Events

    2023 Nov 12

    Materials Lab Workshop: Dissecting Portrait Colors

    10:00am to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Practitioners of art and medicine are trained to discern fine details and changes in skin coloration. But what even is "skin color"? In this workshop, led by artist and medical student William Shen, we will begin by viewing the exhibition Seeing in Art and Medicine to discuss how representation of skin colors, or lack thereof, has influenced art and medicine throughout history. We will explore the biological origin of skin color and learn how artists recapitulate this process through paint and synthetic materials.

    Shen will show you how to dissect complex hues into...

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    2023 Nov 04

    Materials Lab Workshop: A Brush with Nature—Chinese Painting (English)

    1:00pm to 4:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Join us for a hands-on workshop on traditional Chinese brush painting with master brush painter Qingxiong Ma. Enjoy this opportunity to slow down, try your hand at re-creating elements of the natural world, and ponder your connection to the natural environment.

    To inspire you before the workshop, visit the Asian art galleries on Level 2 to view the installations The Living Earth in Gallery 2740 and Human vs. Nature in Gallery 2600, both of which feature paintings focused on nature.

    Cost: $15

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    2023 Apr 27

    ARTS FIRST Festival

    Thu Apr 27 (All day) to Sun Apr 30 (All day)

    Location: 

    Throughout Harvard's campus

    Enjoy an artstravaganza during ARTS FIRST, Harvard's annual festival of creativity! Produced by the Office for the Arts, the festival opens University spaces to everyone for an experience of community togetherness and exciting discovery featuring performances and artwork by students, staff, faculty, alums and affiliates. Plus exhibitions and other events, including the pre-festival Arts Medal Ceremony honoring Adrian Piper AM ’77, PhD ’81 on April 26 at Harvard Film Archive. All are welcome! Come for a little; stay for a lot.

    Most events are free; some evening events...

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    2022 Oct 16

    Materials Lab Workshop: Making Faces

    Repeats every week every Wednesday until Thu Oct 20 2022 .
    10:00am to 1:00pm

    10:00am to 1:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    In this two-part workshop, join us first in the exhibition galleries with curator Susanne Ebbinghaus and conservator Kate Smith for a close look at the portraits and learn what our curators, conservators, and scientists have discovered about them. Then take that experience to the Materials Lab, where you’ll make your own version of an ancient tempera painting using some of the same materials and techniques used by Roman-period artists. This workshop aims to honor and remember the woman in the ancient portrait we will copy, and to celebrate the relationship between artist and sitter that...

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    2022 Jun 04

    Take Your Place/Toma tu lugar

    11:00am to 12:00pm

    Location: 

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    Latino/a/x teens in the Hear Me Out/Escúchame project exhibit a group artwork that challenges stereotypes. What is important to know about Salvadoran or Honduran culture? What is overlooked in Mexican, Colombian, or Guatemalan culture? Drop in to see their response, and create “light-up” postcards or an art piece about your identity with simple art materials. Sketch and try other hands-on activities. Take your place with us and share how you want to be represented.

    Limited metered parking available on Oxford Street or...

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    2022 Feb 01

    Clay—Modeling African Design

    Tue Feb 1 (All day) to Sun Nov 13 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    On View:
    November 17, 2018–November 13, 2022
    University Collections Gallery, African Art, Harvard Art Museums

    This exhibition highlights artistic innovation and creativity in Africa as seen primarily through the traditions of ceramic arts from across the continent and over its long history. Countering the assumption that African arts and societies are largely unchanging and bound to traditions and customs, the remarkable diversity of objects and styles on display here tells a different story. A selection of more than 50 works on loan from the...

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    2022 Feb 01

    Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World

    Tue Feb 1 (All day) to Wed Feb 1 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, 6 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World explores how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society, driving innovations that had lasting impacts—even on the modern world.

    Make an advance reservation to visit the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East.

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    2022 Feb 01

    Muchos Méxicos: Crossroads of the Americas

    Tue Feb 1 (All day) to Thu Feb 2 (All day)

    Location: 

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 1 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    Muchos Méxicos explores Mexico’s rich history as a site of human innovation, creativity and cultural diversity. Featuring Mexican objects from the Peabody Museum collections, this bilingual exhibit tells the story of Mexico as a multicultural and geographic crossroads—one where the exchange of resources, products, and ideas among Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas before the Spanish invasion, and then with cultures around the globe—have all created a vibrant nation.

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    2022 Feb 01

    From the Hands of the Makers

    Tue Feb 1 (All day) to Thu Feb 2 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge

    Over their fifty years creating the Glass Flowers, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, father and son, continually experimented with materials and methods that pushed the boundaries of glassworking. Years later, their complex and varied practices presented unique challenges for the conservators preserving and protecting the models, which led to a suite of conservation processes nearly as varied as the Blaschka’s techniques. From the Hands of the Makers explores what it takes to both make and conserve a model and investigates the lingering mysteries surrounding the making of the glass...

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    2022 Jan 22

    Himalayan Art: Art of the Divine Abode

    Sat Jan 22 (All day) to Sun May 8 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    On View:
    January 22, 2022–May 8, 2022
    University Teaching Gallery, Harvard Art Museums

    Drawn from the museums’ rich Asian art collections, this installation complements a Harvard undergraduate course that explores the art of the Himalayan region, focusing on the major cultural centers such as the Kathmandu Valley and Buddhist sites across the Tibetan plateau, while examining the history of reception and imagination of the Himalayas in the west. The course is taught by Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art. In...

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    2022 Jan 22

    Social Fabrics: Inscribed Textiles from Medieval Egyptian Tombs

    Sat Jan 22 (All day) to Sun May 8 (All day)

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    On View:
    January 22, 2022–May 8, 2022
    University Research Gallery, Harvard Art Museums

    From swaddling newborns to enshrouding the deceased, woven fabrics touch nearly every aspect of human existence. The textiles in this exhibition are particularly meaningful, for they tell a bigger story about political and social power, class, trade, and concerns for the afterlife during a transformative period in Egyptian history. In the medieval era, control of the region shifted repeatedly, as Egypt was subsumed under a sequence of empires—Byzantine,...

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    2021 Sep 04

    Reopening Day at the Harvard Art Museums

    10:00am to 5:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge

    Join us for the public reopening of the Harvard Art Museums on Saturday, September 4!

    Begin in our Calderwood Courtyard before venturing into the galleries to enjoy three levels of art, spanning ancient to modern times. See the exhibitions “States of Play: Prints from Rembrandt to Delsarte” and “A Colloquium in the Visual Arts.” And don’t forget to stop by the museum shop, just off the courtyard, to round out your visit.

    Our new ReFrame initiative, which reimagines the function, role, and future of the university art museum, introduces new artworks to many of our...

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    2020 Oct 31

    Visit An Artist: En Iwamura

    10:00am to 11:00am

    Location: 

    Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard—Online

    We are off to Japan to visit with the incredibly prolific sculptor En Iwamura! 

    En Iwamura's current research investigates how he can influence and alter the experience of viewers who occupy space with his installation artworks. When Iwamura describes the space and scale in his works, he references the Japanese philosophy of Ma. Ma implies meanings of distance, moment, space, relationship, and more. People constantly read and measure different Ma between themselves, and finding the proper or comfortable Ma between people or places can provide a specific relationship at a...

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    2020 Oct 16

    Visit an Artist and Demonstration: Mac McCusker

    4:00pm to 6:00pm

    Location: 

    Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard—Online

    During this visit we travel to Durham, North Carolina to visit with figurative sculptor Mac McCusker and view a demonstration of his work. Mac McCusker’s figurative work and narrative vessels document personal experiences and struggles as a transgender artist. McCusker addresses preconceptions and prejudices about transgender and gender non-binary individuals as well as about the larger LGBTQIA community by sharing personal narratives through self-portrait busts, small-scale figures, and sculptural vessels. 

    ...

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    2020 Feb 29

    Dig into Dinner

    1:00pm to 4:00pm

    Location: 

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

    Explore the new Resetting the Table exhibition, starting at the dinner table set for a party. Family-friendly activities about what we eat will be set up throughout the gallery: drop in for smell stations, Play-Doh® desserts, games with prizes, and a raffle of dinner for two at a Harvard Square restaurant.

    Learn more about Dig into Dinner.

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    2020 Feb 13

    Opening Celebration: Painting Edo

    5:00pm to 9:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    Join the Harvard Art Museums to celebrate the opening of Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection, on view from February 14–July 26, 2020.

    Be among the first to see over 120 works included in the Harvard Art Museums' latest show, which celebrates the rich visual culture of Japan's early modern era. The galleries are open late, and admission is free for...

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    2019 Jun 26

    Harvard Art Museums: Cambridge Open Archives

    12:00pm to 2:00pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Art Museums, Art Study Center, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    The Harvard Art Museums Archives is participating in Cambridge Open Archives, an annual event that offers the rare chance to visit a number of unique archives and collecting agencies in Cambridge. In the Art Study Center, select archival photographs, correspondence, and objects documenting the history of the museums’ teaching mission and its wider impact in the United States will be on display for close examination. Archives staff will be on hand to share the stories behind the materials.

    Cost: Free with museums admission (note that admission is always free...

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    2019 Feb 08

    Exhibition: The Bauhaus and Harvard

    Repeats every day until Sun Jul 28 2019 .
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    Location: 

    Special Exhibitions Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

    The Bauhaus and Harvard — mounted in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany — presents nearly 200 works by 74 artists, drawn almost entirely from the Busch-Reisinger Museum’s extensive Bauhaus collection. Founded in 1919 and closed just 14 years later, the Bauhaus was the 20th century’s most influential school of art, architecture, and design. Harvard University played host to the first Bauhaus exhibition in the United States in 1930, and went on to become an unofficial center for the Bauhaus in America when founding...

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