The Peabody Essex Museum's record-breaking exhibition, Painting Summer in New England, has been named "Best Thematic Museum Show" by the New England chapter of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA/USA). The AICA/USA announced the award in a ceremony this week at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The Peabody Essex Museum, the MFA Film Program, and Human Rights Watch, are proud to present the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, January 17-22. This year's program includes 15 documentaries from countries around the globe and four feature films from Tibet, India, Lebanon, and Argentina.

On Nov. 4, 2006, the Peabody Essex Museum opens Epic India: Paintings by M.F. Husain-an exhibition that focuses on the artist's 40-year fascination with India's greatest epic, the Mahabharata. The show runs through June 3, 2007, and is one of the few solo exhibitions held in this country for the painter many consider to be India's "greatest living artist."

Perfect Imbalance, Exploring Chinese Aesthetics: Chinese culture is diverse, longstanding and ever-changing. Yet common ties unite. This exhibition offers an approach to understanding Chinese culture through a study and celebration of the aesthetics of Chinese art. Objects included reveal key aesthetic clues that define the art of China, and distinguish it from art produced by neighboring regions, or art made in China for the export market.

"Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination" is the first major retrospective of the artist's work in more than 26 years. Featuring 180 works, the PEM venue is the largest of this touring exhibition which includes the artist's finest box constructions, collages, dossiers, films and graphic designs from public and private collections--more than 30 on public view for the first time.