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home > collections > contemporary art
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 | Experience the art of our time
The MFA's collection features many of the later twentieth century’s major figures and prominent artists of today—Chuck Close, David Hockney, Gerhard Richter, Susan Rothenberg, Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami, Anselm Kiefer, and Cindy Sherman.
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Highlights
View Contemporary Art highlights
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Overview of the Department of Contemporary Art
The Department of Contemporary Art is responsible for the acquisition, display, and interpretation of art made after 1955, international in origin, and without restriction to media. It includes over 600 objects and emphasizes painting, but also includes significant examples of sculpture, photography, and new media such as video projections. Unlike the other prestigious collections of art of the past which have earned the MFA an international reputation, the collection of contemporary art is far from encyclopedic in its representation of critical artistic movements of the late twentieth century through the present, although it has never been more vital since its founding.
While work by living artists has always been collected by the MFA—Winslow Homer and Claude Monet were contemporary artists when some of their paintings were acquired—the Department was officially established upon the Museum's centennial in 1971. Modern and post-1945 art was originally pursued with a decided emphasis on color-field painters such as Jack Bush, Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski, and Larry Poons. A study collection of over thirty finished and incomplete canvases by Morris Louis was also created. Attention abroad in the 1980s encouraged additions by artists loosely categorized as European Neo-Expressionists, such as Georg Baselitz, Francesco Clemente, Anselm Kiefer, and Sigmar Polke, among others. In 1992, the focus of the Department was shifted to work made after 1955, and a renewed emphasis on the art of our time arrived with the appointment of Malcolm Rogers as Ann and Graham Gund Director.
Among the outstanding works in the collection are generous gifts including a 1969 canvas by Philip Guston, seven examples of reliefs and paintings by Antonio López García, and a Cubi sculpture by David Smith. Other significant additions include a blackboard by Joseph Beuys and paintings by Chuck Close, Guillermo Kuitca, Robert Irwin, Bridget Riley, Susan Rothenberg, Takashi Murakami, and Andy Warhol. Among outstanding examples of sculpture are site-specific works by Jonathan Borofsky and Sarah Sze and major pieces by Anthony Caro, Mona Hatoum, George Segal, and Joel Shapiro. Photography in the collection includes examples by Rineke Dijkstra, Robert Mapplethorpe, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth.
Contemporary Art is on view in the West Wing of the MFA and in the Henry and Lois Foster Gallery and Rabb Gallery on the first floor. Examples of post-1955 art are also found in the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. |
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The Contemporaries
Join The Contemporaries to support and learn more about the department of Contemporary Art at the MFA. |
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