Calendar

All In-Person Events Canceled through December 31

Other

32 Quincy Street
Cambridge, MA

Due to the ongoing coronavirus health crisis, we regret that all in-person events have been canceled through December 31, 2020.

There are two images side by side. The left image is an ink painting. It shows a pine tree with sharp, twisted branches and long delicate needles against a gray background with accents of white. The right image is a photograph of a pine branch with long green needles and brown pinecones, set against a clear blue sky.
Itō Jakuchū, Old Pine, Japanese, Edo period, c. 1796. Hanging scroll; ink on silk. Promised gift of Robert S. and Betsy G. Feinberg, TL42147.7; Pinus thunbergii, 1767-77*B, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Photo: Kyle Port.

Painting Edo at the Arnold Arboretum: Japanese Black Pine

Special Event

Join us to examine Japanese black pine in Harvard collections—both alive and painted—through the eyes of a botanist and an art historian.

This photograph shows a stainless steel chair with some of its back supports missing. It sits against a white background.
Doris Salcedo, Colombian, Untitled, 2004–5. Stainless steel. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John Cowles, by exchange, 2010.573. © Doris Salcedo.

Art Talk Live: Doris Salcedo—Sculpture as Witness

Gallery Talk

Mary Schneider Enriquez will discuss Doris Salcedo’s Untitled, a work that gives voice to silent victims of violence.

A black and white photo shows several dancers dressed in white on an outdoor marble platform. Each dancer is in various poses around the plaza. The central figure is a Black woman, who is in mid-movement, with her right limbs in a bent position. Her eyes are closed, and her face is directed downward. In the background are hedges, several trees, and buildings.
Photo: Charlotte Jones.

ON DISPLAY HARVARD 2020

Performance

Join us for ON DISPLAY HARVARD 2020, a partnership with the Harvard Dance Center in honor of International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

This image shows a luminous, triangular gold plaque with two small round holes drilled in each of the three corners. The long sides of the triangle, which are at the left and right of this image, feature relief images of identical striding tigers with snarling facial features and lean bodies. There is a mythical creature with a human-like head that is joined to two hindquarters, perhaps those of a dog, by a sort of collar on the short side of the triangle, which is the bottom of this image.
Triangular plaque with decoration of two striding tigers and a mythical creature in the form of a human-headed leopard, Chineses, Zhou dynasty, Warring States period, 5th–3rd century BCE. Repoussé gold. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, 1943.52.84.C.

Art Study Center Seminar at Home: Chinese Gold from the Winthrop Collection

Seminar

Sarah Laursen discusses three gold plaques from China’s Warring States period and what recent excavations have revealed about their origins.

This bronze sculpture is in the shape of a bird. It has a tall Egyptian crown on its head and a gold ring around its eye.
This bronze sculpture of a falcon has a secret inside . . . Horus falcon wearing crown of Upper and Lower Egypt with Uraeus, Egyptian, Late Period, Dynasty 26, mid-7th to late 6th century BCE. Leaded bronze, gold-alloy inlay around eye. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, 1943.1118.

Creature Feature: Animals from Ancient Egypt

Gallery Talk

Join Egyptologist Jen Thum for a family-friendly, interactive look at animals from ancient Egypt, including a bronze bird and sunbathing snakes!

Four people, whose backs are to the viewer, stand before a white wall looking at a work of art that appears to be the outline of an ascending staircase formed from measuring tapes and strings. Though it is a one-dimensional work, it looks multidimensional and has a railing made of string on the left side.
© Susan Young Photography

Student Guide Alumni Tour: Why Museums Matter

Tour

Join us live on Zoom for a special, virtual tour led by alumni from the Ho Family Student Guide Program.

A split-screen image shows on the left six prints in a grid-like pattern: three rows include two colored circular prints each on a square gray background. On the right, a young woman wearing a navy sweatshirt and black apron sits at a table with her hands folded, a bulletin board of artist tools behind her.
(Left): Dan Flavin, American, Untitled, 1992. Double-sided relief aquatints on handmade paper. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund, M25122.A, M25122.B, M25122.C. © Dan Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, N.Y.

Virtual Gallery Tour for Friends and Fellows of the Museums

Gallery Talk

Virtual gallery tours are designed especially for our Friends and Fellows and are led by our curators, fellows, and other specialists.

A white marble sculpture depicts the head of a bearded man whose eyes, nose, mouth, and chin are partially destroyed or missing. The man’s beard and hair are ornately carved and textured, while his cheeks and forehead are smooth marble.
Bearded man, possibly Emperor Macrinus, Roman, Roman Imperial period, early to mid-3rd century CE. Luna marble. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Alpheus Hyatt Purchasing Fund, 1949.47.138.

Art Talk Live: Erased!

Gallery Talk

Throughout history, images of disgraced rulers were destroyed and their legacies erased from memory—or were they?