Displaying items by tag: mcmullen museum of art

The Boston College branch of the Green Line brings you to this handsome campus, site of the McMullen Museum of Art, whose new exhibition, “ John La Farge and the Recovery of the Sacred,” is definitely worth the pleasant trolley ride or even a journey from farther afield.

At the turn of the 20th century, La Farge (1835-1910) was a pre-eminent American artist, a leader of the American Renaissance movement shaping art, architecture and culture here. As a muralist and decorative painter, he collaborated on private, public and ecclesiastical projects with such leading architects as Henry Hobson Richardson and Stanford White.

Boston College has announced that it will relocate its McMullen Museum of Art to an expanded facility on its Brighton campus thanks to a sizeable gift from the McMullen Family Foundation. The museum, which is named in honor of the parents of John J. McMullen -- a Boston College benefactor, trustee, and collector -- has occupied the same mixed-use building on the University’s Chestnut Hill campus since its founding in 1993.

The new venue, a Roman Renaissance Revival mansion from 1927, was designed by local architects Maginnis and Walsh. The mansion housed Boston’s Cardinal Archbishop for decades and was acquired by the college ten years ago as part of a large purchase of property from the city’s Archdiocese. Once the 7,000-square-foot addition is completed, the building will boast approximately 26,000 square feet -- nearly double the institution’s current exhibition space. The Boston-based architecture firm DiMella Shaffer Associates is helming the expansion project.