Past Exhibitions

Eye Pop: The Celebrity Gaze

Celebrity faces are everywhere. This exhibition questions the separate roles of subject, artist and viewer in creating and experiencing the celebrity gaze.

May 22, 2015 – July 10, 2016

Frank Sinatra at 100

This small display showcases Frank Sinatra’s contributions to America’s songbook and film history through photographic portraits by Herman Leonard and archival photos from Director George Sidney’ s collection, sheet music, album covers, and posters.

November 20, 2015 – July 10, 2016

WONDER

WONDER, the opening exhibition at the newly renovated Renwick Gallery, features site-specific installations that transform the galleries into a contemporary “cabinet of wonders.”

November 13, 2015 – July 10, 2016

Renwick Gallery

In Memoriam: Muhammad Ali

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery recognizes the life and accomplishments of “The Greatest”—Muhammad Ali—with a photograph by Yousuf Karsh. The image, taken in 1970, is installed in the museum’s In Memoriam space. The Portrait Gallery has 14 images of the boxer, including a 1981 painting on the third-floor mezzanine, titled “Cat’s Cradle,” by Henry C. Casselli Jr. Media.

June 6, 2016 – July 6, 2016

Ray Charles: The Genius

Ray Charles was one of the most innovative and influential musicians of the 20th century. This display explores his ability to overcome blindness, poverty, and segregation, as well as the musical talent and flair for performance that made him an icon of American music.

February 22, 2016 – July 4, 2016

The Blue Note Photographs of Francis Wolff

This Archives Center case features photographs of jazz musicians. Francis Wolff was the co-founder of Blue Note Records as well as the photographer who created most of the company’s record album cover images. Large photographic prints on display depict such luminaries as Art Blakey, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis in the 1950s-1960s.

April 1, 2016 – June 30, 2016

Milestones of Flight

This gallery features famous airplanes and spacecraft that exemplify the major achievements in the history of flight.

July 1, 1976 – June 30, 2016

Air and Space Museum

Wilderness Forever: 50 Years of Protecting America's Wild Places

See America as you've never seen it—wild, untouched, and free.

September 3, 2014 – June 13, 2016

Natural History Museum

Vietnam's Ceramics: Depth and Diversity

The twenty-three works in this exhibition reflect the wide variety of form and decoration in vessels for cooking, dining, storage, transport, and ritual. Vietnamese ceramics have been traded across Southeast Asia and to West Asia and Japan since the fourteenth century.

July 11, 2015 – June 10, 2016

Perspectives: Lara Baladi

Egyptian-Lebanese artist Lara Baladi (born 1969) experiments with the photographic medium, investigating its history and its role in shaping perceptions of the Middle East—particularly Egypt, where she is based.

August 29, 2015 – June 5, 2016

Althea Gibson

Smithsonianmag.com voters choose between portraits of Gibson, Eleanor Holm and Helene Madison, and Duke Kahanamoku to go on view. Gibson’s photograph received the most votes.

June 3, 2016 – June 5, 2016

From Token to Ornament: Indian Peace Medals and the McKenney-Hall Portraits

Beginning with George Washington’s administration, presidential portrait medals were created to promote peace and friendship between Euro-Americans and Native Americans. This exhibition features 21 objects, including photographs, prints, and peace medals.

June 19, 2015 – June 5, 2016

Fragile Beauty: The Art & Science of Sea Butterflies

Through larger-than-life sculptures, learn how some of the smallest creatures in the ocean—ocean pteropods (“sea butterflies”)—are faring in the face of increasing ocean acidification.

September 17, 2013 – May 31, 2016

Natural History Museum

In Memoriam: Prince

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery recognizes the life and accomplishments of Prince Nelson with a photograph by Lynn Goldsmith. The image was taken in 1993.

April 22, 2016 – May 31, 2016

The Lost Symphony: Whistler and the Perfection of Art

As part of Peacock Room REMIX, this related installation reconstructs how Whistler’s unrealized quest for “the perfection of art” intersected with less-rarified concerns about patronage, payment, and professional reputation.

January 16, 2016 – May 30, 2016

One Life: Dolores Huerta

One Life: Dolores Huerta highlights the significant role of this Latina leader in the California farm workers movement of the 1960s and 70s.

July 3, 2015 – May 15, 2016

Mathew Brady's Photographs of Union Generals

Studio portraits of Union military leaders from George McClellan and Ambrose Burnside to William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses Grant by photographer Mathew Brady are on view.

March 30, 2012 – May 8, 2016

Hart-Celler Act

The display marks the 50th anniversary of the Act with a selection of Latino-related artifacts. The Hart-Celler Act had far-reaching effects upon immigration to the United States by opening the possibility of coming to this nation for many people from around the world.

October 2, 2015 – May 5, 2016

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

At the Hub of Things: New Views of the Collection

A dramatic new installation of postwar masterworks from the Hirshhorn's permanent collection, rehung in the museum's newly renovated 3rd-Level collection galleries.

October 16, 2014 – April 24, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum

Speculative Forms

Drawing upon the Hirshhorn’s expansive sculpture collection, this exhibition collapses such conventional art historical divisions as figuration vs. abstraction; volumetric vs. stereometric sculpture; still vs. kinetic forms; and illusionary vs. unitary objects.

June 16, 2014 – April 17, 2016

Hirshhorn Museum

Making Design

Some 360 objects, including furniture, lighting fixtures, tableware, clothing, jewelry, books, and posters, providing an overview of five key elements of design: color, form, line, pattern, and texture.

December 12, 2014 – April 17, 2016

Celebrate: Gregory Peck

In honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Portrait Gallery honors his life and legacy with his portrait by Everett Raymond Kinstler on our “Celebrate” wall.

April 1, 2016 – April 10, 2016