Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Prints by California Artists

More than 40 prints provide a brief overview of printmaking in California during the 20th century.

November 20, 1992 – February 15, 1993

Campaign Close-up: Photographs by Tipper Gore

View 40 photographs taken by the wife of the Vice President-elect during the 1992 Presidential Campaign and exhibited on the occasion of the 52nd Presidential Inaugural.

January 16, 1993 – January 24, 1993

American Art Museum

Memory and Metaphor: The Art of Romare Bearden, 1940-1987

Follow the career of this African American artist through 140 works, including early cubist works of the 1940s, lyrical abstractionist works of the 1950s and 1960s, and photo-collages of the late 1960s.

October 2, 1992 – January 3, 1993

American Art Museum

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: An American Visionary

Approximately 100 photographic works focus on the bizarre and mysterious that Meatyard experienced in everyday life in Lexington, Kentucky.

July 17, 1992 – October 18, 1992

American Art Museum

Helen Levitt

Approximately 85 photographs of children, games, graffiti, and chalk drawings created from the 1930s through the 1980s by one of the major masters of American 20th-century photography are complemented by a 16-minute film, by the artist, titled In the Street.

July 17, 1992 – October 18, 1992

American Art Museum

Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985

Celebrating the Columbus Quincentenary, this survey of works by Mexican American artists incorporates their social and cultural context.

May 8, 1992 – July 26, 1992

American Art Museum

Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape Photography

Reconsider America's relationship to the land by addressing a broad spectrum of issues related to individual and cultural interaction with the natural landscape in these 131 works created by photographers.

March 6, 1992 – June 28, 1992

American Art Museum

Elizabeth Layton: Drawing on Life

Approximately 30 drawings by Elizabeth Layton on such themes as aging, depression, dieting, marriage, death, grandmothering, world hunger, and the nuclear threat are featured in this retrospective.

April 3, 1992 – June 28, 1992

American Art Museum

Gene Davis

See 9 paintings drawn from the 1990 bequest of Davis's widow, Florence Coulson Davis, to the NMAA, that represent several stages of the artist's prolific career as one of America's most innovative and accomplished 20th-century painters.

December 14, 1991 – March 1, 1992

American Art Museum

Homecoming: William H. Johnson and Afro-America, 1938-1946

Johnson's interpretations of Afro-American life in the rural south and in Harlem have been described as naive, primitive, and folk-inspired.

September 13, 1991 – March 1, 1992

American Art Museum

Recent Acquisitions: Works on Paper

View 96 works by 67 artists including Romare Bearden, Werner Drewes, Man Ray, and Terry Winters.

October 4, 1991 – February 2, 1992

American Art Museum

Installation Frederick Brown, Selected Works

Contemplate 8 paintings by this expressionist contemporary artist that blend religious, African, and Native American symbols into complex and provocative metaphors.

September 13, 1991 – December 1, 1991

American Art Museum

Eadweard Muybridge and Contemporary American Photography

See over 70 photographs from Animal Locomotion and The Attitudes of Animals in Motion series, including an interactive video disc and approximately 40 contemporary photographs.

June 28, 1991 – September 8, 1991

American Art Museum

CUBA-USA: The First Generation: In Search of Freedom

See 3 Cuban artists explore some aspects of religion and religious heritage in sculpture, combining traditional imagery with the primal forces of nature and pre-technological societies.

May 18, 1991 – August 11, 1991

American Art Museum

The West As America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920

Critically examine popular misconceptions created by these images of expansion in 164 paintings, sculptures, graphics, and photographs that link the opening of the western frontier.

March 15, 1991 – July 28, 1991

American Art Museum

Tokens of Affection: The Portrait Miniature in America

These 208 works were painted between 1750 and 1850 by 70 artists, including John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, and Edward Greene Malbone.

March 29, 1991 – June 16, 1991

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

19th-Century African-American Artists

See 12 paintings and sculptures by 19th-century African-American artists Robert Scott Duncanson, Edmonia Lewis, Edward Mitchell Bannister, and Henry Ossawa Tanner.

March 7, 1990 – April 30, 1991

American Art Museum

Harlem: Photographs by Aaron Siskind, 1932-1940

See 60 photographs that describe life in New York's most significant black neighborhood, including street scenes, children at play, and domestic situations.

November 22, 1990 – March 27, 1991

American Art Museum

Recent Acquisition: The Top of Mount Sinai (by Miner Kellogg)

This painting by Miner Kellogg typifies the interest of 19th-century painters in Asian subjects taken from the richly Islamic and Hebrew cultures.

December 31, 1990 – January 31, 1991

American Art Museum

Made With Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection

Capture the whimsy of 199 folk art objects that span the 19th and 20th centuries, including weathervanes, trade signs, painted furniture, sculpture, and drawings from the Hemphill folk art collection.

September 22, 1990 – January 21, 1991

American Art Museum

Images of Innocence: The Child in American Art

Paintings and sculptures portray children in America from the 1830s to the 1890s.

November 25, 1987 – January 15, 1991

American Art Museum

Childe Hassam: An Island Garden Revisited

View 27 paintings and 13 works on paper that depict the Isles of Shoal by America's foremost Impressionist.

October 5, 1990 – January 6, 1991

American Art Museum

AIDS Series/Oiran and Mirror

View a painting by Asian American artist Masami Teraoka that deals with the use of condoms, in conjunction with "AIDS Awareness Day."

December 1, 1990 – December 31, 1990

American Art Museum

Recent Acquisition: Metamorphosis and Jacob and the Angel

These drawings by Jacob Kainen demonstrate his expressive use of spontaneous gesture and abstract shape.

November 30, 1990 – December 31, 1990

American Art Museum