Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Americans Now

Based on works drawn from the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection -- this rotating exhibition features individuals prominent in sports, entertainment, and other fields of endeavor in the last 25 years.

July 1, 2006 – January 6, 2008

Portrait Gallery

Sketchbooks from the Archives of American Art

View sketchbooks by selected artists that provide a snapshot of their visual thinking.

October 5, 2007 – January 6, 2008

Archives of American Art

Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited

See an exhibition of 30 works, the first retrospective since 1986 on Morris Louis (born 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland) which presents major paintings from the early 1950s until his death in late 1962.

September 20, 2007 – January 6, 2008

Hirshhorn Museum

Portraiture Now: Framing Memory

This exhibition highlights contemporary art that incorporates portraits of iconic figures as a means to explore history and culture.

May 25, 2007 – January 6, 2008

Portrait Gallery

Driven: A National Juried Exhibit for Young Artists with Disabilities, Ages 16-25

See works from the 5th year of the VSA arts awards program created by young artists (ages 16-25) with disabilities, illustrating the forces that move them to create.

September 15, 2007 – December 31, 2007

Ripley Center

Black Box: Mircea Cantor

See films by Mircea Cantor, including Deeparture (2005), a film that recorded a suspenseful dance between a wolf and a deer trapped in a small gallery space.

September 17, 2007 – December 9, 2007

Hirshhorn Museum

Through Our Reader's Eyes: Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Winners

See 27 finalists from over 8,000 photographs from around the world submitted to Smithsonian magazine's 4th Annual Photo Contest.

July 1, 2007 – December 9, 2007

Smithsonian Castle

Body of Evidence: Selections from the Contemporary African Art Collection

View art using the human body—directly or indirectly—as a primary canvas for self-expression for these 20 African contemporary artists.

June 14, 2006 – December 2, 2007

African Art Museum

Emissaries of Peace: The 1762 Cherokee & British Delegations

This exhibition presents 18th-century Cherokee and British life from two perspectives: Cherokee society in 1762 -- as seen by British lieutenant and diarist Henry Timberlake -- and British society of the same period.

June 27, 2007 – November 25, 2007

Natural History Museum

A Tribute to Carl Linnaeus, 1707-1778

Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778) is known as the father of modern taxonomy.

November 13, 2007 – November 14, 2007

Natural History Museum

Lola Alvarez Bravo

See more than 56 vintage photographic prints by Lola Alvarez Bravo (1907-1993), widely recognized as Mexico's first woman photographer and a pioneer of modern photography.

September 5, 2007 – November 12, 2007

Ripley Center

Earl Cunningham's America

This retrospective of the work of Earl Cunningham (1893-1977) features 50 of the more than 400 canvases painted during his lifetime.

August 9, 2007 – November 3, 2007

American Art Museum

Looking Forward/Looking Back: Recent Acquisitions in 20th and 21st Century Design

Follow the shifts in the museum's collecting across a range of mediums, revealing how the museum has augmented and expanded its contemporary holdings during the last century,

August 17, 2007 – October 14, 2007

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

2006 Nature's Best Photography: Windland Smith Rice International Awards

View the winners in 15 categories from the 2006 Nature's Best International Windland Smith Rice Awards, and the winners in 9 categories from the National Wildlife Photography Awards.

November 10, 2006 – October 9, 2007

Natural History Museum

Portraits of Sandra Day O'Connor

The exhibition examines how a group of artists, The Painting Group, interprets the same subject—Justice Sandra Day O’Connor—at the same time.

March 30, 2007 – October 8, 2007

Portrait Gallery

The Prints of Sean Scully

Sean Scully (b. 1945) is an internationally acclaimed artist who has been instrumental in reinvigorating abstraction over the past two decades. See the master set of his prints, the only complete set in an American museum.

May 18, 2007 – October 8, 2007

American Art Museum

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

Part I of this exhibition features U.S. stamps from before 1894 from the Benjamin K. Miller Collection.

May 27, 2006 – October 1, 2007

Postal Museum

The Tiffany Diamond

One of the largest fancy yellow diamonds ever found, the Tiffany diamond was discovered in 1877 in the South African Kimberley Diamond Mine.

April 11, 2007 – September 23, 2007

Natural History Museum

Design for the Other 90%

Focus on the growing need to create affordable, sustainable means for survival for the 90% of the world's population who lack the means to purchase even the most basic goods.

May 4, 2007 – September 23, 2007

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Wish You Were Here: Artists on Vacation

View snapshots, sketchbooks, and postcards -- to name a few -- that illustrate artists on vacation.

June 28, 2007 – September 21, 2007

Archives of American Art

Ways of Seeing: John Baldessari Explores the Collection

Recent gifts of 4 early works by American-born artist John Baldessari (b. 1931, California) provide an overview of the artist's important early period, in which he questioned the role of art and became a primary force in establishing what would later be termed "conceptual" art.

July 26, 2006 – September 20, 2007

Hirshhorn Museum

Missouri's Stately Ground

See a cross-section of Menfro soil, which covers more than a million acres in central and eastern Missouri, to explore what soils tell us about history and biology.

February 18, 2005 – September 18, 2007

Natural History Museum

Sikhs: Legacy of the Punjab

Explore the history, culture, and beliefs of the Sikh people, who originally lived in the Punjab.

July 25, 2004 – September 18, 2007

Natural History Museum

Portugal in the Contemporary World

Visit four contemporary works that address the enduring social and cultural impact of the global exchange that was initiated more than 500 years ago between Portugal and the world.

June 24, 2007 – September 16, 2007

Asian Art Museum, East Building

Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries

Visit an exhibition bringing together approximately 250 objects reflecting the unprecedented cross-cultural dialogue that followed the establishment of Portugal's world trading network.

June 24, 2007 – September 16, 2007

Asian Art Museum, East Building