Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

The Virtue in Vice

A selection of over 100 objects from Cooper Hewitt’s collection showcases the virtuosity of objects designed to make our indulgences more scintillating.

September 6, 2017 – April 15, 2018

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Joris Laarman Lab: Design in the Digital Age

The first U.S. exhibition of the experimental Dutch designer, Joris Laarman Lab presents new and recent work from the ingenious oeuvre of the designer-inventor who works at the intersection of design, art, and engineering.

September 27, 2017 – January 15, 2018

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Esperanza Spalding Selects

Esperanza Spalding Selects is the 15th installation of Cooper Hewitt’s Selects exhibition series in which designers, artists, architects, and public figures are invited to examine and interpret the museum’s collection of more than 210,000 objects.

June 9, 2017 – January 7, 2018

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Making | Breaking: New Arrivals

More than forty recent contemporary acquisitions from the museum’s permanent collection that push the boundaries of materials, making, and form.

May 19, 2017 – October 29, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Hewitt Sisters Collect

The remarkable story of Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt, who in 1897 established a museum within Cooper Union.

December 12, 2014 – October 29, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

The World of Radio

A Depression-era, monumental batik mural entitled The World of Radio is the focus of this exhibition of iconic radios, radio design drawings, and photographs from the early twentieth century through the present day

February 3, 2017 – September 24, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Jeweled Splendors of the Art Deco Era: The Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan Collection

One hundred extraordinary examples of cigarette and vanity cases, compacts, clocks, and other luxury objects are installed in the Teak Room.

April 7, 2017 – August 27, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s

The Jazz Age explores the significant impact of European influences, the rapid growth of cities, avant-garde artistic movements, new social mores and the role of technology.

April 7, 2017 – August 20, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Scraps: Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse

Offering creative, alternative approaches to confronting textile waste, Scraps: Fashion, Textiles, and Creative Reuse will present the work of three designers who put sustainability at the heart of the design process.

September 23, 2016 – April 23, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Passion for the Exotic: Louis Comfort Tiffany and Lockwood de Forest

This exhibition highlights the artistic glass production of one of America's most acclaimed designers. Tiffany’s tireless experimentation with new techniques and radiant hues is given added historical dimension through the exhibition's installation in the mansion's library designed by Tiffany's former business partner, Lockwood de Forest.

March 12, 2016 – March 26, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Energizing the Everyday: Gifts from the George R. Kravis II Collection

From radios to furniture, the exhibition displays some of the most influential objects in the history of modernism, alongside contextual works drawn from the museum’s collection.

April 28, 2016 – March 12, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

By the People: Designing a Better America

The third exhibition of Cooper Hewitt’s humanitarian design series will examine how design is challenging social and economic inequality across America.

September 30, 2016 – February 26, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Fragile Beasts

Fragile Beasts features nearly 75 ornament prints and drawings from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The exhibition highlights rarely seen works on paper from Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection, as well as several books from Cooper Hewitt’s rare book collection.

June 11, 2016 – January 16, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Thom Browne Selects

In this installment of the museum’s Selects series, fashion designer Thom Browne explores ideas of reflection and individuality with an installation that includes more than 50 of the museum’s historic and contemporary mirrors and frames.

March 4, 2016 – October 23, 2016

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial

Cooper Hewitt’s renowned Triennial exhibition series showcases some of the most exciting, provocative, and innovative design created around the globe during the previous three years. The 2016 presentation will include a range of works from all areas of design including fashion, product design, interactive design, architecture, scent design, graphics and communications, and more.

February 12, 2016 – August 21, 2016

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Pixar: The Design of Story

This exhibition examines the design process behind Pixar Animation Studios and films such as Toy Story, Wall-E, Up, Brave, The Incredibles, and Cars, among others. Focusing on the process of iteration, collaboration and research, Pixar features original artwork, including rarely seen hand-drawn sketches, paintings, and sculptures.

October 8, 2015 – August 7, 2016

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Making Design

Some 360 objects, including furniture, lighting fixtures, tableware, clothing, jewelry, books, and posters, providing an overview of five key elements of design: color, form, line, pattern, and texture.

December 12, 2014 – April 17, 2016

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

David Adjaye Selects

The exhibition features 14 West and Central African textiles from the museum’s textile holdings, including an Asante kente cloth from Ghana, a bògòloanfini mud cloth from Mali, a Dyula ikat wrapper from Ivory Coast, a Yoruba indigo dyed wrapper from Nigeria and men’s hats from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Cameroon.

June 19, 2015 – February 14, 2016

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio

Provocations is the first museum exhibition to introduce the imaginative work of British designer Thomas Heatherwick and his London-based studio to an American audience. Heatherwick is known for his unique design concepts ranging from products, infrastructure and temporary structures, such as the U.K. Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, to, most recently, large-scale architecture projects around the world.

June 24, 2015 – January 3, 2016

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

How Posters Work

Featuring nearly 125 works from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition shows how dozens of different designers—from prominent pioneers like Herbert Matter, Paul Rand, Philippe Apeloig and M/M Paris, to lesser-known makers—have mobilized principles of composition, perception, and storytelling to convey ideas and construct experiences.

May 8, 2015 – November 15, 2015

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Passion for the Exotic: Lockwood de Forest, Frederic Church

Paying homage both to de Forest and to his mentor, Frederic Church, Passion for the Exotic: Lockwood de Forest, Frederic Church evokes the fascination of late 19th-century America with the arts of India.

December 12, 2014 – September 26, 2015

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Maira Kalman Selects

56 objects from the collections of Cooper Hewitt, other Smithsonian museums, and Kalman herself, arranged by the acclaimed author, artist, and designer to suggest the journey of a life story, from birth through death.

December 12, 2014 – June 7, 2015

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Tools: Extending Our Reach

Can tools be functional and have great design? This exhibition examines the role and significance of tools that span world cultures and histories.

December 12, 2014 – May 25, 2015

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Beautiful Users

Beautiful Users introduces visitors to one of the fundamental changes in design thinking over the past half-century: the shift toward designs based on observations of human anatomy and behavior.

December 12, 2014 – April 26, 2015

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Graphic Design—Now In Production

How graphic design has broadened its reach over the past decade, expanding from a specialized profession to a widely deployed tool, is explored. (on view at Governors Island)

May 26, 2012 – September 3, 2012

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum