For our Fall 2026 season, Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) is pleased to present two exhibitions that spotlight the the legacy of radical artmaking at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) at Tufts in its 150th year, with a homecoming solo exhibition from one of its most notable alumni and a polyvocal history of a century and half of arts education in Boston, as told by alumni artists and curators. ​

We invite you to learn more about our upcoming season below and to browse our current exhibitions and programming at artgalleries.tufts.edu.

View and download TUAG’s Fall 2026 Press Preview. Advance images available upon request.

MEDIA CONTACT
Caitlin Lent
caitlin.lent@tufts.edu
617-627-3518

At TUAG / Medford, we are thrilled to present the solo exhibition Arnold J. Kemp: Not one thing, the first survey of the Chicago-based artist Arnold J. Kemp (BFA/BA ’91) to recognize materials such as foil, paint, and found objects through traditions of masking in the artist’s three-decade career. Not one thing presents Kemp’s work in the first, large-scale solo exhibition in Boston since his time as a combined degree student at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA at Tufts). Refusing to use identity as a singular container of meaning, Kemp’s work grapples with legacies of conceptualism, Black and diasporic experiences, queer relationalities, and modes of being.

Arnold J. Kemp: Not one thing is organized by TUAG Curator Laurel V. McLaughlin. The exhibition is accompanied by Arnold J. Kemp: A Reader, co-published by Tufts University Art Galleries and No Place Press with contributions from Kemi Adeyemi, Sampada Aranke, Gregg Bordowitz, Danielle A. Jackson, Eungie Joo, Arnold J. Kemp, Laurel V. McLaughlin, Tausif Noor, and Lynne Tillman, edited by Rachel Churner and designed by Geoff Kaplan.

For SMFA 150: Looking Back at TUAG / Boston, SMFA alumni, former faculty, and TUAG curators dig deep in the archives to weave an episodic history of art school’s past —focusing on rumor and lore as the powerful tools in crafting a community. In doing so, we offer a polyvocal and admittedly incomplete snapshot of a century and half of artmaking and education in Boston—told through the archives, first-person narratives, and a collage of fragmented memories to create an authentic portrait of a properly messy and wonderfully creative institution. 

SMFA at 150: Looking Back is organized by Avram Finkelstein (BFA’73), Dell Marie Hamilton (MFA’12), Shellburne Thurber (BFA’76), former faculty Bill Burke and Jim Dow, SMFA Librarian Darin Murphy, and TUAG Director Dina Deitsch with TUAG Exhibitions Coordinator Meera Chauhan, TUAG Graduate Fellow Kendall Murphy (MA’26) and TUAG intern Sophia Chen (BA’28). Exhibition support and materials are generously provided by the Tufts University Art Galleries Permanent Collection, Tufts Archival Research Center (TARC) and private lenders.