Director's Message

Untitled (Night View of Trees and Streetlamp, Burgkühnauer Allee, Dessau) (detail), 1928, Lyonel Feininger. Photo: Houghton Library, Harvard University

As an institution, we have experienced a great deal of change in the last three years: We closed our building on Quincy Street for a major renovation and expansion, moved most of our collection and staff to an off-site location, and reinstalled the Arthur M. Sackler Museum with works of art from the collections of all three of our museums. A vast amount of planning and strategic thinking went into each of those projects.

Now that we’ve caught our breath, we’re looking again toward the future. Our focus is on upcoming temporary exhibitions at the Sackler, as well as preparations for the eventual opening of our new facility across the street.

Beginning in February 2012, the Sackler’s fourth floor galleries will be reconfigured for a series of temporary exhibitions. A display of recent acquisitions will be followed by our traveling exhibition of photographs by the modernist Lyonel Feininger and then a show of the Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art. The remainder of the fourth floor will feature works from the permanent collection and expanded galleries for curricular use, an expression of our mission as a teaching museum. Programmed on a rotating basis by faculty in conjunction with classes, these curricular galleries (which will figure prominently in our renovated facility) serve as important teaching platforms and also provide our visitors with access to works of art that are rarely on display. An exhibition of works by Jasper Johns will be on view in the curricular galleries, with interpretive wall labels and catalogue by students, in May 2012.

After a period when much of our activity has been internal, we are glad to once again put our gears into motion, presenting changing exhibitions in the Sackler and planning for displays that will occupy future gallery spaces.

Thomas W. Lentz
Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director