Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Zelda and Scott: The Beautiful and Damned

The Fitzgeralds and their circle, the glamorous celebrities who exemplified the Jazz Age, are seen in portraits and photographs, manuscripts and memorabilia.

June 6, 1980 – November 30, 1980

Portrait Gallery

Zaida Ben-Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer

Photographer Zaida Ben-Yusuf (1869-1933) was an important figure in the pictorialist photography movement in late 19th and early 20th century New York.

April 11, 2008 – September 1, 2008

Portrait Gallery

Yousuf Karsh: American Portraits, Part II

Photographic portraits by Yousuf Karsh (1908–2002) include those of Georgia O'Keeffe, Jonas Salk, Marian Anderson, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Arden, I.M. Pei, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

May 2, 2014 – November 2, 2014

Portrait Gallery

Yousuf Karsh: American Portraits, Part I

Photographic portraits by Yousuf Karsh (1908–2002) include those of Georgia O’Keeffe, Jonas Salk, Marian Anderson, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Arden, I. M. Pei, Isamu Noguchi, and Eleanor Roosevelt.

November 8, 2013 – April 27, 2014

Portrait Gallery

Working for Time: The Covers of Robert Vickrey

View 20 portraits by Robert Vickrey, which appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

June 9, 1990 – November 4, 1990

Portrait Gallery

Women on Time

See original art for some 20 Time magazine cover portraits in an exhibition that includes women as disparate as comedian Lily Tomlin and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

August 17, 1985 – December 14, 1986

Portrait Gallery

Women of Progress: Early Camera Portraits

This exhibition of daguerreotypes and ambrotypes from the 1840s and 1850s features portraits of early feminist icons.

June 14, 2019 – June 13, 2021

Portrait Gallery

Women of Our Time: Twentieth-Century Photographs

Women of Our Time is a photographic celebration of 91 women who have challenged and changed America.

October 10, 2008 – February 1, 2009

Portrait Gallery

Women of Our Time: Photographs from the National Portrait Gallery

This wide-ranging survey featured 75 of the most important American women of the 20th century, as seen by many of the finest photographers of our time.

August 22, 2003 – January 2, 2005

Portrait Gallery

Winston Spencer Churchill

See a portrait, photographs and cartoons that are used to illustrate the multi-facets of his long career.

November 27, 1974 – January 30, 1975

Portrait Gallery

William Spencer Churchill

View a portrait, photographs and cartoons that are used to illustrate the multi-facets of his long career.

November 27, 1974 – January 30, 1975

Portrait Gallery

William Edward West: Kentucky Painter

See 40 portraits in the first major study of the ante-bellum painter

April 12, 1985 – June 16, 1985

Portrait Gallery

Mark the 100th anniversary of Bryant's death with a small exhibition including a silver Tiffany vase commissioned by friends for his 80th birthday; an edition of the New York Evening Post, which he edited for 50 years; a bust by Henry Kirke Brown; and an oil portrait by Daniel Huntington.

June 12, 1978 – October 27, 1978

Portrait Gallery

Why Not a Woman (for President)?

Meet Belva Ann Lockwood, the first woman candidate for President on the Equal Rights Party ticket in 1884, and the subject of a small exhibit.

August 22, 1980 – January 4, 1981

Portrait Gallery

White House Families: Life Magazine Photographs of Presidential Children

Survey the photographs of the 23 surviving offspring of Presidents of the United States taken by photographer Harry Benson for LIFE magazine's November 1984 issue.

February 15, 1985 – April 1, 1985

Portrait Gallery

Whiskey Rebels

See the instrument used by Federal tax collectors to measure the alcohol content of whiskey in a small exhibit about the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.

June 15, 1979 – December 9, 1979

Portrait Gallery

Wedgwood Portraits and the American Revolution

See about 50 Wedgwood portraits in ceramics of important figures of the Revolutionary War period.

July 13, 1976 – October 31, 1976

Portrait Gallery

We Were But a Handful

Pay tribute to the early suffragettes who brought about the ratification of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920 in this anniversary exhibit.

August 26, 1977 – May 26, 1978

Portrait Gallery

We Never Sleep: Fifty Years of Pinkerton Men

Follow the saga of Allan Pinkerton's rise from an incendiary labor agitator in Scotland to one of America's most prominent law and order advocates.

July 31, 1981 – January 3, 1982

Portrait Gallery

Watergate: Portraiture and Intrigue

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Watergate break-in, this exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery's collection, brings visitors face-to-face with the scandal's cast of characters.

March 25, 2022 – September 5, 2022

Portrait Gallery

Washington Irving

This small exhibition, commemorating the bicentennial of the author's birth, includes portraits, related paintings, and books.

April 2, 1983 – September 25, 1983

Portrait Gallery

Warranted to Give Satisfaction: Daguerreotypes by Jeremiah Gurney

In 1840, Jeremiah Gurney abandoned his career as a jeweler to establish one of New York City’s first daguerreotype studios.

June 25, 2021 – February 6, 2022

Portrait Gallery

Wall of Expression

Staff and artists from the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum painted a mural on a construction wall to commemorate the tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001.

September 20, 2001 – November 11, 2003

Portrait Gallery

Waiting for the Hour: The Emancipation Proclamation

This small exhibition takes its name from a painting on loan from the White House, Watch Meeting--December 31, 1862--Waiting for the Hour. The oil by William Tolman Carlton portrays slaves waiting for the appointed hour of their liberation on New Year's Eve.

March 3, 1980 – February 8, 1981

Portrait Gallery

Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence

To commemorate the centennial anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, NPG presents the story of the historic crusade for American women’s rights.

March 29, 2019 – January 5, 2020

Portrait Gallery