Current

This survey of approximately 600 works from the Harvard Art Museums three museums — the Fogg, the Busch-Reisinger, and the Arthur M. Sackler — is a unique installation of objects that have historically been exhibited in separate facilities. The Harvard Art Museum has one of the country's preeminent art collections, and Re-View reflects the diversity and richness of these holdings. The exhibition, which includes familiar highlights, features Western art from antiquity to the present as well as Islamic and Asian art.

Re-View is on long-term view at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum and provides a selected, ongoing display of the collections while the Art Museum's building at 32 Quincy Street — the former home of the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger — is closed for renovation. This major renovation and expansion project designed by architect Renzo Piano, with completion anticipated in 2013, will unite the three museums in a single, state-of-the-art facility.

Re-View has been made possible by a generous grant from the NBT Charitable Trust, as well as the Art Museum's Alexander S., Robert L., and Bruce A. Beal Exhibition Fund; Anthony and Celeste Meier Exhibitions Fund; and Charlotte F. and Irving W. Rabb Exhibition Fund.

Temporary Installations

A limited number of objects in Re-View will be rotated periodically. In the Islamic and Later Indian gallery, second floor, thematic installations will highlight in particular paintings, drawings, calligraphy, and photographs. Two niches on the fourth floor will feature works on paper, recent acquisitions, and installations tied to university courses.

Sacred Spaces: The World of Dervishes, Fakirs, and Sufis
August 6, 2009–January 3, 2010
Floor 2
This exhibition combines representations of Islamic holy men in Sufi traditions with calligraphic specimens of mystical texts. A companion exhibition, Sacred Spaces: Reflections on a Sufi Path, is on view at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology October 22, 2009–March 30, 2010.
Organized by Kimberly Masteller, former assistant curator of Islamic and later Indian art, Harvard Art Museum/Arthur M. Sackler Museum and current Jeanne McCray Beals Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; and Sunil Sharma, assistant professor of Persianate and comparative literature, Boston University.

Daguerreotype Portraits
Ongoing
Floor 4
Two mid-19th-century portraits of African Americans show the power of self-identification through photography.
Organized by Michelle Lamunière, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Assistant Curator of Photography, Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum.

American Art and Modernity, 1865–1965 and Photography and Society
September 4–October 4, 2009
October 9, 2009–January 10, 2010
Floor 4
A selection of objects, including prints, drawings, and photographs, is displayed in conjunction with two Harvard University courses. American Art and Modernity, 1865–1965 explores a range of issues related to developments in American art between the Civil War and the Cold War. The goal of the second course, Photography and Society, is to understand how photographs define and shape relations between their subjects and their viewers.
Coordinated by Michelle Lamunière, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Assistant Curator of Photography, Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum.