Museum of Fine Arts Boston
- Architects
- I. M. Pei Hugh Stubbins Guy Lowell
- Year
- 1870
- City
- Boston, MA
The Museum of Fine Arts was founded in 1870 in Copley Square, first occupying the top floor of the Boston Athenaeum before moving in 1876 into its own Gothic Revival building with terracotta imported from England. It relocated again in 1909 to its present Fenway site. Today it holds more than 450,000 works, including 8,161 paintings, and is credited to design work by Guy Lowell, with later additions by I. M. Pei and Hugh Stubbins.
the building
The Copley Square original. Before its 1909 move to the Fenway, the museum occupied a brick Gothic Revival building at Dartmouth and St. James Streets in Copley Square, built almost entirely of brick and terracotta imported from England, with stone used only at the base.
significance
The Museum of Fine Arts is the 20th-largest art museum in the world by public gallery area and, as of 2024, the 83rd-most-visited art museum in the world, drawing more than 1.2 million visitors a year.
nearby
- Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral of New England
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
- Boston Young Men's Christian Association
- New England Conservatory/Jordan Hall (ext&int)
- New Riding Club
- Symphony Hall