Arts & Culture

Explore Harvard’s vibrant arts scene—from campus exhibitions and theater to cultural analysis and literary reviews. Discover how creativity shapes the Harvard experience.

A vibrant composition of flowers, a bird, and butterflies with a distant manor under a moody sky.

Rachel Ruysch’s Lush (Still) Life

Now on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, a Dutch painter’s art proved a treasure trove for scientists.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Painting of a young woman standing at a French window, looking at a verdant garden

Bruce Museum’s spring shows

Images that help unveil the truth of what we can see

by Nell Porter-Brown

Detail of a painting showing long grasses and the moon

A Sweeping Exhibit Covers 250 Years of Japanese Art

Paintings from the Edo period convey “a powerful sense of there-ness.” 

by Lydialyle Gibson

Photograph of art historian Shawon Kinew

Harvard Portrait: Shawon Kinew

Connecting European Old Masters with the new landscape of art history 

by Marina N. Bolotnikova

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

A procession of women heading toward a lake

Performance artist and activist Lena Chen

Lena Chen transforms trauma into art and performance.

by Mathilde Montpetit

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

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