The Harvard Art Museums are part of
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and comprise three museums:
the Fogg Museum (established in 1895),
the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903),
and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985),
and four research centers: the
Archaeological Exploration of Sardis (founded in 1958), the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art (founded in 2002), the Harvard Art Museums Archives, and the
Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies
Since 1974, the conservation graduate programs have held an annual meeting at one of the member programs in order to give current students the opportunity to present current research to their peers.
History
The first conference of North American ...
(founded in 1928). The three museums that constitute the Harvard Art Museums were initially integrated into a single institution under the name Harvard University Art Museums in 1983.
The word "University" was dropped from the institutional name in 2008.
The collections include approximately 250,000 objects in all media,
ranging in date from antiquity to the present and originating in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The main building contains of space for public exhibitions, classrooms, conservation and research labs, and other related functions. Approximately of space are dedicated to exhibitions.
Renovation and expansions
![Harvard Art Museums atrium](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Harvard_Art_Museums_atrium.jpg)
In 2008, the Harvard Art Museums' historic building at 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, was closed for a major renovation and expansion project. During the beginning phases of this project, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway, Cambridge, displayed selected works from the collections of the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Sackler museums from September 13, 2008, through June 1, 2013.
The renovated building at 32 Quincy Street united the three museums in a single facility designed by architect
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (20 ...
, which increased gallery space by 40% and added a glass,
truncated pyramidal roof. In a street-level view of the front facade, the glass roof and other expansions are mostly hidden, largely preserving the original appearance of the building. The renovation was supervised by
LeMessurier Consultants
LeMessurier Consultants is a Boston, Massachusetts firm, founded by William LeMessurier in 1961. It provides engineering support services to architects and construction firms. They focus on advanced structural techniques and impacts to construct ...
and Silman Associates.
The renovation added six levels of galleries, classrooms, lecture halls, and new study areas providing access to parts of the 250,000-piece collection of the museums. The new building was opened in November 2014.
Directors
*
Charles Herbert Moore
Charles Herbert Moore (April 10, 1840 – February 15, 1930) was an American university professor, painter, and architectural historian, known as the first director of Harvard University's Fogg Art Museum. He was one of many followers of the ...
: 1896–1909
*
Edward W. Forbes: 1909–1944
*John Coolidge: 1948–1968
*
Agnes Mongan: 1968–1971
*
Daniel Robbins: 1972–1974
*
Seymour Slive
Seymour Slive (September 15, 1920 – June 14, 2014) was an American art historian, who served as director of the Harvard Art Museums from 1975 to 1984. Slive was a scholar of Dutch art, specifically of the artists Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Ja ...
: 1975–1984
*
Edgar Peters Bowron
Edgar "Pete" Peters Bowron (born May 27, 1943 in Birmingham) is an American art historian and curator. Bowron served a director of both the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Harvard Art Museums. He is a scholar of seventeenth- and eighteent ...
: 1985–1990
*
James Cuno
James "Jim" Bash Cuno (born April 6, 1951 in St. Louis) is an American art historian and curator. From 2011–22 Cuno served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the J. Paul Getty Trust.
Career
A native of St. Louis, Cuno received ...
: 1991–2002
*
Thomas W. Lentz
Thomas "Tom" Woodward Lentz Jr. (born June 11, 1951) is an American art historian and curator. Lentz served as the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard Art Museums from 2003 to 2015. He was the ninth director in its history.
Ca ...
: 2003–2015
*
Martha Tedeschi: 2016–present
Fogg Museum
![USA-Fogg Museum of Art0](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/USA-Fogg_Museum_of_Art0.jpg)
The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest and largest component of the Harvard Art Museums.
History
The museum was originally housed in an
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
-style building designed by
Richard Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 – July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of American architecture. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance faà ...
. According to
Donald Preziosi
Donald Anthony Preziosi (born January 12, 1941) is an American art historian. He is Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles. In August 2007, he became the MacGeorge Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He i ...
, the museum was not initially established as a gallery for the display of original works of art, but was founded as an institution for the
teaching and study of visual arts, and the original building contained classrooms equipped with
magic lantern
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a si ...
s, a library, an archive of slides and photographs of art works, and exhibition space for reproductions of works of art. In 1925, the building was replaced by a
Georgian Revival
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, Georg ...
-style structure on Quincy Street, designed by
Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott. (The original Hunt Hall remained, underutilized until it was demolished in 1974 to make way for new freshman dormitories.)
Collection
The Fogg Museum is renowned for its holdings of Western paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photographs, prints, and drawings from the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
to the present. Particular strengths include
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
, British
Pre-Raphaelite
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
, and
French art of the 19th century
19th-century French art was made in France or by French citizens during the following political regimes: Napoleon Bonaparte's Consulate (1799–1804) and Empire (1804–1814), the Restoration under Louis XVIII and Charles X (1814–1830), the July ...
, as well as 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and drawings.
The museum's
Maurice Wertheim
Maurice Wertheim (February 16, 1886 – May 27, 1950) was an American investment banker, chess player, chess patron, art collector, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Wertheim founded Wertheim & Co. in 1927.
Biography
Born to a Jewish family ...
Collection is a notable group of
impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
and
post-impressionist
Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...
works that contains many famous masterpieces, including paintings and sculptures by
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...
,
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...
,
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Born ...
,
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...
,
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
, and
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...
. Central to the Fogg's holdings is the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, with more than 4,000 works of art. Bequeathed to Harvard in 1943, the collection continues to play a pivotal role in shaping the legacy of the Harvard Art Museums, serving as a foundation for teaching, research, and professional training programs. It includes important 19th-century paintings, sculpture, and drawings by
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
,
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
,
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
,
Honoré Daumier
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808February 10, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second N ...
,
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...
,
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ...
,
Alfred Barye,
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "R ...
,
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
,
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
,
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the ...
, and
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
.
The art museum has Late Medieval Italian paintings by the
Master of Offida
The Master of Offida (active mid to late 14th century) was an anonymous painter active in the towns of Offida and Ascoli Piceno in the Marche.
He painted circa 1360-1370 frescoes in the church and crypt of Santa Maria della Rocca in Offida, de ...
, Master of Camerino,
Bernardo Daddi,
Simone Martini
Simone Martini ( – 1344) was an Italian painter born in Siena.
He was a major figure in the development of early Italian painting and greatly influenced the development of the International Gothic style.
It is thought that Martini was a pupil ...
,
Luca di Tomme
The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the most recent population from which all organisms now living on Earth share common descent—the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. This includes all cellular organisms; t ...
,
Pietro Lorenzetti
Pietro Lorenzetti (; – 1348) or Pietro Laurati was an Italian painter, active between c. 1306 and 1345. Together with his younger brother Ambrogio, he introduced naturalism into Sienese art. In their artistry and experiments with three-dimens ...
,
Ambrogio Lorenzetti
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (; – 9 June 1348) or Ambruogio Laurati was an Italian painter of the Sienese school. He was active from approximately 1317 to 1348. He painted ''The Allegory of Good and Bad Government'' in the Sala dei Nove (Salon of Nine ...
, Master of Orcanesque Misercordia, Master of Saints Cosmas and Damiançand Bartolomeo Bulgarini.
Flemish Renaissance paintings — Master of Catholic Kings,
Jan Provoost
Jan Provoost, or Jean Provost, or Jan Provost (1462/65 – January 1529) was a Belgian painter born in Mons.
Provost was a prolific master who left his early workshop in Valenciennes to run two workshops, one in Bruges, where he was made a burgh ...
, Master of Holy Blood,
Aelbert Bouts, and Master of Saint Ursula.
Italian Renaissance period paintings —
Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro; February 18, 1455) was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, described by Vasari in his '' Lives of the Artists'' as having "a rare and perfect talent".Giorgio Vasari, ''Lives of the Artists''. Pengu ...
,
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian Renaissance painting, Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th cent ...
,
Domenico Ghirlandaio
Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi (, , ; 2 June 1448 – 11 January 1494), professionally known as Domenico Ghirlandaio, also spelled as Ghirlandajo, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Florence. Ghirlandaio was part of ...
,
Gherardo Starnina
Gherardo Starnina (c. 1360–1413) was an Italian painter from Florence in the Quattrocento era.
According to the biographer Giorgio Vasari, Starnina initially trained with Antonio Veneziano, then with Agnolo Gaddi. He is claimed to have part ...
,
Cosme Tura,
Giovanni di Paolo
Giovanni di Paolo di Grazia (''c.'' 1403–1482) was an Italian painter, working primarily in Siena, becoming a prolific painter and illustrator of manuscripts, including Dante's texts. He was one of the most important painters of the 15th cent ...
, and
Lorenzo Lotto
Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480 – 1556/57) was an Italian Painting, painter, draughtsman, and illustrator, traditionally placed in the Venetian school (art), Venetian school, though much of his career was spent in other north Italian cities. He pain ...
.
French Baroque
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
period paintings —
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a ...
,
Jacques Stella
Jacques Stella (1596 – 29 April 1657) was a French painter, a leading exponent of the neoclassical style of Parisian Atticism.
Life
Stella was born in Lyon. His father was François Stella, a painter and merchant of Flemish origin, but ...
,
Nicolas Regnier
Nicolas or Nicolás may refer to:
People Given name
* Nicolas (given name)
Mononym
* Nicolas (footballer, born 1999), Brazilian footballer
* Nicolas (footballer, born 2000), Brazilian footballer
Surname Nicolas
* Dafydd Nicolas (c.1705–1774), ...
, and
Philippe de Champaigne
Philippe de Champaigne (; 26 May 1602 – 12 August 1674) was a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school. He was a founding member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, the premier art ...
.
Dutch Master paintings —
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
,
Emanuel de Witte
Emanuel de Witte (1617–1692) was a Dutch perspective painter. In contrast to Pieter Jansz Saenredam, who emphasized architectural accuracy, De Witte was more concerned with the atmosphere of his interiors. Though few in number, de Witte als ...
,
Jan Steen
Jan Havickszoon Steen (c. 1626 – buried 3 February 1679) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, one of the leading genre painters of the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.
Life ...
,
Willem Van de Velde
Willem van de Velde the Elder (1610/11 – 13 December 1693) was a Dutch Golden Age seascape painter, who produced many precise drawings of ships and ink paintings of fleets, but later learned to use oil paints like his son.
Biography
Wi ...
,
Jacob van Ruisdael
Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael (; 1629 – 10 March 1682) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He is generally considered the pre-eminent landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of great wealth and cultural achi ...
,
Salomon van Ruysdael
Salomon van Ruysdael (c. 1602, Naarden – buried 3 November 1670, Haarlem) was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter. He was the uncle of Jacob van Ruisdael. ,
Jan van der Heyden
Jan van der Heyden (5 March 1637, Gorinchem – 28 March 1712, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Baroque-era painter, glass painter, draughtsman and printmaker. Van der Heyden was one of the first Dutch painters to specialize in townscapes and became ...
, and
Dirck Hals
Dirck Hals (19 March 1591 – 17 May 1656), born at Haarlem, was a Dutch Golden Age painter of merry company scenes, festivals and ballroom scenes. He played a role in the development of these types of genre painting. He was somewhat influe ...
.
American painting
Visual art of the United States or American art is visual art made in the United States or by U.S. artists. Before colonization there were many flourishing traditions of Native American art, and where the Spanish colonized Spanish Colonial arc ...
s —
Gilbert Stuart
Gilbert Charles Stuart ( Stewart; December 3, 1755 – July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island Colony who is widely considered one of America's foremost portraitists. His best-known work is an unfinished portrait of George Washi ...
,
Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American Painting, painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolu ...
,
Robert Feke
Robert Feke ( 1705 or 1707 1752) was an American portrait painter born in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. According to art historian Richard Saunders, "Feke’s impact on the development of Colonial painting was substantial, and his pictures ...
,
Sanford Gifford
Sanford Robinson Gifford (July 10, 1823 – August 29, 1880) was an American landscape painter and a leading member of the second generation of Hudson River School artists. A highly-regarded practitioner of Luminism, his work was noted for its ...
,
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...
,
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
,
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.
For the length ...
,
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
,
Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''.
Biography
Shahn was born ...
,
Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", although by his own ...
,
Lewis Rubenstein
Lewis may refer to:
Names
* Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name
* Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname
Music
* Lewis (musician), Canadian singer
* "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...
,
Robert Sloan
Robert Sloan (born 14 July 1983) is a Scottish footballer, who plays for Armadale Thistle in the Scottish Junior Football Association, East Region. He has previously played in the Scottish Premier League for Heart of Midlothian.
Career
Sl ...
,
Phillip Guston
Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...
,
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
,
Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall (born October 17, 1955) is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall ...
, and
Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately follo ...
.
Gallery
Busch–Reisinger Museum
Founded in 1903 as the Germanic Museum, the Busch–Reisinger Museum is the only museum in North America dedicated to the study of art from the German-speaking countries of Central and Northern Europe in all media and in all periods.
William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
spoke at its dedication. Its holdings include significant works of Austrian
Secession
Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics le ...
art,
German expressionism
German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
, and 1920s abstraction. The museum holds one of the first and largest collections of artifacts related to the
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...
design school (1919–1933), which fostered many developments in modernist design.
Other strengths include late medieval sculpture and 18th-century art. The museum also holds noteworthy postwar and contemporary art from German-speaking Europe, including works by
Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German painter, sculptor and graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his subjects upside down in an effort to overcome the ...
,
Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan hav ...
,
Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter (; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary German ...
, and one of the world's most comprehensive collections of works by
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
.
The Busch–Reisinger Art Museum has oil paintings by artists
Lovis Corinth
Lovis Corinth (21 July 1858 – 17 July 1925) was a German artist and writer whose mature work as a painter and printmaker realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism.
Corinth studied in Paris and Munich, joined the Berlin Se ...
,
Max Liebermann
Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...
,
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's prim ...
,
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images.
His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...
,
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Paula Modersohn-Becker (8 February 1876 – 20 November 1907) was a German Expressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th century. Her work is noted for its intensity and its blunt, unapologetic humanity, and for the many self-portraits th ...
,
Max Ernst
Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...
,
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th-centur ...
,
Franz Marc
Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later b ...
,
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (Karl Schmidt until 1905; 1 December 1884 – 10 August 1976) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker; he was one of the four founders of the artist group Die Brücke.
Life and work
Schmidt-Rottluff was born in ...
,
Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde (born Hans Emil Hansen; 7 August 1867 – 13 April 1956) was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of th ...
,
Erich Heckel
Erich Heckel (31 July 1883 – 27 January 1970) was a German painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group ''Die Brücke'' ("The Bridge") which existed 1905–1913. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Oly ...
,
Heinrich Hoerle
Heinrich Hoerle (1 September 1895 – 7 July 1936) was a German constructivist artist of the New Objectivity movement.
Hoerle was born in Cologne. He studied at the Cologne School of Arts and Crafts but was mostly self-taught as an artist. Afte ...
,
Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German painter, sculptor and graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his subjects upside down in an effort to overcome the ...
,
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the i ...
, and
Max Beckmann
Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement. In the 1920 ...
. It has sculpture by
Alfred Barye,
Käthe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz ( born as Schmidt; 8 July 1867 – 22 April 1945) was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts) and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including ''The Weavers'' and ''T ...
,
George Minne
George (Georges) Minne (born ''Georgius Joannes Leonardus Minne''; 30 August 1866 – 18 February 1941) was a Belgian artist and sculptor famous for his idealized depictions of man's inner spiritual conflicts, including the "Kneeling Youth" scu ...
, and
Ernst Barlach
Ernst Heinrich Barlach (2 January 1870 – 24 October 1938) was a German expressionist sculptor, medallist, printmaker and writer. Although he was a supporter of the war in the years leading to World War I, his participation in the war made hi ...
.
From 1921 to 1991, the Busch–Reisinger was located in
Adolphus Busch Hall
Adolphus Busch Hall is a Harvard University building located at 27 Kirkland Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is named for brewer and philanthropist Adolphus Busch, former president of the Anheuser-Busch company, who contributed $265,000 to i ...
at 29 Kirkland Street. The Hall continues to house the Busch–Reisinger's founding collection of medieval
plaster casts
A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – p ...
and an exhibition on the history of the Busch–Reisinger Museum; it also hosts concerts on its
Flentrop
Flentrop is a Dutch company based in Zaandam that builds and restores organs.
History
It was established in 1903 by Hendrik Wicher Flentrop (1866 -1950) from Koog aan de Zaan. Hendrik, originally a house painter by trade, was an organist at the ...
pipe organ. In 1991, the Busch–Reisinger moved to the new Werner Otto Hall, designed by
Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, at 32 Quincy Street.
In 2018, Busch–Reisinger featured the exhibition ''Inventur–Art in Germany, 1943–55'', which was named after a 1945 poem by
Günter Eich
Günter Eich (; 1 February 1907 – 20 December 1972) was a German lyricist, dramatist, and author. He was born in Lebus, on the Oder River, and educated in Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris.
Life
Eich made his first appearance in print with some poems ...
. In 2019, ''The Bauhaus and Harvard'' celebrated the centennial of the founding of the influential design school in Germany. Following its closure by the Nazis in 1933, a number of its former students and faculty made their way to Harvard, where they continued and expanded their work.
Curators
*
Kuno Francke
Kuno Francke (27 September 1855 – 1930), was a U.S. (German-born) educator and historian. Most of his career was spent at Harvard University where he eventually became a professor of history and German culture and curator of the Germanic ...
, 1903–1930
*
Charles L. Kuhn, 1930–1968
* Peter Nisbet
* Lynette Roth
Arthur M. Sackler Museum
![Sackler Museum, Harvard University](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Sackler_Museum%2C_Harvard_University.jpg)
The Arthur M. Sackler Museum opened in 1985, and was located at 485 Broadway, directly across the street from the original Fogg Museum building. The Sackler building, designed by British architect
James Stirling, was named for its major donor
Arthur M. Sackler
Arthur Mitchell Sackler (August 22, 1913 – May 26, 1987) was an American psychiatrist and marketer of pharmaceuticals whose fortune originated in medical advertising and trade publications. He was also a philanthropist and art collector. He wa ...
, who was a psychiatrist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
Upon its opening in 1984, the building also housed new offices for the History of Art and Architecture faculty, as well as the Digital Images and Slides Collection of the Fine Arts Library. The Sackler building continues to house the History of Art and Architecture Department and the Media Slide Library.
Critics and protestors have called for Harvard to remove the "Sackler" family name from the building and the museum, citing its connection to the aggressive marketing of the addictive drug
OxyContin
Oxycodone, sold under various brand names such as Roxicodone and OxyContin (which is the extended release form), is a strong, semi-synthetic opioid used medically for treatment of moderate to severe pain. It is highly addictive and a commonly ...
. Defenders have pointed out that Arthur M. Sackler died in 1987, before the development of the opioid problems of the 21st century.
Collection
The museum collection holds important collections of Asian art, most notably, archaic Chinese jades (the widest collection outside of China)
and Japanese
surimono
are a genre of Japanese woodblock print. They were privately commissioned for special occasions such as the New Year. Surimono literally means "printed thing". Being produced in small numbers for a mostly educated audience of ''literati'', ...
, as well as outstanding Chinese bronzes, ceremonial weapons, Buddhist cave-temple sculptures, ceramics from China and Korea, Japanese works on paper, and lacquer boxes.
The ancient Mediterranean and Byzantine collections comprise significant works in all media from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Near East. Strengths include Greek vases, small bronzes, and coins from throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. The museum also holds works on paper from Islamic lands and India, including paintings, drawings, calligraphy, and manuscript illustrations, with particular strength in
Rajput
Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...
art, as well as important Islamic ceramics from the 8th through to the 19th century.
Architecture
The Sackler building, which was originally designed as an extension to the Fogg Museum, elicited worldwide attention from the time of Harvard's commission of Stirling to design the building, following a selection process that evaluated more than 70 architects.
The university mounted an exhibition of the architects' preliminary design drawings in 1981 (''James Stirling's Design to Expand the Fogg Museum''), and issued a portfolio of Stirling's drawings to the press.
After its completion in 1984, the building received widespread press coverage, with general acknowledgment of its significance as a Stirling design and a Harvard undertaking.
Stirling employed an inventive design in an effort to let the museum peacefully co-exist with neighboring buildings in an area that he termed "an architectural zoo".
[ Harvard published a 50-page book on the Sackler, with extensive color photos by Timothy Hursley, an interview with Stirling by Michael Dennis, a tribute to Arthur M. Sackler, and essays by Slive, Coolidge, and Rosenfield.
In spite of international critical acclaim upon its opening, there have been outspoken critics of the building; Martin Peretz even proposed its demolition (though his case was undermined by mis-attributing the building to another British architect, ]Norman Foster
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
).
The Sackler building was originally intended to include a wide by long "connector" or bridge to the second floor of the original Fogg Museum building located on the other side of Broadway, a major Cambridge thoroughfare. The massive addition was planned to house two galleries, a lounge, and a completely-enclosed connection between the buildings, accessible to visitors and museum staff. The suspended structure
A suspended structure is a structure which is supported by cables coming from beams or trusses which sit atop a concrete center column or core. The design allows the walls, roof and cantilevered floors to be supported entirely by cables and a cen ...
was to include a large oculus Oculus (a term from Latin ''oculus'', meaning 'eye'), may refer to the following
Architecture
* Oculus (architecture), a circular opening in the centre of a dome or in a wall
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Oculus'' (film), a 2013 American ...
window high above the middle of the street, at the level of the large square opening still visible on the front of the Sackler building.
The connector was postponed and never built, because of strong opposition from the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association and local politicians. Eventually, an extensive renovation and expansion of the original Fogg Museum building would render the unbuilt connector proposal moot. In front of the entrance to the Sackler building, two monolithic reinforced concrete pillars still stand, which were originally intended to support the connector structure.
In 2013, the future use of the Sackler building was uncertain, as its collection had been relocated to the Renzo Piano expansion of the Fogg building.
In January 2019, after undergoing an 18-month renovation, the Sackler building was re-opened as an educational and research facility containing no significant public exhibition spaces. The building continues to house a sizable lecture hall at its basement level, which is primarily used for educational purposes. From its original opening in 1984, the building has encompassed the university's department of the History of Art and Architecture.
See also
*
*List of university museums in the United States
This is a list of college and university museums in the United States.
Alabama
* Alabama Museum of Health Sciences
* Alabama Stage and Screen Hall of Fame
* Evelyn Burrow Museum at Wallace State Community College
* Gorgas House
* Jule Co ...
References
Further reading
* Review of the renovation
External links
Harvard Art Museums
Harvard Art Museums
within Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world.
It utilizes high-resolution image technol ...
Archaeological Exploration of Sardis
Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art
Harvard Art Museums Archives
The Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies
Harvard listing of Sackler building, including bibliography
AAQ Museum Architecture Portfolio, including multiple photos
*
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Harvard University museums
Art museums and galleries in Massachusetts
Museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts
01
Asian art museums in the United States
Museums of ancient Greece in the United States
Museums of ancient Rome in the United States
Harvard Square
Harvard University buildings
University museums in Massachusetts
Landmarks in Cambridge, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge, Massachusetts
University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Art museums established in 1896
1896 establishments in Massachusetts
Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums
Art museums established in 1983
1983 establishments in Massachusetts
Buildings and structures completed in 1896
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Buildings and structures completed in 1925
Georgian Revival architecture in Massachusetts
Buildings and structures completed in 2014
Renzo Piano buildings
Modernist architecture in Massachusetts
Postmodern architecture in the United States
Sackler family