Great works of art can deepen our understanding of the world around us. As we confront the current events shaping this period in history, art can offer solace, clarity, and perspective. Through Art for This Moment, MFA staff, artists, and others share objects from across our collections that carry personal significance and global resonance.
Harmonica (Echo Elite Model)
Sam Forman
Art and memory are deeply intertwined. Beautiful works bring new ideas to mind when I look at them, and also help me remember long-dormant places…
Hanbok
Olga Khvan
For most of my life, I haven’t felt Korean enough. Two years ago, a gnawing search for validation led me to a mail-in DNA kit. One hundred percent…
Sūmud
Kristen Gresh
With my Sephardic husband and family, as well as with my dear Palestinian and Israeli friends, I have spent the last five months and counting mourning…
Nahat Oud
Nate Steele
The first time I heard an oud live, I was enraptured. The deep growl of the bass, the compelling and percussive rhythms of the plectrum, called a…
Hidden Figures
Meghan Melvin and Benjamin Weiss
A white marble bust of Boston hotelier Harvey D. Parker (of Parker House Hotel fame) presides over the Morse Study Room for Prints, Drawings, and…
Bardwell Settee
Kennedy Harwood
It’s Christmas morning, and I’m sitting with my cousins around an overwhelmingly full dining table, though this packed corner of my grandmother’s…
Closed Form
Jacqueline Yu
Whether it comes from the T lurching over an antiquated track or a toy in the hands of my hyperactive niece, rattling is a constant sound in my life…
A Letter to Sofonisba Anguissola
Katy Hessel
Dearest Sofonisba, I don’t know you. We’ll never meet. I live almost 500 years after you, in a world you wouldn’t recognize. I’m in my 20s; you lived…
Welcome to Our Home
Anna Nasi
The quilt atop my childhood bed has given warmth to me and three generations of women in my family. Its lace overlay has torn, its doily appliqué has…
Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer
Mary Jane Childs
At four years old I saw my first ballet, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, and I immediately fell in love with dance. By age six I was taking my first…
Translated Vase
Michael Rocco
Last July my friend Griffin visited me in Boston. I couldn’t wait to update them on everything new and exciting in my life. First we visited the MFA…
Mixing Bowl (Bell Krater) with Perseus, Athena, and Hermes
Sophia Palumbo
Like many people my age, when I was in middle school I was obsessed with Percy Jackson and the Olympians, a series of fantasy novels inspired by Greek…
Under the Wave off Kanagawa (the Great Wave)
Tamar Avishai
How often do we appreciate the tremendous power of an ocean wave? Not often, I realize, while I sit in a rocking chair in my suburban Cleveland home…
St. Francis Supported by an Angel
Claire Dettelbach
My love for art has always been informed by an interest in how people across time think, feel, celebrate, grieve, and love. I view art as the tangible…
Powder Horn
Alexandra Moleski
The first time I ever visited the Museum of Fine Arts, I was only a few weeks into my first semester of college. I was new to Boston and more…