Renovation

Only a small percentage of the Harvard Art Museums’ collections can be displayed in public gallery spaces at any given time. An important element in our new facility at 32 Quincy Street will be a study center complex providing access to thousands of art objects held in storage. Within the study centers an area will be set up for each of the three museums — the Fogg, the Busch-Reisinger, and the Sackler — to offer students, faculty, and other visitors a suitable environment for the close examination of original works. Seminar rooms in the complex will be available for faculty-guided group learning.

Visitors will also have access to a user-friendly database of works for personal study, as well as an innovative web-based learning resource that will acquaint them with investigative methods for exploring original works of art. Drawing on these resources and the assistance of study center staff and Art Museums curators, visitors will select works of art to be delivered for examination. Under supervision, they will be encouraged to handle these works and analyze and appreciate them from multiple perspectives, investigating their physical properties, techniques, subjects, formal elements, styles, provenance, and the historical contexts in which they were produced. These dynamic explorations will be supported by ready access to the Art Museums’ archives, as well as to its collections of artists’ tools and materials.