Research Centers & Study Rooms

Dedicated to the study of French artist Henri Matisse (1869–1954), the Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies shines a spotlight on the largest and most comprehensive collection of works by the artist in a public museum in the world. The Marder Matisse Center—located on the Museum’s first floor, adjacent to the Nancy Dorman and Stanley Mazaroff Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs—serves as a major resource for scholars, students, and visitors interested in learning more about the life and work of Matisse. Sisters Claribel Cone and Etta Cone’s impressive collection of 600 works by this renowned artist serves as the core of the BMA’s vast holdings. To this incredible group of objects, the Museum has added more than 800 works by Matisse since Etta Cone’s death in 1949; many of them are gifts from the artist’s family.

The Nancy Dorman and Stanley Mazaroff Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs (PDP) hosts rotating exhibitions that showcase diverse forms of art on paper and other collection highlights in a dedicated ground-floor gallery. But there is another way to see light-sensitive prints, drawings, and photographs that appear in exhibitions for only a few months at a time: the study room at the Dorman-Mazaroff PDP Center. This unique, publicly accessible resource makes our collection of more than 68,000 works on paper available for close study at any time of year.