SMFA at 150: Looking Back

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (now SMFA at Tufts), Tufts University Art Galleries is thrilled to present a look back at the art school’s history—as told by alumni artists and curators. ​ 

Beginning with its origins in the basement of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1876, the exhibition traces key movements and alumni of the school: from the Boston Expressionist painters to the radical break in curriculum in 1968 to the printshop anti-war poster takeover following the Kent State shooting to the lighter fare of the 1990s-era SMFA Cheerleaders and Kaiju Big Battel that started as live performances in the atrium. 

Collaboratively curated by SMFA alumni, former faculty, and TUAG curators, Looking Back takes an episodic approach to the art school’s past—focusing on rumor and lore as the powerful tools in crafting a community. In doing so, we offer a polyvocal and admittedly incomplete snapshot of a century and half of artmaking and education in Boston—told through the archives, first-person narratives, and a collage of fragmented memories to create an authentic portrait of a properly messy and wonderfully creative institution. 

SMFA at 150: Looking Back is organized by TUAG Director Dina Deitsch with Avram Finkelstein (BFA’73), Dell Marie Hamilton (MFA’12), Shellburne Thurber (BFA’76), former faculty Bill Burke and Jim Dow, SMFA Librarian Darin Murphy, and TUAG Exhibitions Coordinator Meera Chauhan, TUAG Graduate Fellow Kendall Murphy (MA’26), and TUAG intern Sophia Chen (BA’28). Exhibition support and materials are generously provided by the Tufts University Art Galleries Permanent Collection, Tufts Archival Research Center (TARC), and private lenders.

Image: School of the Museum of Fine Arts Records. SMFA Cheerleaders Photo Album, 1997. UA133.007.045. Tufts Archival Research Center (TARC). Medford, MA.