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.

Two people moving large abstract painting with blue V-shaped design in museum courtyard.

A Harvard Art Museums Painting Gets a Bath

Water and sunlight help restore a modern American classic.

by Max J. Krupnick

The bucolic Essex River property Cogswell’s Grant, named for the 1636 royal grant given to John Cogswell, is now a house museum open to the public.

Cogswell's Grant, an Historic New England property, offers American artifacts

Early American artifacts help animate history.

by Nell Porter-Brown

Eve at four, at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute

Geoffrey Biddle takes extraordinary family photographs

Photographs that admire, probe, and “flinch from” family members.

by Steve Potter

A Tibetan woman praying at the Boudhanath Stupa, near Kathmandu

Nepal's dramatic evolution is captured in photographs

Nepalese history revealed in photographs

by Nell Porter-Brown

Conservation scientist Jens Stenger explains the history of Mark Rothko’s <i>Harvard Murals</i> and the details of the conservation project in front of the now-faded <i>Panel Four.</i>

Faded Rothko murals renewed with corrective light

“Restored” by technology, Harvard Murals anchor inaugural exhibition.

by Francesca Annic...

&ldquo;Interweave,&rdquo; a 1982 studio quilt by Michael James. From the Ardis and Robert James Collection.

Quilts are art, as the International Quilt Study Center and Museum proves

Fabric art that rises from mattresses to museum walls

Thomas Rowlandson&rsquo;s view of the library of the Royal Institution in London, circa 1810

Innovation in humanities courses aims to reach larger numbers of students

New gateways into the humanities for students “still fully molten as human beings”

by Jonathan Shaw

<i>Autumn</i>

Robert PIllsbury crafts art works from layers of paper

Paper artist Robert Pillsbury ’61 makes his work from stacked cut sheets of paper.

An Aero L-39 Albatros (foreground) and Dassault Falcon 2000 over the Golden Gate Bridge

Jessica Ambats shoots air-to-air photographs of airplanes

Jessica Ambats '95 makes amazing photographs of airplanes from the air.

by Craig Lambert

Derek Reist's painting <i>Downtown Gold</i>

Cityscapes by Derek Reist feature sunlight and shadow

Sunlight and shadow star in Derek Reist’s urban landscapes.

by Steve Potter

Seedpods of <i>Magnolia x soulangeana</i> (dispersed by animals)

Seedpod photographs by Anna Laurent

Little packages of DNA that explode with beauty

by Craig Lambert