Printing Press — exhibition-related

Boston has been a center for the collecting and appreciation of Monet’s paintings since the late 19th century. In honor of its 150th anniversary, the MFA celebrates a great treasure of its collection with a once-in-a-generation chance to see all 35 of the Museum’s oil paintings by Monet.

While the Museum’s building and our printing studio remain closed during the pandemic, we’ve created a new way on MFA Prints to explore current and recent MFA Publications. These books and exhibition catalogues are available for purchase and shipment now via Amazon and other online bookstores, to bring the experience of the MFA’s collections to you at home.

This month’s blog features artworks from the MFA Prints collection that are inspired by several current MFA exhibitions. Although our social contact with others may still be limited these days, the works below, along with an exploration of our People collection, can temporarily serve as a visit with these artists and their circle of friends.

More than a century ago, Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen created exquisite interpretations of classic fairy tales that remain some of the most memorable visions of enchantment and fantasy ever to appear in print. The MFA’s recent exhibition Kay Nielsen’s Enchanted Vision: The Kendra and Allan Daniel Collection, featured nearly 50 of his luminous and often haunting watercolors and drawings. The exhibition might be over, but you can still explore these selected highlights in more detail.

Between 2400 BCE and 300 CE, Nubian kings and queens controlled vast empires and trade networks, rivalling—and even for a brief time conquering—their more famous neighbors, the Egyptians. The MFA’s exhibition, Ancient Nubia Now, features more than 400 archaeological highlights gathered from its excavations of various Nubian sites between 1910 and 1930. Extensive photography was completed at the time to document the work and historical objects, but now those photos can stand on their own as artwork. As stated in this month’s blog post, selections from an essay by curator Lawrence M. Berman, “Showing the best of these images complete, outside their original strictly documentary context, brings the settings in which they were made to life and reveals the artistry of their makers.”