Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Latest Articles

The Seeker

Salvatore Mancini’s quest for elemental connections
Salvatore Mancini has photographed factories along the Blackstone River Valley to record a local history of the Industrial Revolution.
By GREG COOK | June 24, 2010

Slideshow: The MFA's Luis Melendez exhibit

"Master of the Spanish Still Life," now showing through May 9, 2010
Images of Luis Melendez's show at the MFA
By PHOENIX STAFF | February 09, 2010

Modern times

Does Jen Mergel's appointment mean that the MFA is getting serious about contemporary art?
Does Jen Mergel's appointment mean that the MFA is getting serious about contemporary art?
By GREG COOK | January 06, 2010

Photos: The Secrets of Tomb 10A at MFA

The Secrets of Tomb 10A: Egypt 2000 BC on exhibit until May 16, 2010
Photos of an Ancient Egyptian exhibit on display at the Museum of Fine Arts
By MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BOSTON | October 22, 2009

MFA neglects to award prize for neglected female artists

Missing Maud Dept.
In 1993, on the occasion of her 90th birthday, friends of prominent Cambridge artist Maud Morgan donated funds to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts to establish a prize in her name. (She died six years later.) The Maud Morgan Purchase Prize would celebrate under-appreciated mid-career Massachusetts female artists.
By GREG COOK | October 07, 2009

Michael Mazur, 1935 - 2009

Painter, printmaker, teacher, art historian, curator, political/social/arts activist, Red Sox and Celtics fan
"He was so alive ," a friend wrote to me a few days after Michael Mazur died, on August 18.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | August 27, 2009

The music man

George Wein, the father of American music festivals, reflects on bringing world-class folk and jazz (and more) to Newport
Forty years after a half-million hippies descended on a sprawling dairy farm in upstate New York, Woodstock has become shorthand for an entire epoch.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | August 05, 2009

Photos: 'Seeing Songs' at MFA

An eclectic mix of work that draws on music as inspiration
Contemporary Outlook: Seeing Songs at the MFA
By PHOENIX STAFF | July 16, 2009

Festival atmosphere

Between the Blockbuster and the beach there are the film festivals of New England
Summer traditionally has been the happy hunting ground for Hollywood studios — the time when they unleash their big-budgeted, f/x-heavy warhorses on armies of newly freed schoolchildren and frazzled adults trying to beat the heat.
By PETER KEOUGH | June 09, 2009

Slideshow: Two Mexican exhibits at MFA

Images from "Viva Mexico! Edward Weston and His Contemporaries" and "Vida y Drama: Modern Mexican Prints"
"Viva Mexico!" with "Vida y Drama"
By PHOENIX STAFF | June 02, 2009

Viva Modernism

'Vida y Drama: Modern Mexican Prints' and 'Viva Mexico!: Edward Weston and his Contemporaries' at the MFA
Long before the threat of swine flu, Mexico was the scene of an outbreak of a very different kind: Modernism.
By EVAN J. GARZA | May 12, 2009

Let's talk about sex

Truth and Consequences in Hide and Seek
It's not that Eve's religious but sisterly mother wouldn't understand, it's that Eve is apprehensive about her not understanding.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | May 06, 2009

Boston exposures

Photography by Nicholas Nixon and Joe Johnson
Photographer Nicholas Nixon of Brookline first burst onto the scene in the show "New Topographics."
By GREG COOK | April 21, 2009

Slideshow: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese at MFA

"Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
By PHOENIX STAFF | March 12, 2009

David Hilliard at Carroll and Sons

Plus Japanese and European works at the MFA
It's not every day that a guy like me gets to enjoy a photographic investigation of daddy-boy relationships. . . . well, outside of a naughty format.
By EVAN J. GARZA | January 26, 2009

Photos: Rachel Whiteread exhibit at the MFA

Photos from Rachel Whiteread's exhibit at the MFA
Photos from Rachel Whiteread's exhibit at the MFA
By RACHEL WHITEREAD | October 28, 2008

RISD redefined

With the dramatic new Chace Center, the art school reaches outward
Rhode Island School of Design’s new Chace Center is the physical embodiment of the 131-year-old institution’s effort to rebrand itself as a more open place.
By GREG COOK | September 25, 2008

Slideshow: Grizzly Bear at the MFA

August 14, 2008 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
August 14, 2008 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
By TIM BUGBEE | August 15, 2008

Slideshow: Beth Orton at the MFA

Beth Orton at the Museum of Fine Arts, July 2, 2008
Beth Orton at the Museum of Fine Arts, July 2, 2008
By CARINA MASTROCOLA | July 09, 2008

Wheeling through history

Vintage bicycles aren't just for lonely bike mechanics any more
Vintage bicycles, once an obscure subculture’s obsession, are gaining popularity as highly desired collectibles or cheaper, cooler rides.
By ELIZABETH FLOCK | May 07, 2008

Big in every way

‘El Greco to Velázquez’ at the MFA
Men in inky darkness. Men without women (save for the Blessed Virgin). Men in splendor, men in ecstasy, men without smiles. Men as saints but not as sinners.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 15, 2008

The case of Milan Kohout

The right of a performance artist represents the rights of all Americans. Plus, an opportunity with Cuba.
Kohout, a serious man, was engaged in the serious business of political protest.
By EDITORIAL | February 21, 2008

Whitewash

Can a striking exhibit at Harvard really make us see ancient Greek and Roman sculpture — and the roots of racism — as we never have before?
“Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture in Classical Antiquity” presents striking evidence that the white marbles were once painted in bold Technicolor.
By GREG COOK | December 09, 2007

Going on sale: November 9, 2007

Breaking news from the concert ticket trade
Most Serene Republic, Wu-Tang Clan, Spiritualized, and more.
By GOING ON SALE | November 06, 2007

What’s in a name?

Why it’s Fitz Henry, not Fitz Hugh, Lane — and why it matters
The discovery that we’ve had Lane’s name wrong since at least 1913 has prompted questions about what else scholars have gotten wrong about him.
By GREG COOK | August 31, 2007

Who’s with whom — and why?

Talking politics
Now that first-quarter campaign-finance reports have been filed, we can see which presidential candidates scooped up money from which Bay Staters.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 18, 2007

Muscles as art: Hulk meets haute

The aesthetics of oily bodies
This article originally appeared in the February 22, 1977 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
By CAROLYN CLAY | April 09, 2007

Slow grow

The steady triumph of Grizzly Bear
The great-great-great grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson rocks out. Grizzly Bear, "On a Neck, On a Spit" (mp3)
By WILL SPITZ | January 30, 2007

The girls of summer

Frank Benson and Edmund Tarbell at the MFA and the Peabody Essex
Americans, Henry James wrote in 1867, “can pick and choose and assimilate and in short (æsthetically, etc.) claim our property wherever we find it.”
By JEFFREY GANTZ | August 10, 2006

Moscoso and more

Hearing the ’60s through poster art
Victor Moscoso’s ’60s rock posters can get you all choked up about the shows. Slideshow: Posters from Sex, Rock & Optical Illusions: Victor Moscoso, Master of Psychedelic Posters & Comix
By GREG COOK | July 25, 2006