Museums

Once simple cabinets of curiosity, museums have grown into institutes for preserving, studying, and displaying science, history, and art.
Today, as culture-defining institutions, they are working to incorporate more voices and reckon with past practices.

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Recent discoveries

Museums aren’t just places for storing and preserving works and artifacts, they also support experts who are actively fostering new discoveries through research and scholarship.

Figuring out how they roll

Trilobite fossils, which have been part of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology’s collections for 145 years, are inspiring new research and discoveries.

Learn more about these trilobites

Peeling back the layers

Kéla Jackson, a Ph.D. student in Harvard’s Department of the History of Art and Architecture, explores the literal and figurative layers behind Louis Delsarte’s lithograph print “Unity.”

Learn more about the work of art

Drink like an ancient Egyptian

The remains of a 5000-year-old brewery found in the ancient Egyptian city of Abydos are providing insights into the relationship between large-scale beer production and the development of kingship in Egypt.

Learn more about ancient Egypt’s brewing culture

The art of inclusion

A person walking by signs that say "Open to Everyone"

Art for all

“We are thrilled to implement this new comprehensive free admission policy, which will remain in place permanently,” said Martha Tedeschi, director of the Harvard Art Museums. “Taking this step represents our deep commitment to serving all audiences, enhancing our mission of teaching and research, and becoming a center where discovery, exchange, inclusion, and learning can flourish for all.”

Art for all

Expanding narratives

Experts discuss whose stories get told with exhibits, and how that can improve.

Expanding narratives

Creating connections

Archaeology students shared their research in nearly 90 virtual classrooms to inspire a new generation.

Creating connections

Increasing access

Harvard’s Peabody Museum digitized 32,000 photos of Kalahari Desert indigenous people and shared them with the featured communities.

Increasing access

Diversifying exhibits

A Harvard alum is finding ways to increase the diversity of museum collections, staffing, programming, and education.

Diversifying exhibits

Reimagining accessibility

“Touch tours,” utilizing touchable replicas of artifacts, allow visitors with visual impairments to experience museum exhibits.

Reimagining accessibility

For your viewing pleasure

All across campus, Harvard museums are researching, curating, and displaying items from their rich collections to help visitors gain a deeper understanding of the world around us.

Pressed flowers that are blue on a black background — In Search of Thoreau’s Flowers: An Exploration of Change and Loss

An immersive multidisciplinary experience that marries art and science through a modern artistic interpretation of Henry David Thoreau’s preserved plants.

Explore the Museum of Natural History exhibit

A black and white photo of a woman at an archeology site — The Groundbreaker

While the archaeological field today includes many women, there were limited opportunities for women to excel during the early years of the profession. But a number of strong women had the tenacity and perseverance to push through the discrimination of the time and succeeded alongside men.

Learn more about the Museums of Science and Culture exhibit

A glass grapevine — Glass Flowers: The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants

This unique collection was made by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, a father and son team of Czech glass artists. From 1886 through 1936, the Blaschkas produced 4,300 glass models that represent 780 plant species.

Learn more about the Museum of Natural History exhibit

A replica of an ancient house — Mediterranean Marketplaces: Connecting the Ancient World

Explore how the movement of goods, peoples, and ideas around the ancient Mediterranean transformed the lives and livelihoods of people at all levels of society, driving innovations that had lasting impacts—even on the modern world.

Learn more about the Museum of the Ancient Near East exhibit

A tent made of cloth surrounded by statues — Candice Lin: Seeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping

Composed of richly tactile elements that encourage communal gathering, this exhibit devised a set of experiences choreographed by often participatory works that take us through rituals of moving our bodies, touching, and sharing space.

Learn more about the Carpenter Center exhibit

Jars of colored pigments — A History of Color: An Audio Tour of the Forbes Pigment Collection

Explore 27 pigments, dyes, and raw materials—from ochres and charcoal, the oldest pigments known to have been used by humans, to YInMn blue, which was discovered by accident in 2009. All colors are part of the Forbes Pigment Collection at the Harvard Art Museums, the world’s largest collection of historical pigments.

Explore the Harvard Art Museums tour

A stack of painted doll heads — Shehuo: Community Fire 社火

A bilingual photographic exploration of the transformation of Shehuo (社火, Community Fire) , a traditional spring festival held in rural northern China that coincides with the Lunar New Year.

Learn more about the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology exhibit

Two rappers in front of a red background — Day One DNA: 50 Years in Hiphop Culture

An immersive multimedia exhibition celebrating 50 years of hiphop culture through the archives of hiphop icons and longtime collaborators Ice T and DJ Afrika Islam.

Learn more about The Alain Locke Gallery exhibit

A cartoon of a man about to hit another man with a hammer — Painless

An exhibit curated by Brigham and Women's Hospital Archivist, Catherine Pate. It is presented as an online version of a physical exhibit originally produced for the Brigham Education Institute in 2018.

Learn more about the Countway Library exhibit

A collage of a woman's head, a zebra's head, and a few other things — The Bauhaus

The Harvard Art Museums hold one of the first and largest collections relating to the Bauhaus, the 20th century’s most influential school of art and design. There are more than 32,000 Bauhaus-related objects to browse, and the site shares scholarship on the school’s extensive ties to Harvard and the Greater Boston area.

Learn more about the Harvard Art Museums exhibit

A person writing on a long scroll — A Scroll Through The Overstory

Artist Diane Samuels wrote Richard Powers' novel "The Overstory" in microscript on a scroll of vibrant colors and textures that reaches 160 feet, the height of a small coast redwood.

Learn more about the Arnold Arboretum exhibit

A photo of the desert at sunset — Devour the Land

Curator Makeda Best considers how photographers have responded to the U.S. military’s impact on the environment since the 1970s.

Learn more about the Harvard Art Museums exhibit

A pole with pictures of trees on it, and a sign in the background that says — FOREST FUTURES

Exploring the intertwined history of forests and humanity, critically examining the past and the present to emphasize our profound connection with these vital habitats.

Learn more about the Graduate School of Design exhibit

An art piece of many faces lined up in a grid — Visiting Artist Fellowship Art Exhibition

The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute welcomes Amra Fatima Khan and Waleed Zafar, two visual artists from Pakistan, who will be displaying and exploring art during their eight week fellowship.

Learn more about the Mittal Institute exhibit

A black and white photo of a woman at a desk — Women of the Museum 1860-1920

When women first started working at the Museum of Comparative Zoology in the late nineteenth century, they were hired as assistants, secretaries, and librarians—and only rarely as curators.

Learn more about the Museums of Science and Culture exhibit

A table with a hammer, a bowl, and some food — Resetting the Table: Food & Our Changing Tastes

Food has long been a uniquely powerful measure of social inclusion: Who gets to eat oysters or drink champagne, and how might these privileges change over time?

Learn more about the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology exhibit

The wall of knobs on the Mark 1 computer — Harvard IBM Mark I Automatic Calculator

The machine—one of the world’s first programmable computers—has a new home at the Science and Engineering Complex, fittingly, where Harvard’s computer science programs reside.

Learn more about this Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments display

A painting of poppy flowers — Objects of Addiction: Opium, Empire, and the Chinese Art Trade

How did the sale of opium in China by Massachusetts merchants in the 19th century contribute to a growing appetite for Chinese art at Harvard at the start of the 20th century?

Learn more about the Harvard Art Museums exhibit

These exhibits were curated by just a handful of the many museums and galleries sprinkled across Harvard’s campus.

Moving forward to address the past

“It’s nice to bring these relatives home again”

In May of 2022, Harvard's Peabody Museum returned two sacred scrolls and a pipe tomahawk to the White Earth tribe in a repatriation ceremony.

Learn more about the ceremony

How to liberate African art

In a Harvard Center for African Studies workshop, scholar Ciraj Rassool pushed for a fuller reckoning of colonial legacies.

Learn more about the workshop

The problem of historic language in museum collections

The Peabody Museum's Collections Division blog explores how to properly modify historical collections due to the use of terms for and about Indigenous people that are racially coded, dated, and now considered derogatory.

Learn more about the project

Repatriating the Gitxaała Totem Pole

A sacred totem pole, which was removed from its homeland in the Gitxaała Nation in British Columbia by a ship captain 126 years ago, returned home in December of 2022 when the Gitxaała Nation and Harvard's Peabody museum worked together to repatriate it to its community of origin.

Explore the podcast

Repatriation of Peruvian cultural patrimony

Since the arrival of the Spanish in 1532, Peru has been one of the territories most affected by looting. The General Director in Defense of Cultural Patrimony in the Peruvian Ministry of Culture is looking to correct that looting.

Learn more about Harvard's repatriation and return efforts

Explore all the work the Peabody Museum is doing

Learn how to organize and interpret art, artifacts, and scientific curiosities

Figuring out how they roll

Peeling back the layers

Drink like an ancient Egyptian

Art for all

Expanding narratives

Creating connections

Increasing access

Diversifying exhibits

Reimagining accessibility

Explore all of our museums and galleries

“It’s nice to bring these relatives home again”

How to liberate African art

The problem of historic language in museum collections

Repatriating the Gitxaała Totem Pole

Repatriation of Peruvian cultural patrimony

Learn more about Harvard's repatriation and return efforts