Curator Chat

We Ask Leading Museum Curators About What’s Going On In Their World

Exterior view of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Ethan Lasser

John Moors Cabot Chair, Art of the Americas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
465 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, www.mfa.org

What event (gallery show, museum exhibit, etc.) in the next few months are you looking forward to, and why?
Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer Watercolors, which will be on view at the MFA from November 2, 2025, through January 19, 2026. We are bringing dozens of the MFA’s luminous Homer watercolors back into the galleries for a new generation to experience, alongside a selection of the museum’s related oils, drawings and prints by the artist. These works feel as fresh and vibrant as the day they were painted and reflect Homer’s relentless spirit of experimentation. The MFA houses the largest collection of Winslow Homer watercolors in the world, though the works’ fragility and sensitivity to light means many have not been displayed in about half a century.

What are you reading
My desk is piled with books about the Revolution and the arts of 18th-century America. We are embarking on a monumental reinstallation to commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence in summer 2026, and I want to be sure I am staying current with all the new scholarship in this field. At a time when many writers are reflecting on our founding documents, musing on the brilliance of the Constitution and the ambition of the Declaration of Independence, I want to be sure our visitors appreciate that artists were at the table during our early history, shaping the new nation and the ways we remember it today.

Interesting exhibit, gallery opening or work of art you’ve seen recently.
My colleagues in the prints and drawings department at the MFA have just opened a landmark project: Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson. This show is a ravishing and much overdue look at one of the great artists of the 20th century— a painter, sculptor and draftsman who made major works in all of these media and created some of the iconic public monuments that adorn Boston today.

What are you researching at the moment?
As we prepare for our America at 250 reinstallation project for summer 2026, I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about the 18th-century Caribbean and the ways that the arts express both the specificity of island culture, and the deep links between New England and the plantation economy. The connections between Boston and places like Jamaica in the 18th century are just beginning to be explored and have given me a whole new lens for assessing jewels in our collection, like Copley’s portraits, and Watson and the Shark.

What is your dream exhibit to curate? Or see someone else curate?
Well, working with the MFA’s deep collection of Winslow Homer watercolors while also reimagining our galleries for 18th-century art of the Americas. Let’s just say it doesn’t get much better than that!—