February 13 - May 17, 2020

In 1916, John Singer Sargent met Thomas Eugene McKeller, a young African-American elevator attendant, at Boston’s Hotel Vendome. McKeller posed for most of the figures—both male and female—in Sargent’s murals in the Museum of Fine Arts. The painter transformed McKeller into white gods and goddesses, creating soaring allegories of the liberal arts that celebrated the recent expansion of the city’s premier civic museum. 

Thursday, February 13, 11 am - 5 pm

Adam Pendleton’s exhibition considers the relations between (geometric) abstraction, blackness, and languages of collectivity. Three basic shapes—square, triangle, and circle—are the refrains in this room-sized installation.

Saturday, February 15, 3 - 5 pm

Join Lorraine O'Grady and Adam Pendleton for a discussion of the body, race and gender in American Art, and the need to rethink, document and preserve new histories of diverse stories.