Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples

How has humanity given form to spiritual beliefs across time and cultures? Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples explores that quest in an expansive exhibition featuring more than 200 objects from the past 3,000 years.​​

As a capstone for the Museum’s centennial year, British art historian and former museum director Neil MacGregor was invited to revisit his 2017 BBC radio series and book of the same title, bringing that vision to the MFAH collections, along with many exceptional loans from museums and private collections.

Displayed in dialogue across a suite of 11 galleries, masterpieces in the installation explore elemental themes: the cosmos, light, water, fire; the mysteries of life and death; the divine word; and pilgrimage. Living with the Gods draws from regions across ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe and the Americas and includes both historic and contemporary works.

For millennia, people have been making objects to communicate with their God or gods and to sustain their communities. MacGregor’s acclaimed radio series and book chronicled this essential, enduring form of human expression. The MFAH is honored to partner with him in bringing that vision to Houston.

Credit: Overview from museum website