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and is renowned for its seminal and ongoing role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.
The three art museums at Harvard—the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Fogg Art Museum—are all outstanding institutions in their respective fields. The Fogg also houses the Straus Center for Conservation, long a leader in the research and development of scientific and technology-based analysis of art. The 150,000 objects in the art museums’ collections range in date from ancient times to the present and come from Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Each museum also has an active program of special exhibitions that promotes new scholarship in its areas of focus.
As an integral component of the Harvard University community, the three art museums serve as a resource for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study. The public is welcome to experience the collections and special exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs in the various museums.
The collections are divided among ten curatorial areas: Ancient Art; Architecture and Design; Asian Art; Busch-Reisinger Museum; Drawings; Islamic and Later Indian Art; Modern and Contemporary Art; Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Prints; and Photographs. Developed with an emphasis on their value for teaching and research, these holdings are a uniquely broad and rich resource that is continually enhanced through gifts and acquisitions. Together, the holdings of the three museums constitute one of the finest university art collections in the world, with resources rivaling those of many major public museums.
The Straus Center for Conservation is the oldest fine arts conservation treatment, research, and training facility in the United States. The Center specializes in the conservation of paintings, sculpture, decorative objects, historic and archaeological artifacts, and works of art on paper. Its team members are pioneers in developing new applications of digital imaging in conservation. The Center’s state-of-the-art facilities support a broad range of analytical services.
Location and
Hours
The Fogg Art Museum and the Busch-Reisinger Museum are located at 32
Quincy Street in Cambridge. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum is located
next door at 485 Broadway. Each Museum is a short walk from the Harvard
Square MBTA station.
Hours are
Monday
through Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Sunday 1 – 5 p.m.; the Museums are
closed on national holidays.
Admissions:
The Harvard
University Art Museums receive support from the Massachusetts Cultural
Council. More detailed information is available at 617-495-9400 or on
the Internet at www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.
The Art Museums are within five minutes walking distance of the Harvard Station MBTA bus and Subway terminals.
By car from downtown Boston, the Central Artery, or the Cambridge exit off the Massachusetts Turnpike, take Storrow Drive to the Harvard Square exit, go over the bridge onto JFK Street; proceed north through Harvard Square, intersect Massachusetts Avenue, and bear right through the underpass onto Broadway. The Harvard Art Museums are just past the fire station.
The Harvard University Art Museums' facilities are wheelchair accessible. For general information, please call (617) 495-9400. For more information on events, please contact the Friends, Fellows, and Special Programs Office at (617) 495-4544. World Wide Web: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.
The Harvard University Art Museums is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Thomas Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot, Directors, Harvard University Art Museums
CAMBRIDGE, MA (March 7, 2005) Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums, today announced the appointment of Susan Dackerman as the new Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints at the Fogg Art Museum. Dackerman will assume the position on July 5, 2005, after the retirement of the incumbent, Marjorie B. Cohn, longtime curator and conservator and former acting director of the Art Museums.
"Susan brings exceptional enthusiasm, dedication, and experience to the position," Lentz said. "Her insights as a scholar and educator and her expertise in curatorial affairs make her an ideal choice to lead our teaching, collecting, and program efforts in the area of prints, and a worthy successor to Jerry Cohn."
CAMBRIDGE, MA (October 27, 2006)—The Harvard University Art Museums announced today the appointment of Helen Molesworth as its new curator of contemporary art, effective February 5, 2007. Molesworth becomes the first full curator of contemporary art since the Art Museums established the department of modern and contemporary art in 1997. A distinguished scholar, writer, and curator, Molesworth comes to the Art Museums from the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio where she has been serving as chief curator of exhibitions since 2003, with oversight of the Center’s exhibitions, programs, and publications.Would you like to e-mail any request
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