Past Exhibitions

Iron Bridge

See 18th and 19th century prints, watercolor paintings and artifacts depicting the world's first major structure formed entirely of iron.

June 19, 1979 – August 15, 1979

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Art from Chicago: The Koffler Foundation

Visit a recent gift of 34 paintings, works on paper, sculpture and collage. The Foundation was founded in 1971 to honor the best artists of Chicago by purchasing their works for exhibition.

May 25, 1979 – August 12, 1979

American Art Museum

Roma Interrota

Admire 12 contemporary architects' re-design of a different section of the 18th-century map of Rome drawn by Giambattista Nooli, a document revered by architects and urgan designers.

June 12, 1979 – August 12, 1979

Alfred H. Maurer: The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection

View 16 works by the American modernist (1868-1932) that show the range of the artist's style, from early Whistlerian portraits through the expressive figure studies and cubist abstractions of the 1920s and early 1930s.

May 9, 1979 – August 12, 1979

Hirshhorn Museum

The Harmonious Craft: American Musical Instruments

See more than 100 handcrafted instruments including the traditional (violins, bagpipes, lutes, guitars and clavicords) as well as the unusual--ceramic drums and a cow's jawbone with electronic parts.

September 29, 1978 – August 5, 1979

Susan B. Anthony Coin

See materials relating to the new coin issued this summer -- the first circulating U.S. coin to honor an American woman.

July 1, 1979 – July 31, 1979

Translations: Lithographs After Daguerreotypes

Compare some 34 portrait daguerreotypes with their lithographic versions

May 14, 1979 – July 29, 1979

Portrait Gallery

Orchids of the Washington, D.C. Area, by Members of the Staff of the Museum of Natural History

See photographs of orchids native to the area; sponsored by the National Capitol Orchid Society.

May 26, 1979 – July 15, 1979

Japanese Dolls Today

Enjoy a collection of 125 contemporary dolls recently donated to the MNH Office of Education by Nippon Harp Promotion Society.

April 2, 1979 – July 15, 1979

The Powerful and the Graceful: An African Odyssey: Sculpture by Jean Ann Whiteman

See bronzes of African wildlife executed after observations in zoos in Africa by the Oklahoma artist.

May 26, 1979 – July 15, 1979

The Art of Rock

View about 60 color photomicrographs of the earth's crust, the work of Mark Thobisch, University of California, whose intent is to create aesthetic images, rather than scientific ones.

May 20, 1978 – July 9, 1979

U. S. Armed Forces in Vietnam

Included are examples of service medals awarded by the U.S. and Republic of Vietnam to members of U.S. armed forces.

June 1, 1979 – June 30, 1979

The TIME of Our Lives

Enjoy a selection of 107 original Time magazine covers portraying 100 newsworthy persons of the past two decades.

May 3, 1978 – June 30, 1979

Portrait Gallery

Traditional Japanese Medicine and its Graphics

Admire 162 objects, including 32 woodblock prints as well as charms, medical instruments and pharmaceutical instruments from Japan.

February 14, 1979 – June 30, 1979

Bo'jou Neejee: Profiles of Canadian Indian Art

Admire Canadian Indian ingenuity and creativity as expressed in 191 objects made of skins, bone, wood, bark and quills.

December 19, 1978 – June 17, 1979

Pribilof Fur Seals: A Study in Watercolors

View 15 studies by Henry Wood Elliott, one of the first to see the need for protection of the seals' breeding grounds.

May 1, 1979 – June 16, 1979

Asian Art Museum, West Building

Chinese Paintings from the Ming Dynasty

View 17 examples of Chinese paintings from the period 1368-1644.

December 1, 1978 – June 10, 1979

William Penhallow Henderson, 1877-1943: An Artist of Santa Fe

Pastels predominate this exhibition of 40 works, many of which depict religious scenes and Indian ceremonials in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico.

November 10, 1978 – June 10, 1979

American Art Museum

David Hockney: Travels with Pen, Pencil, and Ink

View the first comprehensive exhibition of the British artist's work in the US. The show includes 150 prints and drawings -- portraits, interiors, still-lifes and view of California, Europe, Japan and North America.

March 29, 1979 – June 10, 1979

Hirshhorn Museum

High School Graphics VI

Enjoy 170 works in a juried print exhibition which highlights high school artists in Washington public, private and parochial schools.

April 27, 1979 – June 10, 1979

American Art Museum

Naomi Nemura: North Pole and Greenland Expeditions, 1978

See photographs, equipment and navigation notebooks from the Japanese explorer's Arctic expeditions.

April 1, 1979 – June 7, 1979

Baskets and Cylinders: Recent Glass by Dale Chihuly

See 56 designs inspired by American Indian containers or highlighted by thin linear patterns in subtle color variations.

November 17, 1978 – June 3, 1979

Black Hawk and Keokuk:Prairie Rivals

Explore the effects of the rivalry between the leaders of the Confederated Tribes of Sauk and Fox during the settlement of Illinois in the early 1880s.

December 15, 1978 – June 3, 1979

Portrait Gallery

Sales Exhibition: Crafts for the Tabletop

Admire and purchase glass goblets and decanters, woven place mats and table scarves, silver and wrought iron flatware and napkin rings, pottery bowls, and plates and mugs, all the work of craftsmen from around the country.

March 13, 1979 – May 31, 1979