Student Work

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

This is where it all began. In 1876, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, opened its doors and founded SMFA to serve as its educational wing. Today the two institutions remain closely connected and mutually beneficial.

The Museum stands right next door to SMFA, and it houses one of the most comprehensive art collections in the world—more than 500,000 pieces. These happen to include the work of dozens of SMFA students from the 1800s to today.

As an SMFA student, you’ll receive much more than free museum admission. You’ll get the chance to meet and work with all manner of experts associated with the Museum: curators, historians, designers, restorers, scientists, collectors, conservators, and visiting artists.

You might spend time in the Morse Study Room, looking at artworks not on display. See your own work exhibited in the Museum in a juried show. Take advantage of an internship or work study position. Help visiting artists install or create their artwork. When you’re an SMFA student, the Museum of Fine Arts is, in many respects, your museum.

“Showing my work in the Museum of Fine Arts had such a big impact because it’s not just representational work. For me it’s like art history being produced in current times. I see this as documentation, not only of my life and experiences, but of the subjects in my paintings and the communities and cultures they belong to. I wanted to embrace my identity and reclaim that space to refl ect the histories of other women of color, and people of color.” Perla Mabel Ledesma BFA ’19

Khadine recalls that while she was in an SMFA work study position at the Museum of Fine Arts, she loved the tours with curators and staff . “One of the object conservators explained her role as allowing an object to live its natural life. I realized that this work overlapped with the concerns that drove my personal artmaking. Culture is memorialized through objects, and a role as an object conservator would combine my interests in science, art, and the cultures of Latin America.”

Khadine Caines, BFA ’18

A Little to the Left , mixed media painting Dan Fisher-Berger, BFA ’20,

STUDENT

Mother and Child , oil on canvas Parker Lily Tuson-Morse, BFA ’23,

WORK

Rabbithole , acrylic on canvas Jean Chung, BFA ’21, Lei Zhong, MFA ’19, Collectivism, oil on canvas

, stoneware and acrylic Wilamina Heifner, BFA ’21, Depression

Sam Helwig, BFA ’20, S.S. SSC Chopped & Screwed (Log Chopper), wood, steel, copper, aluminum, found object

, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator Yagmur Simsek, BFA + BA ’24, Date Bait

Magda Petmeza, BFA ’22, page from Octopus and Nipples , archival inkjet photobook

, sculpture Ezri Horne, BFA + BA ’22, Spin to Win , clay, acrylic paint, plastic fork, wooden chopsticks Maxine Bell, BFA + BA ’22, Bloopie