Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

The Civilian Conservation Corps Experience, 1933-1942

The photographs and paper materials in these cases show what life was like for the young men who enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), specifically the conservation work they engaged in and their daily life in camp.

November 21, 2008 – March 31, 2009

American History Museum

America's New Birth of Freedom: Documents from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

To celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, the museum hosts 10 rare and important documents from the Springfield library and museum.

January 16, 2009 – March 29, 2009

American History Museum

Coastal America Ocean Art Contest

Works by the the first place winners from each age group in the national competition of the Coastal America Ocean Art Contest are on view.

December 8, 2008 – March 29, 2009

Natural History Museum

Directions: Terence Gower: Public Spirit

The exhibition tells the story of the original proposal for the Hirshhorn Museum, which founder Joseph Hirshhorn envisioned as the centerpiece of a utopian “town of culture.”

November 5, 2008 – March 22, 2009

Hirshhorn Museum

Guests of the Hills: Travelers and Recluses in Chinese Landscape Painting

Enjoy Chinese landscape paintings created over a 700-year period that depict recluses and recreational travelers as well as free-roaming mountain sages or gentlemen living in retirement.

August 23, 2008 – March 15, 2009

Asian Art Museum, West Building

Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968

View nearly 200 unforgettable images that changed a nation, increasing the momentum of the non-violent civil rights movement by raising awareness of injustice and the struggle for equality in the United States.

November 8, 2008 – March 9, 2009

Ripley Center

After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy

Examine the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement while exploring the continuing relevance of progressive social change through the art of the After 1968 artists, a group of young emerging artists born since 1968.

November 8, 2008 – March 9, 2009

Ripley Center

Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War

Eliot Landau's award-winning philatelic exhibition combines philately, ephemera, and artifacts in an engaging exploration of Lincoln's presidency, the Civil War, and Black History.

March 6, 2009 – March 8, 2009

Postal Museum

Accommodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke

Fascinated with nature's proclivities for growth, destruction, and unexpected change, Golke captures the tension between humanity and nature and explores how Americans build their lives in a natural world that rarely fits within a traditional pastoral ideal.

November 27, 2008 – March 3, 2009

American Art Museum

Curators Select: Recent Acquisitions, 2003-2008

Visit an exhibition featuring recent acquisitions to all four of the museum's collecting departments: Product Design and Decorative Arts; Drawings, Prints and Graphic Design; Textiles; and Wallcoverings.

September 12, 2008 – March 1, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Rarity Revealed: The Benjamin K. Miller Collection, Part II

On view in Part II of this exhibition are U.S. stamps printed from 1894 to the 1920s from the Benjamin K. Miller Collection.

November 5, 2007 – March 1, 2009

Postal Museum

Special Inaugural Exhibition

View paintings and objects that reflect President Obama's image and the art of his father's homeland, along with textiles and photographs that exhibit the ways Africans use cloth to recognize leadership and make political statements.

January 17, 2009 – February 28, 2009

African Art Museum

A Century Ago..."They Came as Sovereign Leaders"

See photographs of six great Native chiefs who participated in President Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural parade.

January 14, 2009 – February 22, 2009

American Indian Museum DC

Eyes on the World: Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest

View 36 finalists from the thousands of photographs submitted to Smithsonian magazine's 5th Annual Photo Contest from the United States and around the world.

July 1, 2008 – February 17, 2009

Smithsonian Castle

Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture

Featuring 61 pieces from the late 19th century to the present, this exhibition demonstrates how posters function as portraiture.

May 9, 2008 – February 8, 2009

Portrait Gallery

Women of Our Time: Twentieth-Century Photographs

Women of Our Time is a photographic celebration of 91 women who have challenged and changed America.

October 10, 2008 – February 1, 2009

Portrait Gallery

Seascapes: Tryon & Sugimoto

For the first time since the opening of the Freer Gallery of Art in 1923, works from its American collection are shown with works from outside the museum.

July 12, 2008 – January 25, 2009

Asian Art Museum, East Building

New Arrivals

This rotating exhibition highlights newly acquired objects in the National Portrait Gallery collection.

March 21, 2008 – January 25, 2009

Portrait Gallery

Four Indian Kings

The year 2008 marked the 225th anniversary of the Treaty of Paris which ended the American Revolution. To commemorate this event, the National Portrait Gallery exhibited the earliest surviving full-length oil portraits of North American aboriginal people painted from life.

September 12, 2008 – January 25, 2009

Portrait Gallery

Posters from the Division of Community Education (DIVEDCO) of Puerto Rico, 1949-1989

Examples of Puerto Rican poster art from the late 1940s to the late 1980s are on view.

September 17, 2008 – January 25, 2009

Ripley Center

House Proud: Nineteenth-Century Watercolor Interiors from the Thaw Collection

View and appreciate the Thaw's collection of 19th-century watercolor drawings that meticulously detail the era's interior furnishings and document the social, cultural, and aesthetic development of European domestic life.

August 12, 2008 – January 25, 2009

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Green Light: A Juried Exhibition of Emerging Artists with Disabilities

View works by 15 award-winning emerging artists with disabilities, ages 16 to 25.

September 17, 2008 – January 21, 2009

Ripley Center

El Anatsui's Nukae-1 (2006)

See how the artist El Anatsui addresses global ideas about the environment, consumerism, and the social history and memory of the "stuff" of our lives, in this piece that celebrates the woven and stamped textile traditions that remain vibrant in Ghana and Nigeria today.

March 12, 2008 – January 18, 2009

African Art Museum

Space: A Journey to Our Future

See artifacts, along with mechanical and computer interactives, that highlight current projects in space exploration.

June 14, 2008 – January 12, 2009

Air and Space Museum

The Panza Collection and Ways of Seeing: Giuseppe and Giovanna Panza

Two exhibitions are on view: The Panza Collection and Ways of Seeing

October 23, 2008 – January 11, 2009

Hirshhorn Museum