Hip-Hop Art and French Innovators

Claude Monet's painting of clouds, fields, and poplars

Meadow with Poplars (circa 1875)

Claude Monet/Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts

The Museum of Fine Arts reopened for in-person visits this fall, and is celebrating its 150th anniversary with three distinct shows. The major exhibition, “Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” (October 18-May 16), gathers more than 120 works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, and 11 from peers like Keith Haring, Lady Pink, and Fab 5 Freddy (Return of God to Africa, 1984, below). All reflect a graffiti-rooted strain of 1980s social defiance, and unique conceptual expressions born of urban life and street art. The exhibit explores how aspects of the early hip-hop movement—graffiti, rapping, break dancing—spawned, and were further developed through, Basquiat’s and others’ deeply experimental pro­jects. They forged a multidisciplinary pop art that in many ways continues to revolutionize the mainstream art scene.


Fred Brathwaite/Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Art

The museum also offers 35 paintings by another groundbreaking artist in “Monet and Boston: Lasting Impression” (November 15-February 28). Winter visitors can revel in Claude Monet’s visionary garden at Giverny, and take heart from his freshly conceived worlds awash in color and light, as in Meadow with Poplars (circa 1875). The landscapes, portraits, and still lifes of his contemporary, Paul Cézanne, are arrestingly different, however. “Cézanne: In and Out of Time” (November 11-February 28) looks at how and why that is, focusing on 12 of his paintings alongside works by peers like Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and Auguste Renoir.

Many of the museum’s permanent galleries have also reopened. Advanced, timed-entry tickets, sold online or by phone only, are required; check the website for special hours for discounted admission and COVID-19-vulnerable visitors.

Click here for the November-December 2020 issue table of contents

Read more articles by Nell Porter-Brown

You might also like

A Space-Age Project for Harvard’s Plant Collection

Light-based analysis of botanical collections link plants to Earth’s changing climate.

An Original Magna Carta, Hidden in Plain Sight

A rare original surfaces at Harvard at an “almost providential” moment. 

Doctors for Change

Countway Library exhibit explores historic anti-nuclear activism

Most popular

Harvard Layoffs Continue, with More to Come

In the wake of federal government actions, several Harvard schools and institutes are cutting costs.

Are Noncitizens’ Speech Rights Protected?

Harvard faculty testify in a federal lawsuit over free speech and deportations.

Trump Administration Threatens Harvard’s Accreditation, Subpoenas Student Records

The federal government mounts pressure amid negotiations with Harvard.

Explore More From Current Issue

Will the U.S. Dollar Always Be So Powerful?

The preeminence of U.S. currency at risk

A Look at Harvard’s Distinctive Doctoral Regalia

On regalia, a Jack-of-all-trades retirement, and a Bok’s office bon mot.

Harvard Commencement 2025

Harvard passes a test of its values, yet challenges loom.