Visual Arts

Explore exhibitions, artists, and visual works that enrich Harvard’s cultural and academic life.

A woman and a horse jump off a large platform into water

Treasure | July-August 2025

Pony Plunges

Scrapbooking a woman who rode horses into the sea

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.

Harvard Squared | July-August 2014

Lives in Art

Early American artifacts help animate history.

by Nell Porter-Brown

Eve at four, at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute

Montage | July-August 2014

Relational Lens

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

by Steve Potter

A Tibetan woman praying at the Boudhanath Stupa, near Kathmandu

Harvard Squared | July-August 2014

Nepal in Pictures

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>

Arts & Culture |

Rarely Seen Rothkos Highlight Harvard Art Museums’ Reopening

“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.

Montage | May-June 2014

The Art of the Quilt

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

Features | May-June 2014

Toward Cultural Citizenship

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

by Jonathan Shaw

<i>Autumn</i>

Montage | March-April 2014

Design in Layers

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

Montage | March-April 2014

Styled Blue Yonder

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

by Craig Lambert

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

Montage | January-February 2014

The Lit City

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

by Steve Potter

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

Montage | January-February 2014

The Sorcery of Seedpods

Little packages of DNA that explode with beauty

by Craig Lambert