Museums & Collections

Discover treasures from Harvard’s museums and special collections, from ancient artifacts to modern art.

Smiling woman stands beside a large skull in a display cabinet.

Don’t Call Stephanie Pierce A Paleontologist

From competing in youth gymnastics to studying tetrapods, the Harvard curator has always chased her curiosity.

by Laurel M. Shugart

Photograph of artist Romare Bearden standing by an easel c. 1940

Romare Bearden profiled by Robert G. O'Meally

Brief life of a textured artist: 1911-1988

by Robert G. O'Meally

Clay head over wooden pill bottles with wires representing the impact of opioids on human beings

At the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton: artists reflect on the opioid crisis

Revealing sculptures at the Fuller Craft Museum, in Brockton

by Nell Porter-Brown

Provincetown harbor in the winter

Winter in Provincetown

Just enough art, culture, terrific food, and lively conversation....

by Nell Porter-Brown

A spoof passport written in Spanglish for the fictional country El Spirit Republic of Puerto Rico, with a domino in place of a national seal on its cover

Harvard Art Museums exhibit displays the ubiquity of cross-border movement

The ubiquity of movement across man-made borders

by Marina N. Bolotnikova

Photograph of worker between two enormously high stacked bookshelves at the Harvard Depository

Excerpt from “What We Talk About When We Talk about Books” by Leah Price

A visit to the Harvard Depository

Preserving craft and farm skills at Sanborn Mills Farm

Promoting craftsmanship and agrarian skills in an idyllic New Hampshire setting

by Nell Porter-Brown

A colorful Byzantine funerary tunic fragment depicts faces and vegetal patterns with a border of gemstones.

Byzantine Beauties

Textile treasures from Dumbarton Oaks

by John S. Rosenberg

Images from the Ballets Russes

Elegant photographs of dancing’s stars

by Nell Porter-Brown

A grinning woman in traditional Nigerian dress sits cross-legged on the floor surrounded by modern devices, including a power strip, a land-line telephone, and a desktop computer displaying on its screen a duplicate image of the entire montage.

Fatimah Tuggar at the Davis Museum

Fatimah Tuggar explores artisanship and technology, at the Davis Museum

by Nell Porter-Brown

A photograph of an eighteenth-century, three-inch pocket globe in its open case

A pocket globe at the Harvard Archives

Ebenezer Storer’s pocket globe

by Jacob Sweet