Architects have been designing useful objects for centuries, elevating the functional into art. Margo Grant Walsh, one of the foremost interior architects of the 20th and 21st centuries, has spent a lifetime collecting metalwork, amassing an outstanding collection of over 800 objects from 17 countries, many of which were created by major architectural figures.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is the second venue for Miwa Yanagi: Deutsche Bank Collection, the Japanese photographer Miwa Yanagi's first solo museum show in the United States. Comprising more than 30 large-scale photographs and video work from the Deutsche Bank Collection, the exhibition is on view through May 4, 2008.

Eye on Third Ward, the annual exhibition of photographs by students from Jack Yates High School designed to express the distinctive identity of Houston's historic Third Ward, this year for the first time includes photographs from the teens' personal lives. The exhibition opens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on February 10, where it will be on view in the Audrey Jones Beck Building through May 26, 2008.

Magnificent floral interpretations of great works of art will be on view throughout the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), during the 32nd annual Art in Bloom festival of flowers and fine art at the MFA from April 26–29, 2008.

The Museum of Fine Arts has filed a federal lawsuit to retain ownership of a 1913 oil painting sold during the Nazi occupation of Austria.

The first free Family Day of 2008 on Sunday, January 20, at Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens brings Texas history and lore to life with a theatrical performance, storytelling, and a demonstration of equipment and uniforms used by early Texas soldiers.

The African American Art Advisory Association (Five-A) of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents the 12th Annual Citywide African-American Art Exhibition at nine venues from February 1 to 29, 2008. Photography dominates the works by the 28 artists in this year´s exhibition, and fashion is included for the first time. Other media represented are paintings, drawings, sculpture, mixed media, and assemblage.

The photography department of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is mounting four exhibitions that will be on view during Houston´s biennial photography celebration, FotoFest 2008, running March 7 through April 20, 2008. Exhibitions of work by the American photographer and photo historian Beaumont Newhall (1908-1993) and the German-born English photographer Bill Brandt (1904-1983) are drawn from the museum´s own extensive photography collection.

Tradition and modernist sensibility merge with poetic results in Where Clouds Disperse: Ink Paintings by Suh Se-ok, opening January 27, 2008 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The show presents 29 works spanning nearly 50 years by the prominent Korean artist who demonstrates that the ancient medium of ink can be adapted to create innovative abstract works.

In their final terrifying hours on August 24 and 25, A.D. 79, residents of Pompeii and the nearby coastal resort towns of Herculaneum, Oplontis, and Terzigno in southern Italy gathered objects precious to them and tried to escape the fury of Mount Vesuvius.

A selection of 47 works from the Modern and contemporary art collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, opens at Mexico City´s Museo de Arte Moderno, the first in an anticipated series of collaborations between the two museums.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents Nan Goldin: Stories Retold—a career-spanning exhibition charting the evocative and highly personal work of one of America´s most significant artists. On through February 10, 2008, Nan Goldin: Stories Retold marks the American museum debut of Goldin´s Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls (2004), recently acquired by the MFAH.