Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now

¡Printing the Revolution! explores the rise of Chicano graphics within 1960s social movements and the ways in which Chicanx artists since then have advanced innovative printmaking practices attuned to social justice.

November 20, 2020 – August 8, 2021

American Art Museum

Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Trace the transformation from colonies to nationhood from about 1760 to the decade after the Civil War in this exhibition.

January 3, 2000 – May 29, 2003

American Art Museum

Works from the 1979 Annual Exhibition of Art Depicting Birds

Admire 47 works including paintings, drawings, watercolors, and wood carvings, chosen from an annual juried exhibition at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, Wisconsin.

February 1, 1980 – June 8, 1980

American Art Museum

Works by Jesse Trevino: New York, Vietnam, San Antonio

This exhibition features 9 paintings and drawings by this photorealistic painter.

September 16, 1994 – January 8, 1995

American Art Museum

Woodcuts by Hiratsuka

Examine19 black and white prints by artist Un'ichi Hiratsuka (1895-1997) who lived and worked in Washington, D.C. for over 30 years near the end of his career.

May 7, 1999 – September 12, 1999

American Art Museum

Wood Works: Constructions by Robert Indiana

See approximately 31 constructions by the contemporary American pop artist. Created from materials salvaged from New York City demolition debris, the works contain complex references to literary or historical figures, world events, or to his own paintings.

May 1, 1984 – September 3, 1984

American Art Museum

Wonder Productions Vol. I: The Evolution of a Book by Ellen Lanyon

Chicago artist Ellen Lanyon's sketches, working drawings, dummy pages, trial proofs, handcolored prints and finished book of lithographs trace the evolution and development of an idea into a finished book.

November 26, 1972 – January 10, 1973

American Art Museum

Winslow Homer in the 1890s: Prout's Neck Observed

Explore Homer's favorite themes of man and nature, fishermen and the sea, and his home and family in 15 paintings and 13 works on paper.

February 8, 1991 – May 27, 1991

American Art Museum

William Wegman: Funny/Strange

Enjoy William Wegman's smart, gently subversive humor that parodies all things familiar in this exhibition featuring 200 works in a variety of media -- from photographs and paintings to conceptual works and videos.

July 1, 2006 – September 24, 2006

American Art Museum

William Penhallow Henderson, 1877-1943: An Artist of Santa Fe

Pastels predominate this exhibition of 40 works, many of which depict religious scenes and Indian ceremonials in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico.

November 10, 1978 – June 10, 1979

American Art Museum

William Hunt Diederich Fire Screen: Stag Attacked by Hounds

This wrought iron, copper, and brass fire screen was made by Diederich around 1920 for the studio of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

October 1, 1988 – November 30, 1988

American Art Museum

William Hawkins: "Food Bar"

Visit an enamel-on-panel painting called Food Bar (1980) by the self-taught Afro-American artist.

February 1, 1989 – February 28, 1989

American Art Museum

William H. Johnson: The Scandinavian Years

Track a distinctive phase in the career of the black American artist through his expressionistic works of Danish people and landscapes executed in highly saturated colors.

September 17, 1982 – November 28, 1982

American Art Museum

William H. Johnson's World on Paper

Never-before-exhibited prints reveal African American modernist painter William H. Johnson (1901-1970) to be a powerful graphic artist.

June 30, 2006 – January 7, 2007

American Art Museum

William H. Johnson

See 15 oils and 10 drawings that reflect Johnson's roots as a rural black South Carolinian, his studies in New York, his travels in France, Scandinavia, and North Africa, and his work for the WPA Federal Art Project in Harlem.

October 10, 1975 – October 17, 1975

American Art Museum

William Edmondson Sculpture

The Featured Acquisition of the Month: Crucifixion, an example of the black folk artist's mature work, is on view. Carved of limestone in the late 1930s, the piece is the gift of Elizabeth Gibbons-Hanson.

February 1, 1983 – February 28, 1983

American Art Museum

Will Barnet: An Intimate View from the Museum's Collection

Paintings, prints, and newly acquired drawings span 6 decades and several styles of this artist's work from the museum's collection.

March 17, 1995 – July 4, 1995

American Art Museum

What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect

Enter the world of artist William T. Wiley (b. 1937), who has created a distinctive body of work during a 50-year career that addresses critical issues of our time.

October 2, 2009 – January 24, 2010

American Art Museum

Werner Drewes, Sixty-Five Years of Printmaking

See 110 woodcuts, intaglios, and lithographs drawn from NMAA's extensive holdings in an exhibition that celebrates the artist's 85th birthday.

October 5, 1984 – December 24, 1984

American Art Museum

Welcome Home: A Portrait of East Baltimore, 1975-1980

Of the more than seventy projects funded by the NEA, the East Baltimore Survey was unique for having been conceived, led, and carried out by women photographers.

July 16, 2021 – January 23, 2022

American Art Museum

We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection

We Are Made of Stories traces the rise of self-taught artists in the twentieth century and examines how, despite wide-ranging societal, racial, and gender-based obstacles, their creativity and bold self-definition became major forces in American art.

July 1, 2022 – March 26, 2023

American Art Museum

Watercolors between World Wars: Selections from the Collection

Admire 40 watercolors, dating between 1927 to 1940, that survey the variety of artistic expression in America.

May 16, 1997 – October 12, 1997

American Art Museum

Watch This! Revelations in Media Art

Artists have fearlessly engaged technological innovation to create an artistic revolution that continuously redefines how we imagine, receive, and understand our time. The exhibition includes forty-four works of art from 1941 to 2013, many of which were recently acquired by the museum.

April 24, 2015 – September 7, 2015

American Art Museum

Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image

In this permanent rotating gallery dedicated to the media arts, the museum examines the history and the latest developments in the art of the moving image.

November 15, 2011 – March 6, 2012

American Art Museum

Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image

Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image is a series of rotating exhibitions drawn from SAAM’s media arts collection.

March 11, 2017 – March 6, 2018

American Art Museum