Past Exhibitions

SMFA at Tufts: Archive and Autobiography

November 19, 2022–April 16, 2023

Archives shape our feelings about memory, history, geography, storytelling, and ourselves. Traditional archives might look like a storage facility, a...

Michaelina Wautier and ‘The Five Senses’
Innovation in 17th-Century Flemish Painting

November 12, 2022–November 5, 2023

Centered around her rare series The Five Senses (1650), this is the first gallery space in the Americas dedicated to the art of Michaelina Wautier...

Frank Bowling’s Americas

October 22, 2022–April 9, 2023

“Modernism belonged to me also.” So resolved British Guiana–born artist Frank Bowling in 1966, when he moved from London to New York City, impelled by...

Body Awareness: Maria Lassnig’s Experimental Films

October 15, 2022–April 2, 2023

Although best known as a painter, Maria Lassnig (1919–2014) began to experiment with film in 1970. From that point on, she created animations using...

LIFE Magazine and the Power of Photography

October 9, 2022–January 16, 2023

Reconsidering the pictures we remember. Revealing the stories we don’t know.

Portraits of Leadership
Responses to the Obama Portraits

September 3–October 30, 2022

Get Tickets Included with General Admission Portraits from the community featuring leaders of all kinds What does leadership look like? In response to...

The Obama Portraits Tour

September 3–October 30, 2022

The acclaimed portraits of President Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama come to the MFA on the final stop of their national tour.

The Stillness of Things
Photographs from the Lane Collection

August 27, 2022–February 27, 2023

This exhibition presents nearly 60 innovative photographs—all departures from the traditional still life—drawn from the MFA’s Lane Collection. Grouped...