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Edgar Degas was the first artist to specialize in depictions of the ballet, and he returned to the subject of dancers throughout his career. He portrayed the reality of backstage in vibrant pastel studies, complex paintings, bronze sculptures, and sketches of split-second moments of a dancer’s motion. The many ballerinas on view in Degas: A New Visiongot some like company recently, as Houston …

The Halloween spirit lurks in the MFAH galleries at every turn. Keep an eye out for dancing witches, scary skeletons, and creepy symbols—if you dare. Helen Levitt, New York, 1939 Location: Beck Building, 1st floor
• Photographer Helen Levitt roamed the streets of New York, capturing unguarded moments of children at play—including this Halloween-ready masked trio, on loan for the special …

The days are shorter and the shadows are longer, but fall doesn’t just mean a change in season. Discover the multitude of meanings that autumn holds across time and cultures with these curatorial staff picks of works from the MFAH collections. Read the curators’ notes, then find the autumn-inspired art on view in our permanent collection galleries!

The MFA Café celebrates the art of eating well, with exciting changes to the menu—from the new weekend brunch to added dishes that emphasize local, fresh ingredients—and to the kitchen. New executive chef Marlies Wasterval is hard at work serving up Italian fare with a Texas flair. A native Houstonian, Wasterval joins the Museum after crafting impeccable dishes all over the world, most recently …

Fashionable women all across 19th-century Europe once clamored to pose for Franz X. Winterhalter, because what could be trendier than a portrait by the painter who could best capture the delicate elegance of a chic gown designed by Charles Frederick Worth, the world’s first couturier? The clientele of the two overlapped considerably, as Worth designed extensively for Napoleon III’s court and …

Ken Gross, a car historian and former director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, lent his expertise to the exhibition Sculpted in Steel: Art Deco Automobiles and Motorcycles, 1929–1940 as guest co-curator. He has also shared insights with publications from AutoWeek and Hemispheres to Playboy—which naturally got us thinking, what’s the dealwith cars, sensuality, and glamour? I …

“The breath is clearly this entire creation, everything there is. So, when I said ‘turn to the breath,’ it was to this that I thereby turned for protection.” —Chandogya Upanishad “Breath: The Pulse of the Universe,” an evening at the MFAH on March 17, asks you to participate actively in exploring the power of the most basic force of living beings: breathing. I chatted with Pam Johnson and …

German-born artist Vera Lutter uses an ancient technique to create the photographs on view in the exhibition Vera Lutter: Inverted Worlds. For each photo, Lutter makes a massive pinhole camera by completely blacking out a room, shipping container, or specially constructed box, and opening a millimeter-wide hole to allow outside light to enter and images to form on photographic paper mounted …

The exhibition Mark Rothko: A Retrospective brought to Houston—its only U.S. venue—a visit from a top Rothko scholar who also happens to be the artist’s son. I talked with Christopher Rothko about the work of his father, the subject of his new book Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out, published this autumn by Yale University Press. 1. Is there something about this exhibition that makes it different …

On your summer visit, be sure to say hi to Max, our very own knight! He's here to help us celebrate Habsburg Splendor. Get to know our chivalrous visitor before you meet him in the galleries from Thursday through Sunday, or during storytime at July and August Sunday Family Zone + Studio programs. Facts on Max Full name: Max, the Knight at the Museum. Max is named after Holy Roman Emperor …