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Spotlight Tour: Naming Grief, with Diana Ochoa-Chavez ‘26

In this photomontage, a smiling young woman gestures toward a floating painting. It’s a full-length portrait of a ghostly young woman in a white dress, facing forward. The smiling woman wears a short trench coat and blue jeans and stands before a beige stone wall.
One of the works Diana Ochoa-Chavez will spotlight is Harmony in Grey and Peach Colour (1872-1874) by James McNeill Whistler.

Tour

In-Person
Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

This event does not require registration; see further details below.

On this tour, Diana Ochoa-Chavez ’26 will explore how artists have attempted to live with loss and how grief has impacted their art. Moving from ancient portraiture to modernist abstraction, Ochoa-Chavez will highlight works that don’t announce grief in their titles, and will think about what it means to name, express, and carry grief. The stops on the tour are an Egyptian funerary portrait Portrait of a woman (130–50 CE), James McNeill Whistler’s painting Harmony in Grey and Peach Colour (1872–74), and the sculpture Curve X (1974) by Ellsworth Kelly.

Spotlight Tours offer a chance to explore the collections of the Harvard Art Museums through the eyes of a Harvard student. Free and open to the public, these tours start outside the museum shop on Saturdays and Sundays at 11am and 2pm. Drop in and join the conversation! And find out what the Student Guides are up to anytime on Instagram @harvardarthappens.

Please check in with museum staff at the Visitor Services desk in the Calderwood Courtyard to request to join the tour. Space is limited, and tours are available on a first-come, first-served basis; no registration is required.

The Harvard Art Museums offer free admission every day, Tuesday through Sunday. Please see the museum visit page to learn about our general policies for visiting the museums.

This program is supported by the Ho Family Student Guide Fund.

The Ho Family Student Guide Program at the Harvard Art Museums prepares students to develop original, research-based tours of the collections. Through their training, Student Guides gain knowledge of the collections and develop skills in critical thinking, visual analysis, public speaking, and leadership.

The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at am_register@harvard.edu at least 48 hours in advance. Please include the name and date of the program in the subject line of your email.