MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

Museum of Fine Arts
1001 Bissonnet
Houston, TX 77005

PHONE: 713.639.7300
www.mfah.org

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is a dynamic cultural complex consisting of two museum buildings, two art schools, two decorative arts centers, and a sculpture garden.

With its encyclopedic collection and an exciting schedule of international loan exhibitions and award-winning programs, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is one of the premier destinations in the United States for art lovers.

Museum of Fine Arts Exhibitions

• Moon (thru Jan. 10, 2010)

  • The MFAH celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing with a major exhibition that explores 500 years of mankind's fascination with the moon, from early telescopes, to romantic paintings, to NASA photographs.
• Joaquín Torres-García: Paintings in Houston Collections (thru Nov. 29, 2009)

  • Joaquín Torres-García (1874—1949) is one of the most influential artists of the early 20th century to have emerged from Latin America. Revered not only as a Modernist painter but also as a teacher and author, the Uruguay native spent most of his life in Spain, Italy, France, and New York before returning to his place of birth. 
• Building the Master Drawings Collection (thru Dec. 20, 2009)

  • This small but exceptional selection of figural drawings ranges from studies of the head and torso to full figures. It also highlights two of the museum´s most recent acquisitions: Domenico Passignano´s The Head of a Youth and Jean-Baptiste Greuze´s Reclining Female Nude: Study for Aegina Visited by Jupiter.
• Art of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea (thru Jan. 3, 2010)

  • The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Asia Society, New York, offer an unprecedented exhibition of art from ancient Viet Nam—the first U.S. exhibition to address in depth the historical, geographic and cultural contexts of precolonial Vietnamese art.
• Collecting the Past: 25 years of Documenting Museum History (thru Jan. 24, 2010)

  • Drawing from more than 100 years of institutional records and 60 manuscript collections, Collecting the Past features archival documents, photographs, and recordings that chronicle four major areas of the museum´s development: the growth of the campus, exhibition history, events, and the acquisition of personal papers. Among the objects on display is Old Violinist, the first remaining work purchased for the MFAH.
• Recent Accessions in Design (thru Feb. 21, 2010)

  • The MFAH presents important additions to the museum´s design collection, created by some of the most renowned designers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Recent Accessions in Design features objects that demonstrate aesthetic significance and technical innovation in all media. Among the works on view are examples by international figures such as Gae Aulenti, Mathias Bengtsson, Shiro Kuramata, Gerrit Rietveld, Wieki Somers, and Ettore Sottsass.
• Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography (Oct. 18, 2009 to Jan. 3, 2010)

  • The MFAH hosts the debut presentation of Chaotic Harmony: Contemporary Korean Photography, presenting photographs by 40 artists born between 1965 and 1984 and representing two distinct generations.
• Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea (Nov. 21, 2009 to Feb. 14, 2010)

  • Organized by the MFAH and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea features a generation of artists who have emerged since the mid-1980s -- some well-known and others on the brink of such recognition -- all of whom work on the cutting-edge of international art trends and within a distinctly Korean context:
• Prendergast in Italy (Feb. 14 to May 9, 2010)

  • This exhibition brings together for the first time the unparalleled bodies of work that American Impressionist Maurice Prendergast (1858—1924) produced during two trips to Italy, in 1898 and 1911.
• Sargent and the Sea (Feb. 14 to May 23, 2010)

  • American expatriate artist John Singer Sargent (1856—1925) is best known for his glamorous society portraits, and much of his art has been well documented in exhibitions and publications. Sargent and the Sea is the first to examine the little-explored maritime paintings and drawings that Sargent produced in various locales during the first five years of his career.
• Alice Neel: Painted Truths (Mar. 21 to Jun. 13, 2010)

  • One of the great American painters of the 20th century, Alice Neel (1900—1984) is best known for her psychologically acute portraits. Intimate, casual, direct and personal, satirical at times, Neel´s portraits chronicle the social and economic diversity of mid-20th-century American life.
• Charles M. Russell: The Masterworks in Oil and Bronze (Jun. 6 to Aug. 29, 2010)

  • A painter, sculptor and humorist of the American West, Charles M. "Charlie" Russell (1864—1926) is familiar to millions around the world. This first major retrospective of his work presents an overview of his subjects: cowboys and outlaws; cultural collisions and cooperation in the West; Native American men and women; trappers and hunters; and wildlife and wilderness.
• German Impressionist Landscape Painting (Sep. 12 to Dec. 5, 2010)

  • Exhibit will feature over 60 paintings by the remarkable artists Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, and Max Slevogt, celebrated as the "triumvirate of German Impressionism." Additionally, a small selection of works by Carl Blechen, Adolph Menzel, and Wilhelm Leibl serves as an introduction to Impressionist tendencies in 19th-century German art.