Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Immersion Room

Cooper Hewitt’s extraordinary collection of wallcoverings are featured in a new high-tech space.

December 12, 2014 – February 19, 2024

Rinpa Screens

Explore a selection of screens painted in the Rinpa style, a movement known for stylized forms in bright colors that spanned the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

February 25, 2023 – February 4, 2024

Asian Art Museum, West Building

A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes

This exhibition explores the full scope of Dorothy Liebes' contributions as a designer, collaborator, mentor, public figure, and tireless promoter of American modernism.

July 7, 2023 – February 4, 2024

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Meeting Tessai: Modern Japanese Art from the Cowles Collection

Meeting Tessai highlights a transformative gift of early modern and modern Japanese paintings and calligraphy from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection.

August 13, 2022 – January 28, 2024

Asian Art Museum, West Building

Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies

Musical Thinking: New Video Artists in the Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection explores the powerful resonances between recent video art and popular music.

June 23, 2023 – January 28, 2024

American Art Museum

Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea

The exhibition examines the perspectives of 48 modern and contemporary artists who offer a broader and more inclusive view of this region, which too often has been dominated by romanticized myths and Euro-American historical accounts.

July 28, 2023 – January 15, 2024

American Art Museum

A Window Suddenly Opens: Contemporary Photography in China

A Window Suddenly Opens is the Hirshhorn’s first survey of photography by leading multigenerational Chinese artists made between the 1990s and 2000s.

November 4, 2022 – January 7, 2024

Hirshhorn Museum

Kinship

Kinship presents more than forty artworks by eight contemporary artists whose work explores the notion of “kinship” and the closeness that bonds us.

October 28, 2022 – January 7, 2024

Portrait Gallery

To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington, D.C.

Explore how women of color draw on a long history of activism and advance environmental justice efforts.

May 19, 2023 – January 7, 2024

Anacostia Community Museum

John Akomfrah: Purple

An enveloping, hour-long symphony of image and sound, Purple (2017) weaves together original film with archival footage against a hypnotic score to address themes related to climate change

November 23, 2022 – January 7, 2024

Hirshhorn Museum

In Memoriam: Rosalynn Carter, 1927–2023

Rosalynn Carter was the first lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981.

November 21, 2023 – January 3, 2024

Portrait Gallery

Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch

Shelley Niro: 500 Year Itch celebrates more than a half century of Shelley Niro’s paintings, photographs, mixed-media works, and films.

May 27, 2023 – January 1, 2024

American Indian Museum New York

Highlights of the NMAAHC Library Collection

Eleven objects are featured in this exhibition of highlights from the National Museum of African American History and Culture Library.

September 12, 2022 – December 31, 2023

African American History and Culture Museum

Why We Serve: Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces

Why We Serve honors the generations of Native Americans who have served in the armed forces of the United States—often in extraordinary numbers—since the American Revolution.

November 11, 2020 – November 30, 2023

American Indian Museum New York

Why We Serve: Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces

Why We Serve honors the generations of Native Americans who have served in the armed forces of the United States since the American Revolution.

November 10, 2021 – November 30, 2023

American Indian Museum DC

Portrait of a Nation: 2022 Honorees

This intimate exhibition features the portraits of the seven individuals who have been selected to receive one of the museum’s 2022 Portrait of a Nation Awards.

November 10, 2022 – October 22, 2023

Portrait Gallery

Block by Block: Naming Washington

Explore the namesakes of Washington, D.C.’s streets, avenues, neighborhoods, and other public spaces.

July 30, 2021 – October 22, 2023

Portrait Gallery

A Perfect Harmony: American Art

Juxtaposing American and Asian art is a legacy of the founder of our museum, Detroit industrialist Charles Lang Freer. He believed in a universal language of beauty that resonated across time, space, and cultural diversity.

November 27, 2019 – October 8, 2023

Asian Art Museum, West Building

A More Perfect Union: American Artists and the Currents of Our Time

In celebration of its 60th anniversary, Art in Embassies’ traveling exhibition, A More Perfect Union: American Artists and the Currents of Our Time, will be on view at the National Museum of American History September 19–October 1, 2023.

September 19, 2023 – October 1, 2023

American History Museum

I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker's Portraits of Remarkable Black Women: Part II

The Portrait Gallery recently acquired all 75 portraits from the Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer’s series and is celebrating the acquisition with a two-part exhibition.

February 10, 2023 – September 10, 2023

Portrait Gallery

Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection

Put It This Way is devoted to the work of nearly 50 women and nonbinary artists in the Hirshhorn’s collection.

August 2, 2022 – September 4, 2023

Hirshhorn Museum

Designing Peace

Designing Peace explores the unique role design can play in pursuing peace.

June 10, 2022 – August 6, 2023

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Places of Invention

Discover what can happen when the right mix of inventive people, ready resources, and inspiring surroundings come together.

July 1, 2015 – July 30, 2023

American History Museum

Inventive Minds

Inventive Minds, a gallery within the Lemelson Hall of Invention and Innovation, will introduce visitors to the mission and work of the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, particularly its efforts to document invention.

July 1, 2015 – July 30, 2023

American History Museum

Reconstructing ‘Weatherbreak’ in an Age of Extreme Weather

This month-long exhibitions will display the reconstruction of Weatherbreak—the first large-span geodesic dome to be erected in North America.

July 5, 2023 – July 27, 2023

American History Museum