Animal Crossing at the MMFA

May 6, 2020

Overview

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts’s collection has been on view in its galleries and on its website. Now, some of our works can be in a gallery of your very own if you have a Nintendo Switch and the video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Curate Your Own Digital Exhibition

From left to right: Severin Roesen, Still Life with Mixed Flowers and Bird’s Nest (detail), ca. 1851–1859; Frederick Warren Freer, Lady in Blue (detail), date unknown; Rembrandt van Rijn, Bearded Man in a Velvet Cap with Jewel Clasp, 1637; John Singer Sargent, Mrs. Louis E. Raphael (Henriette Goldschmidt) (detail), ca. 1906

Animal Crossing is the latest entry of the popular life-simulation game, and famous paintings are a staple of the game’s museums; players can donate works of art to improve their island’s culture or add them to their homes or around the island, creating their own curated collection. Alongside the incredible efforts of our colleagues at The Met, The Getty, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and museums around the world, the MMFA’s curatorial department has made a selection of public domain images from our permanent collection easy to transport into your virtual homes and islands.

Steps

  • Browse our gallery of QR codes at the bottom of the page and select the work(s) you would like to import.
  • Scan the QR codes using the Nintendo Switch Online app. (Steps below via Polygon.)
    • You will need the Nintendo Switch Online app for Andriod or iOS.
      Once you log in with your Nintendo account, you’ll be able to access Nook Link.
    • Press the Plus button on the New Horizons title screen to link your character with your Nintendo account, and use the app to scan the QR code.
    • After you scan it, open your designs on your Nook Phone and press the
    • Plus button to download the design.
  • Enjoy the works of art you have added to your world!

Examples

Here are some of our own favorite artworks uploaded into some of the Museum staff’s Animal Crossing islands. Finally, our gratitude goes to the team behind the open-source Animal Crossing Pattern Tool for publishing their code and letting us use it!

From left to right: George Benjamin Luks, Tea Party (detail), 1922; Alexander Archipenko, Untitled (Construction) (detail), 1921
From left to right: Robert Henri, Young Chevass (Mary Ann Cafferty) (detail), 1925; Mary Cassatt, Francoise in Green, Sewing, 1908–1909; Frederick Warren Freer, Childhood (detail), date unknown

Share Your Animal Crossing World

We’d love to see how you decorate your houses–email us at pr@mmfa.org or share on social media and tag us @MontgomeryMFA on Twitter or Instagram.

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