Looking to add a little culture to your weekend? The Museum of Fine Arts has an embarrassment of riches — from a look at the advent of postcards to a few coins that aren’t a dime a dozen.
The Postcard Age: Selections From The Leonard A. Lauder Collection
On view at the MFA through April 14th
In 1869, the Austro-Hungarian postal service unwittingly sparked a movement that would alter the world: postcards! In a fascinating and deftly curated show, the MFA looks at the postcard craze that ignited in Europe and spread across a good portion of the world. Sifting through Leonard Lauder’s promised gift of some 100,000 postcards, curators Ben Weiss and Lynda Klich provide social glimpses of the world from 1890 to 1910. A democratic art form, postcards became a palette for artists, a means of political expression and a vehicle for tawdry exchanges. It’s a compelling look at history as you haven’t seen it before.
Redesigns: The Koch Gallery and the Arts of Korea Gallery
Now open at the MFA
Slowly but surely the MFA has been transforming some of its less-visited spaces—turning them into must-see destinations. This fall Director Malcolm Rogers personally oversaw the redesign of the museum’s grand Koch Gallery featuring masterpieces from its European collection including van Dyck, Rubens, Velazquez and some 40 others rising to the space’s soaring ceilings. He’s added an impressive display of German silver, had the van Dyck restored and covered the walls in a rich, red damask that teases a new vibrancy from the works.
One floor down, for the first time in 30 years, the museum has redesigned its Arts of Korea Gallery for a gorgeous display of Korean celadons, ceramics, lacquerware and more. Situating contemporary pieces alongside antiquities, Art of Asia, Oceania, and Africa Chair Jane Portal (a fairly new arrival from the British Museum) has crafted a luminous view of the MFA’s Korean holdings which is one of the largest holdings in the Western Hemisphere (thanks to prescient Boston collectors acquiring pieces more than a century ago). You’ll likely find a new appreciation for the Korean art form — I certainly did.
Ruettgers Gallery For Ancient Coins
How interesting could a bunch of old coins be? It turns out they’re pretty riveting when presented by the MFA in concert with the means by which to really view them. In this new gallery, the only one of its kind among major US art museums, 274 Greek and Roman coins are on view including one Brutus issued after the assassination of Julius Caesar. With magnifying glasses that allow you to zoom in on virtually every piece and iPads that provide an even more interactive exploration, seemingly tired old coins never looked so good.
