Current Exhibitions

My Visit

Reclaiming My Time

Works by contemporary Black designers engage ideas about cultural heritage, bodies at rest, and histories of labor and leisure.

May 31, 2024 – January 2026

African American History and Culture Museum
My Visit

Do Ho Suh: Public Figures

A special edition of Do Ho Suh's work Public Figures is the first new sculpture installed outside the historic Freer Gallery of Art in over three decades.

April 27, 2024 – April 29, 2029

Asian Art Museum, West Building
My Visit

Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860–1960

A major survey of artwork made during a transformative period characterized by new currents in science and philosophy, and ever-increasing mechanization.

March 22, 2024 – November 29, 2026

Hirshhorn Museum
My Visit

Added to My Visit Removed from My Visit

Star Power: Photographs from Hollywood’s Golden Age by George Hurrell Added

~~Star Power: Photographs from Hollywood’s Golden Age by George Hurrell~~ Removed

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Star Power: Photographs from Hollywood’s Golden Age by George Hurrell

George Hurrell created definitive, timeless images of many of the most glamorous figures of filmdom’s golden era.

March 1, 2024 – January 25, 2026

Portrait Gallery
My Visit

Knotted Clay: Raku Ceramics and Tea

This exhibition features tea bowls, water containers, and other vessels in the museum’s permanent collection that demonstrate the glazes and forms unique to Raku ware.

December 9, 2023 – 2026

Asian Art Museum, West Building
My Visit

Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass

Sir Isaac Julien’s moving image installation Lessons of the Hour (2019) interweaves period reenactments across five screens to create a vivid picture of nineteenth-century activist, writer, orator, and philosopher Frederick Douglass.

December 8, 2023 – August 9, 2026

American Art Museum
My Visit

Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass

Sir Isaac Julien’s moving image installation interweaves period reenactments across five screens to create a vivid picture of Frederick Douglass.

December 8, 2023 – August 9, 2026

Portrait Gallery
My Visit

Galleries for Modern and Contemporary Art

The museum's permanent collection freshly examines the explosion of possibility in American art between the 1940s and today.

September 22, 2023 – Ongoing

American Art Museum
My Visit

Connecting Stories at the National Museum of Asian Art

Let Connecting Stories inspire you to explore our collections further and to develop your own connection to the stories at the museum.

April 29, 2023 – Ongoing

Asian Art Museum, East Building
My Visit

Added to My Visit Removed from My Visit

The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas Added

~~The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas~~ Removed

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The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas

The Art of Knowing brings together highlights from our collections to explore religious and practical knowledge across time, space, and cultures

March 25, 2023 – Ongoing

Asian Art Museum, East Building
My Visit

Abraham Lincoln by W.F.K. Travers

The life size portrait of Abraham Lincoln by W.F.K. Travers joins the America's Presidents exhibition.

February 10, 2023 – December 31, 2027

Portrait Gallery
My Visit

A Collector's Eye: Freer in Egypt

Freer acquired a range of works, including the renowned Washington Codex—one of the oldest Bibles in the world—a digital copy of which will be on view along with an exceptional group of New Kingdom Egyptian glass vessels, a Byzantine jewelry set, amulets, and hundreds of beads, many of which will be seen in this exhibition for the first time.

January 28, 2023 – Ongoing

Asian Art Museum, West Building
My Visit

Freer's Global Network: Artists, Collectors, and Dealers

This exhibition looks closely at the interconnected web of artists, dealers, and collectors who helped shape the Freer Gallery of Art’s collection amid the shifting political and economic environment of the early twentieth century.

October 15, 2022 – Ongoing

Asian Art Museum, West Building
My Visit

Ancient Yemen: Incense, Art, and Trade

The fine alabaster statues and metalworks display the masterful skills of artists from ancient Yemen, who blended local ideas and Greek and Roman inspirations into new creations, underscoring the region’s remarkable artistic and cultural cosmopolitanism.

September 3, 2022 – Ongoing

Asian Art Museum, East Building
My Visit

The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room

The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room includes more than two hundred bronzes, paintings, silk hangings, and carpets that were created in Tibet, China, and Mongolia between the thirteenth and early twentieth centuries.

March 5, 2022 – Ongoing

Asian Art Museum, East Building
My Visit

Prehistoric Spirals: Earthenware from Thailand

Red painted spirals swirl in distinct patterns across the surfaces of these vessels, testifying to the sophisticated material and aesthetic cultures of northeastern Thailand more than two thousand years ago.

December 18, 2021 – Ongoing

Asian Art Museum, East Building
My Visit

Artist to Artist

Paired artworks, each representing two figures whose trajectories intersected at a creatively crucial moment.

October 1, 2021 – August 2, 2026

American Art Museum
My Visit

Laurie Anderson: Four Talks

Laurie Anderson has painted directly on the walls of the Hirshhorn in a stream-of-consciousness manner without preparatory sketches.

September 24, 2021 – Ongoing

Hirshhorn Museum
My Visit

Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience.

This exhibition explores how art depicts Black resistance, resilience, and protest.

September 10, 2021 – Ongoing

African American History and Culture Museum
My Visit

Art in Industry

Art in Industry looks back at a time when Americans embraced artistic skills as a way to build a consumer-oriented industrial economy.

March 22, 2018 – TBA

American History Museum
My Visit

Mark Bradford: Pickett's Charge

The exhibtion forms a monumental circular “cyclorama” that transforms historic Gettysburg imagery into a series of eight powerful, abstract paintings.

November 8, 2017 – Ongoing

Hirshhorn Museum
My Visit

Visionary: Viewpoints on Africa's Arts

Visionary offers broad thematic connections between works from across the spectrum of times, places, and media represented in the museum’s holdings.

November 4, 2017 – Permanent

African Art Museum
My Visit

Setting the Bar: Arts of the Song Dynasty

Elegance and refinement in form, line, and color characterize the visual arts of China during the Song dynasty. As new technology enhanced ceramic production and the number of kilns rose, fresh approaches to decoration developed.

October 14, 2017 – Indefinitely

Asian Art Museum, West Building
My Visit

Promise of Paradise: Ancient Chinese Buddhist Sculpture

The buddhas, bodhisattvas, and disciples in this exhibition were made to inspire and guide believers on their spiritual path. Their beauty imparted the promise of paradise.

October 14, 2017 – Indefinitely

Asian Art Museum, West Building
My Visit

Added to My Visit Removed from My Visit

Art and Industry: China's Ancient Houma Foundry: Chinese Bronzes Added

~~Art and Industry: China's Ancient Houma Foundry: Chinese Bronzes~~ Removed

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Art and Industry: China's Ancient Houma Foundry: Chinese Bronzes

The largest bronze foundry complex from antiquity was excavated at Houma in northern China in the mid-twentieth century. At the two-acre site, archaeologists discovered evidence of extremely sophisticated manufacturing techniques.

October 14, 2017 – Indefinitely

Asian Art Museum, West Building

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