Harvard Art Museums announce free admission for all visitors
Artworks by Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Jackson Pollock have just become free to all — that is, free to view.
On Friday, the Harvard Art Museums announced a new free admission policy for their three museums and four research centers.
Historically, students, Cambridge residents, those under 18, and members of the Harvard community have been able to enter the Cambridge museums for free. And over the past two years, initiatives have waived fees on Sundays and the last Thursday night of each month.
But the latest policy change — made possible by contributions from the Estate of David Rockefeller and support from the president’s office at Harvard University — applies to everyone, every day that the museums are open (Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.).
“We just want people to be able to come and not have to think about how they get in,” said director of the Harvard Art Museums, Martha Tedeschi.
When she became director seven years ago, Tedeschi said, Harvard president Lawrence Bacow asked what she most wanted to accomplish during her tenure. Tedeschi replied that seeing the museums become free was at the top of her list.
Compared to other university museums around the country, the Harvard Art Museums were late to change their policy, Tedeschi noted, due to the relatively large size of the museums’ collections with over
255,000 objects.
“The care that we have to give to our collection requires a kind of financial commitment,” she said, adding that the museums wanted to find a business model that would allow free admission without sacrificing proper upkeep.
Since last spring, visitation to the Harvard Art Museums has consistently increased by an average of 20 percent each month, according to a press release, due in large part to the free admission on Sundays and Thursdays.
“What we’ve seen is just this sheer, huge interest in coming if we can take away the barriers,” Tedeschi said.
This summer, visitors to the museums can view exhibitions like “American Watercolors, 1880-1990: Into the Light,” which features 100 watercolor works by wellknown American artists.
Other current exhibitions include a collection of Spanish colonial paintings, a sitespecific outdoor installation by Mexican artist Bosco Sodi, and a number of works by contemporary American sculptor Arlene Shechet. There are also community events.
“Attendance to our programs like lectures and film screenings have always been free,” said the museums’ academic and public programs coordinator, Jeanne Burke, adding that now she’s “hoping that visitors will kind of make a day of it and come to a program with a scholar or a visiting artist and then check out the exhibitions while they’re here.”
Part of Burke’s job as an academic coordinator is to work with Harvard students. So she’s seen firsthand how free admission changes one’s relationship with the museums.
“You no longer have to think about getting your money’s worth,” Burke said. “If you want to, you can just stop by and say hello to your favorite work of art, or you can stay from 10 to 5.”
Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge. Free. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5p.m., harvardartmuseums.org