My spouse and I visited Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA)
on a Saturday afternoon in late May 2017. The museum is open daily from approximately
10:00 am until 5:00 pm, with extended hours until 10:00 pm on Wednesdays
(including “Winedays” social event), Thursdays, and Fridays (including the
monthly reoccurring “First Friday” cocktail party). Be sure to check their
website for exact details. Admission costs $25 per adult, but you can enjoy a
repeat visit within 10 days. If you visit the neighboring Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum (ISGM), you can save $2 on a combined admission. You are
requested to check larger bags at the coat check counter.
The over 600,000-square foot museum (founded in 1870) opened
in its present Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood location in the early 1900s. The
museum seems to occupy a series of interconnected buildings and wings (which
makes navigating around a bit tricky). The museum collection is displayed in
over 30 spacious, high-ceilinged galleries spread over four floors (including
the basement). You can use either stairs or elevators to travel between the
levels. Several dining options are available, including Bravo, American Café,
Taste, and the Garden Cafeteria (listed in descending order from most
formal/expensive to least). The expansive glass-enclosed courtyard hosts one of
my favorite pieces in the museum, Dale Chihuly’s 42-foot-high lime green icicle
tower. Another favorite space is the rotunda with colonnades and frescoes
painted by John Singer Sargent. (We
loved how the museum placed a mirror in the center of the first floor space so
that you can view the reflected ceiling paintings without craning your neck -
an interesting technique that we had not seen before!) The architecture of the
museum itself is almost as interesting as the objects that hang inside it.
The MFA's vast
and varied collection of approximately 450,000 objects includes works by American
painters (Homer, Sargent, Hopper, and Cassatt), Impressionists (Monet, Manet,
Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, Cezanne), sculptures, furniture, Egyptian artifacts, Asian
art from Japan and China, African masks, Native American pottery, and
contemporary art. At any one time, the museum offers many rotating temporary
exhibitions by a variety of artists. When we visited, the current exhibitions featured
Botticelli, Matisse, Robert McCloskey (of “Make Way for Duckings” fame), Polish
ghetto photographs, and jewelry (including pieces by Tiffany, Cartier, and
Bulgari).
We enjoyed our visit to the Museum of Fine Arts – the
building is beautiful, the permanent collection is excellent, and the rotating
exhibitions are interesting.
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