Art of the Americas

The Art of the Americas Wing is the culmination of our transformation to The New MFA. The wing's 53 galleries tell the story of the art of the Americas from ancient indigenous cultures, through the third quarter of the 20th century.

The very first object of any kind to enter the Museum's collection in 1870, the year of its founding, was American: Elijah in the Desert, by Washington Allston. Even as early as the 1870s the Museum received such gifts as Thomas Crawford's marble portrait of Charles Sumner and a Tiffany silver pitcher purchased at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. American silver continued to find its way into the Museum's collection through the first major exhibitions of such objects, held in 1906 and 1911. By the early 1900s, the Museum had acquired an important collection of paintings. In 1928 a series of American period rooms was installed with the addition of a decorative arts wing. The gift of the M. and M. Karolik Collection of Eighteenth-Century American Arts in 1939 established the MFA as a major repository of colonial and federal furniture, paintings, silver, and other objects from urban centers. The second major gift of the Karoliks, in 1947, of American paintings created between 1815 and 1865, brought great strength in the Hudson River school, American genre painting, and American folk painting.

Boston collectors have given generously to the Museum, and many of its finest works of art, including furniture, silver and masterpieces by Copley, Stuart, and Sargent, were given by descendents of the sitters or original owners. The collection ranks among the best of its type in the world, and is continuously enriched by acquisitions of paintings, furniture, sculpture, silver, glass, ceramics, pewter, and Native and ancient American arts from prehistoric times to the present.
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John Singer Sargent
Winslow Homer
Childe Hassam
Ross Sterling Turner
Paul Revere
Martin Johnson Heade
Fitz Henry Lane
Georgia O'Keeffe
Blanche Lazzell
Thomas Sully
John La Farge
Cesar Paternosto
Edward Hopper
Ansel Adams
Edward Gorey
The Quilts of Gee's Bend
MFA Art of the Americas
Crossword Puzzle Book
Art of the Americas Posters and Prints
Art of the Americas
Art Glass Panels
Art of the Americas Music Boxes
Art of the Americas
Mini Framed Ornaments
Art of the Americas
Note Cards
Art of the Americas Puzzles and Art Cubes
Art of the Americas Desk Accessories
Revere Silver Plated Coffee and Tea Set
Silver Plated Liberty Bowl
Martha and George Washington
Tumbled Stone Coaster Set/2
The Passage of the Delaware Presentation Box
Watson and the Shark Mug
Staccato Mug
American Paintings Coaster Set/6
Grasset Coaster Set/4
Bridge at Ipswich Trivet
Parakeets and Gold Fish Bowl Tea Towel
Staccato Tea Towel
Boit Daughters Vase Pattern Tea Towel
American Postcard Portfolio
Azaleas and Apple Blossoms Scarf
Pollock Number 10 Scarf
Portland Head Lighthouse Tote
Fog Warning Business Card Holder
Parakeets Business Card Holder
Woman in Fur Hat Pill Box
The Passage of the Delaware Money Clip
Staccato Business Card Holder
Lighthouse Large Coin Purse
Lighthouse Sunglass Case
Woman in Fur Hat Small Coin Purse
Woman in Fur Hat Large Coin Purse
Parakeets and Gold Fish Bowl Small Coin Purse
Parakeets and Gold Fish Bowl Large Coin Purse
Staccato Small Coin Purse
Staccato Large Coin Purse
Pollock No. 10 Tie
On a Shaker Theme Tie
A New World Imagined
MFA Highlights
American Painting
A Studio of Her Own: Women Artists in Boston, 1870-1940
Art and Reform: Sara Galner, the Saturday Evening Girls, and the Paul Revere Pottery
The Maker’s Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990 (SC)
Art of the Americas
Art on Demand Prints
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