Winslow Homer’s Summer Night:
New Perspectives

Wednesday, February 1, 6–7:30pm
Menschel Hall, Lower Level

On loan to the Harvard Art Museums from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, Winslow Homer’s Summer Night is often described as one of the most extraordinary nocturnes in the history of American art. This event will bring together three scholars who are providing new insights into Homer’s work: Frank Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art; Hélène Valance, assistant professor of English at the Université de Franche-Comté; and Jennifer Roberts, the Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. More

Our latest special exhibition is on view through April 9, 2017. Complementary programming includes a monthly series of gallery talks, film screenings, and other events—check the calendar for details.

Film: Doris Salcedo’s Public Works documents Salcedo’s site-specific works and ephemeral public projects, which have been central to her artistic production over the past 15 years. More

Film Series 

During the run of the exhibition Doris Salcedo: The Materiality of Mourning, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Harvard Film Archive, and the Harvard Art Museums are collaborating on a three-part film series that looks at the conditions behind displacement and forced migration, in Latin America in particular. Each screening will be followed by a discussion of the issues that the film confronts and the broader international migration crisis afflicting the world today. 

Thursday, February 2, 7–8:30pm: On Not Being at Home, Part 1: Mirage. The Films of Ana Mendieta More

Monday, February 13, 6–7:30pm: On Not Being at Home, Part 2: The Echo of Songs More

Tuesday, March 21, 6–8:00pm: On Not Being at Home, Part 3: The Colors of the Mountain More

Drawing: Medium, Discourse, Object

Wednesday, February 8, 6–7:30pm
Menschel Hall, Lower Level

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, this lecture by Harvard professor Ewa Lajer-Burcharth will consider the key aspects of the process of drawing’s emergence into modernity and will explore the output of the most important artists, from Fragonard to Seurat, who contributed to that process. More

Eva Hesse: Film Screening and Discussion

Thursday, February 9, 6–8:30pm
Menschel Hall, Lower Level

The documentary Eva Hesse investigates the life and artistic practice of one of the most influential and experimental artists of the last half-century. Following the screening, Annette Lemieux, artist and senior lecturer on visual and environmental studies at Harvard University, will be joined by curator Mary Schneider Enriquez to discuss Hesse’s legacy. More

The Museum of Plaster Casts: Intentions and Narratives

Wednesday, February 15, 6–7:30pm
Menschel Hall, Lower Level

Frank Matthias Kammel, deputy director general of the German National Museum in Nuremburg, will discuss the history of the Royal Museums in Berlin and the German National Museum, examining acquisition strategies, associated narratives, and the intentions behind museums’ representations of art and cultural history through plaster casts. More

Members Tour

Wednesday, February 15, 5:30–6:30pm

Members are invited to discover our collections during a special curator-led tour through select galleries, held outside the museums’ public hours. If you’re not yet a member, you can join here. More

Ephemeral Yet Enduring: Challenges in Contemporary Conservation

Wednesday, February 22, 6–7:30pm
Menschel Hall, Lower Level

Narayan Khandekar, director of the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies and senior conservation scientist, and Angela Chang, assistant director and conservator of objects and sculpture, will discuss the various issues that arise in conserving contemporary art, paying special attention to works in our current Doris Salcedo exhibition. More

Art Study Center Seminar:
In the Flesh—The Artist’s Hand

Friday, February 24, 11am–12pm
Art Study Center, Level 4

Through a selection of works in different media from our European and American collections, this seminar will focus on the artist’s hand as a subject, a motif, and an agent of artistic creativity. Led by Ethan Lasser, head of the Division of European and American Art and the Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. Curator of American Art, and Edouard Kopp, the Maida and George Abrams Associate Curator of Drawings. More

Tuesday, February 28, 6–7:30pm
Menschel Hall, Lower Level

In this lecture, Edwidge Danticat will reflect on the ethical and spiritual dimensions of memory and mourning, bringing her unparalleled gifts as a writer concerned with political violence and migration to respond to our current Doris Salcedo exhibition. More

Back On View 

Room 1500, Level 1

After going to the lab for cleaning and conservation, Franz Marc’s Grazing Horses IV is back on view. 

Highlights from Index

Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium was organized with critical input from more than a dozen Harvard students, who contributed to everything from the exhibition’s curatorial focus, to its final object list, to the accompanying publication. More

Harvard undergraduates in an Italian class on Dante used objects in our collections—including works by William Blake, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Robert Rauschenberg—to spur their language learning. More