Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Imagined Neighbors: Japanese Visions of China, 1680–1980

The paintings and calligraphy in this exhibition fuse reality with imagination and remain important to understanding the continuing, complex engagement of Japanese artists with China.

March 16, 2024 – September 15, 2024

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change

Experience works by American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) in a groundbreaking exhibition that explores European cities in an era of rapid change.

November 18, 2023 – May 4, 2024

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Journey of Color

Take a Journey of Color as we highlight thirty-four objects that reveal how different cultures obtained, produced, and used color to individualize their creations and tell layered, universal stories.

May 4, 2023 – April 4, 2024

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

A Journey of Taste: Freer and Japanese Scroll Mounting 

Explore the mountings that surround East Asian paintings and their relationship not only to the artworks displayed in this exhibition but also to Chinese and Japanese works throughout the museum.

April 15, 2023 – March 3, 2024

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Words of Wisdom: Buddhist Calligraphy from Japan

Japan had not yet developed a written language of its own prior to the year 552, and its introduction by Korean emissaries changed the country’s history forever.

April 1, 2023 – February 25, 2024

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

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 Freer Gallery

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 Freer 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 Freer Gallery

Feathered Ink

Across three galleries, Feathered Ink explores how Japanese artists have experimented over several centuries with different brush techniques in their depictions of avian subjects.

August 27, 2022 – April 2, 2023

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Rinpa: Creativity Across Time and Space

We invite you to explore a selection of paintings and ceramics by several generations of Rinpa artists from our collection.

October 1, 2022 – April 2, 2023

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

The Power to See Beauty: Charles Lang Freer

Who has “the power to see beauty”? How much do you need to know to appreciate a work of art from another culture or historical era? Our museum founder Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919) asked himself these fundamental questions as he prepared to transfer his personal collection of Asian antiquities and American tonalist paintings to a new public museum on the National Mall.

October 14, 2017 – September 6, 2022

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan

This exhibition showcases the breadth of the museum’s medieval Zen collections, highlighting rare and striking works from Japan and China to illustrate the visual, spiritual, and philosophical power of Zen.

March 5, 2022 – July 24, 2022

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Falcons: The Art of the Hunt

A selection of paintings and objects from ancient Egypt to China offer a glimpse into the fascinating world of falcons.

January 15, 2022 – July 17, 2022

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

The Peacock Room in Blue and White

The Peacock Room in Blue and White fills the room’s shelving with blue-and-white Chinese porcelains, inspired by room’s appearance in 1876 when it was the dining room of Frederick Leyland, a shipping magnate in London.

May 18, 2019 – June 1, 2022

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Dewing's Poetic World

Exploring Dewing’s social connections reveals how his art was influenced by his friendships with Charles Lang Freer, who encouraged him to pursue Japonisme, and with architect Stanford White, who designed the elaborate frames for many of his paintings on view in this intriguing exhibition.

November 27, 2019 – April 3, 2022

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Hokusai: Mad about Painting

Drawing on the museum’s impressive Hokusai collection artworks are being added throughout the summer.

July 16, 2021 – January 9, 2022

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Hokusai: Mad about Painting

In commemoration of the centennial of Freer’s death in 1919, and in celebration of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2020, the Freer Gallery presents an exploration of the prolific career of Katsushika Hokusai.

November 23, 2019 – March 13, 2020

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Whistler in Watercolor

Whistler in Watercolor introduces museum visitors to the artist’s vast creative output and provides wide access to a rarely seen segment of his work.

May 18, 2019 – November 3, 2019

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

The Way of the Kami

Shinto centers on worship of kami (deities) that reside in the landscape, natural phenomena, and deceased ancestors. This exhibition highlights the artistic culture of Shinto belief.

May 11, 2019 – November 3, 2019

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Painting the Classics: Japanese Scrolls and Beyond

Painting the Classics comprises three exhibitions that explore how early modern Japanese artists reimagined narratives and poetry from Japan’s classical age.

June 1, 2019 – October 20, 2019

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Painting the Classics: Presence and Absence

Painting the Classics comprises three exhibitions that explore how early modern Japanese artists reimagined narratives and poetry from Japan’s classical age.

May 11, 2019 – October 15, 2019

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Imperfectly Beautiful: Inventing Japanese Ceramic Style

As the innovators the Japanese tea ceremony began to emphasize individuality, they turned to local potters for fresh interpretations of tea ceramics.

October 14, 2017 – October 15, 2019

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Painting the Classics: Japanese Screens

Painting the Classics comprises three exhibitions that explore how early modern Japanese artists reimagined narratives and poetry from Japan’s classical age.

May 25, 2019 – October 15, 2019

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

The Historical Buddha and Friends

This exhibition features several figures that hold great meaning in Japanese Buddhism.

November 3, 2018 – May 5, 2019

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

The Peacock Room Revealed

For a limited time, enjoy the Peacock Room as Whistler saw it—as a work of art in itself. The shelves of the Peacock Room are empty prior to an installation of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain of the type that filled the room in the late nineteenth century.

January 29, 2019 – April 21, 2019

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery