Harvard Art Museums

The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Busch Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), 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 (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. Approximately of space are dedicated to exhibitions.

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, 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 and Silman Associates. The new building was opened in November 2014.

The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest and largest component of the Harvard Art Museums.

The museum was originally housed in an Italian Renaissance style building designed by Richard Morris Hunt. According to Donald Preziosi, 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 lanterns, 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 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.)

The Fogg Museum is renowned for its holdings of Western paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photographs, prints, and drawings from the Middle Ages to the present. Particular strengths include Italian Renaissance, British Pre Raphaelite, and French art of the 19th century, as well as 19th and 20th century American paintings and drawings. The museum's Maurice Wertheim Collection is a notable group of impressionist and post impressionist works that contains many famous masterpieces, including paintings and sculptures by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh. 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, Edward Burne Jones, Jacques Louis David, Honoré Daumier, Winslow Homer, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Alfred Barye, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. The art museum has Late Medieval Italian paintings by the Master of Offida, Master of Camerino, Bernardo Daddi, Simone Martini, Luca di Tomme, Pietro Lorenzetti, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Master of Orcanesque Misercordia, Master of Saints Cosmas and Damiançand Bartolomeo Bulgarini. Flemish Renaissance paintings — Master of Catholic Kings, Jan Provoost, Master of Holy Blood, Aelbert Bouts, and Master of Saint Ursula. Italian Renaissance period paintings — Fra Angelico, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Gherardo Starnina, Cosme Tura, Giovanni di Paolo, and Lorenzo Lotto. French Baroque period paintings — Nicolas Poussin, Jacques Stella, Nicolas Regnier, and Philippe de Champaigne. Dutch Master paintings — Rembrandt, Emanuel de Witte, Jan Steen, Willem Van de Velde, Jacob van Ruisdael, Salomon van Ruysdael, Jan van der Heyden, and Dirck Hals. American paintings — Gilbert Stuart, Charles Willson Peale, Robert Feke, Sanford Gifford, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins, Man Ray, Ben Shahn, Jacob Lawrence, Lewis Rubenstein, Robert Sloan, Phillip Guston, Jackson Pollock, Kerry James Marshall, and Clyfford Still. In the fall of 2021, the Harvard Art Museums launched the "ReFrame" initiative, with the goal of promoting greater representation and presenting more perspectives within their exhibits. The initiative aims to bring unseen artwork out of storage and re contextualize existing exhibits, to tell the stories of marginalized individuals in each curation.