On the last Thursday of every month, Harvard Art Museums are the place to be after working hours. From 5 to 9 p.m., the museum keeps its doors open to the public for a free initiative called Harvard Art Museums at Night.
Whether you’re planning date night, a post-shift cocktail or you simply need an excuse to get together with friends, the museum turns your visit on its head with an evening of savory bites, local brews and extensive viewings of its 50 galleries housing Rembrandts, Rothkos and more.
Harvard Art Museums at Night has been regularly open and free to the public since June 2023, following a successful inaugural pilot event on April 28, 2022.
“Museums at Night was a great way to test out this new broad access model,” said Clare Suffern, the development stewardship coordinator for the museum. Since the Covid pandemic ended, “museum nights have been an awesome generator of first-time museum visits.”
At the most recent iteration I soon understood why. In the entryway, I could hear the sound of shuffling feet, clinking glassware and cool house beats. Inside the museum’s main artery, the Calderwood Courtyard, the sculpture of Carlos Amorales Triangle Constellation hung over an open bar, DJ set and standing tables like an abstract night sky.
The bar featured beers from Dorchester Brewing, wine and a nonalcoholic selection. Food options included cheese-potato or cheese-blueberry pierogis from Babci’s in Medford. The space was filled with elegantly clad individuals mingling, the sound of their chattering echoing off of the archways built in the style of a 16th century Italian piazza.
A table in the courtyard showcased whimsical ceramic dishes offered up for raffle by the Office for the Arts at Harvard Ceramics Program, a prelude to the program’s annual Show & Sale on May 7-10, featuring original work by instructors, staff and participants.
I submitted my name into the ceramics raffle and moved to the “collage & chill” activity in the basement. After retrieving a 6-by-9 cut of paper from the check-in table, I sat in the only empty seat at the end of a long table littered with magazine clippings.
As I began tearing up glossy coated pages, I noticed my neighbor drawing a colorful swirly pattern. I complimented their design and learned they are an independent artist based in Somerville. They had discovered Museum Night on Facebook.
From the “collage and chill” activity, I went back up the stairs and moseyed through the galleries. I noticed a lot of couples, young and old, sauntering through the halls. In “Celtic Art Across the Ages,” I met a couple while a live Celtic band played in the background. Nick and Harmony had been visiting the Harvard Art Museum for years and had attended one or two of the museum’s night events. Another couple, Michael and Becky, whom I met in a private event for museum members, said the museum holds “many fond memories.”
Becky described the difference between a night at the museum versus the day. “A lot of young people, people of mixed ages are able to flock to the museum.” “People work during the day as well,” Michael said, “so it’s much easier for them to enjoy this kind of thing at night.”
While I saw many couples, I also noticed plenty of families with small children and groups of giddy 18- to 20-year-olds. “This event is a great way to meet with friends, and have something fun to do on a Thursday night,” said Mikayla Brown, an MIT freshman who had separated from her group on the hunt for a certain religious scene. Students love art – it’s just not always accessible on a student budget.
“I didn’t realize the collection that Harvard Art Museums had before this, and I’m a big John Singer Sargent fan. They have a couple of his paintings that I really liked,” said Caroline Huang, Mikayla’s classmate at MIT. The pair heard about the event through an Instagram reel.
Although free admission to the galleries during regular hours and once a month in the evenings brings in volumes of visitors, double prepandemic levels, it is still museum “supporters” – those who subscribe to one of the Museum’s three paying membership plans – who help keep it afloat with admission fees and donations.
Why pay? Well, if you’re a fan of Narnia, the Naumburg Room might be reason alone.
Behind a secret door on an undisclosed floor of the museum is a common space donated in the 1930s by New York philanthropists Nettie and Aaron Naumburg from their apartment in the Hotel de Artistes. It lives, perfectly preserved, for museum staff, faculty – and now museum supporters – to enjoy.
To quote the late Nettie Naumburg, “It is my wish that these rooms shall be used as living rooms for the purpose of reception, meetings, study, musicals … addresses dealing with art, or receptions to artists and scholars.”
On this night, attendees subscribed to one of the museum’s various donor programs were invited behind the scenes for a lecture staged as a speakeasy inside the Naumburg room. The lecture was given by Megan Schwenke, Harvard Art Museum’s senior archivist, on its history. The stunning oak paneling, Swiss-stained windows, textiles and a Rembrandt now resides in the hall near the secret entrance.
Harvard Art Museums at Night is a reverie. To quote the description of my favorite painting in the European Art room on the museum’s second floor, Samuel Finley Breese Morse’s “Gallery of the Louvre,” his painting captured scenes of “persons of various nationalities and social classes engaging in aesthetic discussion and experiences together.” And so does Harvard Museums at Night. Join the discussion yourself on the last Thursday of every month.
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