Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Beyond Brushwork: Symbolism in Chinese Painting

Take a look at the contemporary approach of examining the objects within Chinese paintings for their symbolic meanings, such as longevity and good fortune, and for their social and political commentary.

April 29, 2006 – November 26, 2006

Asian Art Museum, West Building

African Gold from the Glassell Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

See approximately 135 works of art that represent the rich diversity of Akan gold work and royal regalia from Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire in West Africa.

May 26, 2006 – November 26, 2006

African Art Museum

Carmen Lucia Ruby

See the 23.1-carat Carmen Lucia ruby, one of the largest faceted Burmese rubies known to exist.

October 16, 2004 – November 20, 2006

Natural History Museum

War Letters: Lost and Found

Original letters from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam reveal that extraordinary history is contained in these letters.

November 11, 2005 – November 13, 2006

Postal Museum

Forces of Change: The Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely

Explore the Arctic’s changing climate. Discover what these changes mean for the Arctic, its wildlife, its people—and the rest of the planet.

April 15, 2006 – November 12, 2006

Natural History Museum

Forces of Change: Atmosphere: Change is in the Air

This exhibition explains the important role the atmosphere plays in our lives and in the environment by examining its evolution and properties and its effects on plants, animals, and people.

April 15, 2006 – November 12, 2006

Natural History Museum

Myth, Mortals, and Immortality: Works from Museo Soumaya de Mexico

See over 100 works spanning the 17th to the 20th century by some of Mexico's most renowned artists, including Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Jorge Gonzalez Camarena, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

September 13, 2006 – November 2, 2006

Ripley Center

Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005

Explore the physical forms, rituals of use, and social meanings of eating utensils through the museum's permanent collection of cutlery produced in Europe and the U.S. from 1500 to the present.

May 5, 2006 – October 29, 2006

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Frederic Church, Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape

Witness the promotion of tourism in 19th-century America through the "constructed" pastoral landscape, explored through the museum's extraordinary collections of oil studies, drawings, watercolors, and photographs.

May 19, 2006 – October 22, 2006

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

New Orleans Black Mardi Gras Indians: Exploring a Community Tradition from an Insider's View

View more than 45 of New Orleans photographer J. Nash Porter's photographic portraits of the Mardi Gras Indians and their elaborate handmade suits (costumes) and patches.

April 23, 2006 – October 15, 2006

Anacostia Community Museum

Through Their Eyes: Birney Elementary School Students Photograph Anacostia

View a photographic exhibition that includes everyday scenes, special events, residents, and places of interest in the Anacostia community by 13 students of the James Gillespie Birney Elementary School in southeast Washington, D.C.,

April 23, 2006 – October 15, 2006

Anacostia Community Museum

Eye Contact: Modern American Portrait Drawing

Showcasing masterpieces of 20th century portraiture from the Gallery's drawing collections, this exhibition emphasizes the bold, contemporary engagement between one person and another that the term “eye contact” implies.

July 1, 2006 – October 9, 2006

Portrait Gallery

Vanished Kingdoms: The Wulsin Photographs of Tibet, China, & Mongolia 1921-1925

Janet Elliott Wulsin's photographs of the region's tribes, people, and landscapes; reproductions of hand-painted lantern slides; and excerpts from her personal letters.

May 22, 2006 – October 9, 2006

Natural History Museum

Directions: Jim Lambie

Scottish artist Jeff Lambie transforms the museum's lobby into a lively, colorful, immersive environment that includes one of his signature taped floor pieces from his Zobop series and a group of sculptures.

May 13, 2006 – October 4, 2006

Hirshhorn Museum

Australia/Asia Exhibit

Visit tree kangaroos, rat kangaroos, echidnas, and Prevost's squirrels, whose native habitat is Australia, New Zealand, and neighboring islands in the South Pacific.

May 1, 1984 – October 1, 2006

National Zoo

Yinka Shonibare Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection

Visit an exhibition, curated by Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, that explores modes of transportation, from the 16th to the 20th centuries, as both a means of economic advancement and as a leisure time activity.

October 7, 2005 – September 24, 2006

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

William Wegman: Funny/Strange

Enjoy William Wegman's smart, gently subversive humor that parodies all things familiar in this exhibition featuring 200 works in a variety of media -- from photographs and paintings to conceptual works and videos.

July 1, 2006 – September 24, 2006

American Art Museum

Will Wilson: Auto Immune Response

Photographer and artist Will Wilson (Navajo) creates an imagined environment to show what the Navajos' relationship to the land might be like in the distant future.

May 4, 2006 – September 24, 2006

American Indian Museum New York

Solos: Matali Crasset

See how the French designer Matali Crasset uses a variety of media to explore living spaces by transforming them into areas of experimentation and mobility.

May 19, 2006 – September 24, 2006

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Virgil Ortiz: La Renaissance Indigene

View an exhibit of ceramics, mixed media and couture from the artist Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo, b. 1969).

May 4, 2006 – September 24, 2006

American Indian Museum New York

Pretty Women: Freer and the Ideal of Feminine Beauty

See major works that Freer acquired of beautiful women by James McNeill Whistler, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, and Abbott Handerson Thayer.

August 13, 2005 – September 17, 2006

Asian Art Museum, West Building

American ABC: Childhood in 19th-Century America

Explore images of children and their relationship to the American quest for national identity during the 19th century through works by American painters.

June 30, 2006 – September 16, 2006

American Art Museum

Lewis and Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibition

Marking the 200th anniversary of the expedition, the exhibition includes more than 400 artifacts that emphasize the cultural encounters of the journey.

May 12, 2006 – September 11, 2006

Natural History Museum

Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth

See the first American survey of Anselm Kiefer's (German, b. 1945) work in almost 20 years, featuring 40 large paintings, books, and sculptures created between 1969 and the present.

June 22, 2006 – September 10, 2006

Hirshhorn Museum

Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions

See some 30 contemporary Native baskets that examine the ways in which baskets and their makers are literally and symbolically "carriers of culture."

June 8, 2006 – September 5, 2006

American Indian Museum DC