Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Patrick Ireland: Drawings 1965-1985

See 61 drawings, including examples from all of his major series, and a rope installation, created especially for this exhibition.

April 4, 1986 – August 17, 1986

American Art Museum

Symbols and Ceremonies: Pueblo Indian Watercolors

Most of the approximately 68 works, dating from 1917 to the early 1940s, are from NMAA's Alice Corbin-Henderson Collection.

March 28, 1986 – August 17, 1986

American Art Museum

Treasures of Hungary: Gold & Silver from the 9th to the 19th Century

See some 70 gold and silver objects from the National Museum in Budapest and other Hungarian collections, including spectacular personal jewelry and adornments, elegant domestic tablewares, and major examples of ecclesiastical metalwork.

May 20, 1986 – August 10, 1986

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

1986 Discover Graphics

See intaglio etchings in a juried exhibition of works by promising young art students who have participated in the 1986 Discover Graphics training program.

May 31, 1986 – August 3, 1986

American History Museum

Recent Acquisitions

See Tom Wesselman's collage Still Life #12.

July 1, 1986 – July 31, 1986

American Art Museum

Interiors: Prints and Drawings from the Museum's Collection

See works on paper from the HMSG collection, including artists Archipenko, Matisse, Henry Moore, and Jody Mussoff.

April 1, 1986 – July 28, 1986

Hirshhorn Museum

Learning Mathematics With Objects

See nearly 30 teaching aids, including a 19th-century slate with numeral frame and geometric models, as well as textbooks.

April 1, 1986 – July 17, 1986

American History Museum

Bon Voyage: Design for Travel

Explore some 200 objects, dating from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, that illustrate a range of design solutions for travel necessities and luxuries--suitcases and wardrobes, valises, trunks, collapsible and portable furniture, and personal accessories.

April 29, 1986 – July 13, 1986

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

A Decade of Print Collecting: The Highlights

See some of the most significant prints acquired during the past ten years.

March 1, 1986 – July 13, 1986

Portrait Gallery

Recent Acquisitions (1986)

See a sampling of the portraiture of influential Americans past and present--painting, sculpture, and photographs (including a rare daguerreotype portrait of Mathew Brady).

January 18, 1986 – July 13, 1986

Portrait Gallery

Noses by Design

See graphics and medical instruments in a brief overview of nasal plastic surgery.

May 5, 1986 – July 10, 1986

American History Museum

Crafts from Vermont

Admire and purchase the work of 24 artisans ranging from pewter to pottery, from collapsible wooden baskets to tapestry scarves and jackets.

April 10, 1986 – July 7, 1986

Renwick Gallery

The Origins of Contemporary Advertising: Selling Soda 1890s-1970s (Pepsi Collection)

See advertising memorabilia, including some 50 labels, signs, magazine ads, and soda bottles.

November 2, 1985 – July 7, 1986

American History Museum

La Nijinska: A Dancer's Legacy

Enjoy more than 150 objects relating to the life and career of Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972), one of ballet's most influential choreographers.

March 18, 1986 – July 6, 1986

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Ultra-Light Aircraft

Visit eight of these lightweight craft, owned by members of the Experimental Aircraft Association.

July 5, 1986 – July 6, 1986

Air and Space Museum

Robert Arneson: A Retrospective

As a leader of the so-called Funk movement, Arneson championed and developed glazed ceramics as a viable sculptor's medium, creating strictly non-utilitarian objects from potter's clay.

April 30, 1986 – July 6, 1986

Hirshhorn Museum

Discovery Theater: Past and Future

See some 25 photographs portraying past and future productions featured at the Discovery Theater.

September 20, 1985 – June 30, 1986

Arts and Industries Building

Chinese Bird-and-Flower Paintings

Admire 30 album leaves and hanging and hand scrolls from the 12th-19th centuries, depicting mythical, imaginary, and realistic birds as well as a colorful array of flowers.

February 1, 1986 – June 29, 1986

Asian Art Museum, West Building

Natural Science Illustration, 1986

See more than 100 wildlife illustrations by members of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, who held an international meeting June 15-20, 1996.

June 9, 1986 – June 22, 1986

Natural History Museum

Frederick Douglass Gallery

See the black leader's first Washington home with furniture, photographs, books, newspapers and other memorabilia that reflect his life and times.

January 1, 1980 – June 16, 1986

African Art Museum

Art in New Mexico, 1900-1945: Paths to Taos and Santa Fe

View approximately 120 paintings and 35 Indian and Hispanic decorative arts and religious objects. by Ernest L. Blumenschein, Andrew Dasburg, Marsden Hartley, Victor Higgins, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Marin and others.

March 7, 1986 – June 15, 1986

American Art Museum

A Human Ideal in African Art/Bamana Figurative Sculpture

View 45 sculptures in an exhibition that explores and illustrates the traditional use of the human image in the art of the Mali's Bamana people.

April 30, 1986 – June 15, 1986

African Art Museum

Hollywood: Legend and Reality

The exhibition explores the development of the motion picture industry in Hollywood and the impact of movies on American culture.

April 17, 1986 – June 15, 1986

American History Museum

Seven Views of Hopi: Photography of the Hopi People by Hopis Themselves

See 45 photographs by seven Hopi artists, all of whom live on the Hopi Reservation, depicting the theme of 'An Insider's View'.

March 14, 1986 – June 1, 1986

Natural History Museum

An American History Sampler

Visit a selection of objects from the MAH collections, many of them recent acquisitions.

April 1, 1986 – June 1, 1986

American History Museum