More than a thousand years ago, in the early 11th century, Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji, a book often called the world’s first novel. The name was a nom-de-plume. The author was a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court, and she and a few other noblewomen—notably Sei Shonagon, the author  ...

In 2019, the Art Gallery of Ontario purchased some 3,500 photographs of Jamaica, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and elsewhere in the Caribbean, taken between 1840 and 1940. They had been collected by Patrick Montgomery, an archivist in New York, and capture the changing lives, landscapes, and labor conditions in the century between  ...

Though long neglected, rejected, anonymized, and otherwise diminished, women artists have nevertheless added their voices to art-making throughout time and across cultures. Mia has assembled this tour of art by women, from the historical to the contemporary, to experience in person or online.   Gallery 243 Shahzia Sikander, Arose, 2020 Shahzia Sikander reinvents and challenges  ...

In the world of Zulu ceramics, pottery is a primary vehicle for women to assert and increase their prestige within Zulu society. Even as plastic and enamel alternatives proliferate, there are still many Zulu women, primarily in rural areas, creating functional terracotta wares that contribute to the daily workings of their communities and serve as  ...

When Tim Yip won the Academy Award for art direction, for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in 2001, he was so nervous—as Catherine Zeta-Jones handed him the Oscar—that he was only able to thank his family and the film’s director, Ang Lee, before the band played him off the stage. It was  ...

Three years after it was created, Kitchen Dance has finally moved to the front burner. In the spring of 2020, when the pandemic sent many of us home to our collective sorrow and sourdough starters, it postponed the premiere of a seven-minute film inspired made through an enterprising collaboration. It will now  ...

By Tom Rassieur Mia’s recent exhibition “Botticelli and Renaissance Florence” prominently featured a painting by Luca Signorelli (c. 1450–1523) with the title Allegory of Fertility and Abundance. Painted in various shades of gray, it resembles a relief sculpture carved in stone, its five figures—three adults and two children—all in some degree of nudity. A woman  ...

For Black History Month, Mia has created a self-guided tour exploring three centuries of art by African-American artists now on view at the museum. Pick up a tour guide on your next visit or take the virtual tour here online. Gallery 304 Joshua Johnson, Portrait of Richard John Cock, c. 1817 What is the first  ...

Mia acquired the whimsically animated figures of Remembering Vienna III, by Camille Billops, in 2021. They’re now on display, for the first time at Mia, in the lobby. Billops was a pillar of New York City’s Black cultural community from the 1960s onward—an artist, filmmaker, archivist, and educator. She was a lifelong social activist committed  ...

Winfred Rembert had a tumultuous life in which he experienced the full force of American racism. At 19, he survived a near-lynching and spent seven years incarcerated. He started to draw in prison. He later married, had eight children with his wife Patsy, and began making art based on his life  ...