Museum of Fine Art, Boston

What a great museum, frankly we don't have anything that comes close to this collection here in San Francisco. Thankfully J. & G. have a membership here and were kind enough to give us some free passes! Without them the entrance is an astonishing $25, which is the same amount you'll pay to get into the Met in New York. Note to self, when did we all get used to a museum costing $25 per person? Perhaps it's hard for me to accept because most of the museums in the UK are free, though they do charge for special exhibits. The Louvre is one of the greatest museums in the world and it's $16 to enter. I was impressed with the compromise in France where you pay to get into government run museums but they are free for everyone under 26, I guess the message is get your culture early and often. 
But back to the MFA...we didn't have a lot of time so we took a quick overview of the collection, splitting up to focus on the things we liked. I went over the the Hippy Chic exhibit which I've blogged about elsewhere, but otherwise I focused mainly on their European paintings. 
It's an imposing building carefully renovated, it's both traditional and modern inside with a large atrium containing a spectacular Chihuly sculpture which has a wonderfully natural color and form to the glass.  

There is so much to see here and we didn't have enough time. This is clearly the sort of museum you need multiple visits to appreciate. The following images are just a taster. 

 There are Asian rooms, ancient sculpture and traditional European painters like Velasquez.
The images speak for themselves, everything from Burne-Jones to Renoir.
There's a nice modern collection including Henry Moore, Rene Magritte and the requisite Picasso, pictured below. I particularly love Moore's Seated Figure Against a Curved Wall cast in 1959.
I'm not sure when we'll be back in Boston but I know when we get back we'll be heading to the MFA.

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