Why you should experience Art of the Americas at MFA in Boston, Massachusetts.
Art of the Americas at MFA is a transformative museum collection where Fenway-Kenmore's artistic heritage, architectural innovation, cultural diversity, and centuries of creativity redefine the story of American art.
Set within the Museum of Fine Arts near the Shapiro Family Courtyard and just steps from the MFA Grand Stairway, this expansive collection unfolds through luminous galleries showcasing paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, Indigenous works, colonial craftsmanship, contemporary installations, and masterworks spanning more than three thousand years of artistic achievement across North, Central, and South America. Elegant architectural spaces, carefully sequenced exhibitions, and abundant natural light create an immersive environment that reveals the extraordinary breadth of artistic expression throughout the Americas. Every gallery deepens the understanding of how cultures, histories, and artistic traditions intersect across the Western Hemisphere. The result is an artistic experience defined by exceptional scholarship, architectural excellence, and one of the world's most comprehensive collections of American art.
What you should know about Art of the Americas at MFA.
Art of the Americas at MFA is best known for opening in 2010 within a 121,307-square-foot expansion designed by Foster + Partners, creating the largest museum wing in the United States dedicated exclusively to the arts of North, Central, and South America while fundamentally redefining how American art is interpreted within a global historical context. Housing more than 5,000 objects selected from the museum's unparalleled holdings, the four-level wing traces nearly 3,000 years of artistic production from ancient Indigenous civilizations through the colonial era, the American Revolution, nineteenth-century landscape painting, the Gilded Age, modernism, and contemporary practice. Highlights include John Singleton Copley's Paul Revere, Gilbert Stuart's George Washington, Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware, masterpieces by Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock, alongside exceptional collections of Pre-Columbian art, Native American works, silver, furniture, textiles, ceramics, and decorative arts that collectively broaden traditional narratives of American creativity. Foster + Partners designed the wing around a soaring glass-enclosed central courtyard that connects the museum's original 1909 Beaux-Arts building with its modern additions while maximizing daylight, improving circulation, and creating flexible gallery environments capable of supporting continually evolving curatorial interpretation. Together, groundbreaking architecture, extraordinary collections, innovative scholarship, and hemispheric storytelling establish Art of the Americas as one of the most influential museum installations ever created for American art.
The wing's chronological yet interdisciplinary organization encourages visitors to view painting, sculpture, decorative arts, architecture, and material culture as interconnected expressions of broader social, political, and cultural history. Thoughtful gallery sequencing, advanced conservation standards, and continual reinterpretation of the collection reinforce the Museum of Fine Arts' position among the world's leading institutions for the study of American art. Art of the Americas continues standing as one of the museum's defining achievements, demonstrating how architecture, scholarship, and exceptional collections can fundamentally reshape public understanding of the artistic history of an entire hemisphere.
How to fold Art of the Americas at MFA into your trip.
Art of the Americas at MFA is best experienced as the centerpiece of an exploration through the Museum of Fine Arts' celebrated collections.
Begin at the MFA Grand Stairway before entering Art of the Americas to experience its extraordinary survey of artistic achievement across three millennia. Continue into the Impressionist Gallery, where revolutionary French masterpieces reveal the international influences that shaped later American artists. Conclude in the Shapiro Family Courtyard, where contemporary architecture and tranquil public space provide a memorable finale celebrating one of the world's great art museums. The progression moves naturally from Beaux-Arts grandeur to hemispheric artistic history before concluding within one of the museum's defining civic spaces, revealing why Art of the Americas remains the intellectual heart of the Museum of Fine Arts.
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