Past Exhibitions

Anacostia Community Museum

Through Their Eyes: The Art of Lou and Di Stovall

See 84 works--silkscreen prints, drawings, and acrylic paintings--by 2 Washington, D.C., artists, showing their progression from posterists to master printmaker and miniaturist, respectively.

September 18, 1983 – March 4, 1984

Capital Assets: Jewelry by Washington Area Artists

Admire and purchase works in silver, gold, plastic, titanium, and cloisonne created by 21 artists.

January 6, 1984 – March 4, 1984

Russel Wright: American Designer

Survey the work of one of the first industrial designers to break away from European dominance in design in these 250 examples of furniture, flatware, ceramics, glassware, serving pieces, fabrics, period photographs, and archival material.

November 4, 1983 – March 4, 1984

To Dream of Fair Women

Admire 20 paintings of women in the romantically beautiful styles of Thomas Wilmer Dewing, James McNeill Whistler, and Abbott Handerson Thayer.

October 1, 1982 – March 1, 1984

Botanical Drugs of the Americas in the Old & New Worlds(Case of the Month)

See numerous specimens of many botanical drugs used by Native Americans that were readily accepted into the European pharmacopoeia.

September 23, 1983 – February 29, 1984

Studies in Connoisseurship, 1923-1983

Learn how continuing scholarly investigation of works in the collections of Asian and turn-of-the-century American art has changed the understanding of 60 representative objects collected by gallery founder Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919).

September 23, 1983 – February 29, 1984

One With the Earth: Native American Indian Art

This exhibition examines the many kinds of American Indian art: basketry, painting, sculpture, beadwork, and textile-weaving, with some 130 objects dating from the late 19th century to the present.

February 18, 1983 – February 29, 1984

Natural History Museum

Contemporary Australian Ceramics

See 78 works by 38 artists that illustrate the diversity of styles prevalent in Australian ceramics today.

December 16, 1983 – February 26, 1984

Sawtooths & Other Ranges of Imagination: Contemporary Art of Idaho

Documenting the fine arts in Idaho, this exhibition presents 41 works by 28 artists--paintings, sculptures, assemblages, collages, prints, drawings, and paper constructions.

December 1, 1983 – February 20, 1984

American Art Museum

Japanese Ceramics from Past to Present

Take in a brief overview of the history of Japanese ceramics with these 50 pieces, ranging from a Neolithic Jomon pot and Yayoi jar of the 1st century B.C. to several 20th-century works. Included are several recent acquisitions on exhibit for the first time.

February 18, 1983 – February 12, 1984

Dreams and Nightmares: Utopian Visions in Modern Art

A major loan exhibition of 136 works by 62 artists casts a sidelong glance at George Orwell's 1984 as we actually enter that year.

December 8, 1983 – February 12, 1984

Hirshhorn Museum

The King of Siam Presentation Set and the 1804 Silver Dollar

An 1804 silver dollar and an 1804 gold eagle (a $10 denomination), two rarities among many, are in this set of nine U.S. coins on loan from a private collector.

August 11, 1983 – February 9, 1984

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Wood Carving from Zaire

See a sculpture of a woman and child that is the only Yombe maternity figure of its kind in a public museum collection in the U.S.

February 1, 1984 – February 5, 1984

African Art Museum

The Amsterdam School: Dutch Expressionist Architecture, 1915-1930

Visit more than 100 architectural drawings and a small selection of furniture and photographs in an exhibition that marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Michel de Klerk, foremost Dutch architectural draftsman of the 20th century and central figure of the Amsterdam School.

November 1, 1983 – February 5, 1984

Germans in America: Three Centuries of Tradition and Innovation

This exhibition commemorates the tricentennial of the first German settlement in North America.

October 7, 1983 – January 31, 1984

Mathematical Models

See a variety of geometric models used for education and research.

December 1, 1983 – January 31, 1984

Ban Chiang: Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age (Thailand)

Some 200 objects are presented in this major exhibition on the ancient culture in the area now known as Ban Chiang in northeastern Thailand.

November 2, 1983 – January 31, 1984

Natural History Museum

Nastaliq Calligraphy

See 12 examples of elegant Islamic script, developed at the turn of the 15th century and used for all literary imperial manuscripts. Several pieces are signed by the most celebrated artists of the Islamic world.

October 1, 1982 – January 22, 1984

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Robert Cornelius: Portraits from the Dawn of Photography

See 37 images by Cornelius and his Philadelphia colleagues, the men who introduced many of the technical and mechanical improvements that made America daguerreotypes so superior. I

October 20, 1983 – January 22, 1984

Portrait Gallery

Direct Carving in Modern Sculpture (1890-1940)

See 38 pieces that focus on a sculptural technique in which a figure is cut or hewn in wood or stone rather than modeled in clay.

October 6, 1983 – January 22, 1984

Hirshhorn Museum

Art of the European Goldsmith: Silver from the Schroder Collection

Visit 79 silver and silver-gilt objects from the notable collection of the Schroder family of Great Britain. Most of the pieces are from the Renaissance and Mannerist periods and include ceremonial and display plates (cups, trays, bowls, platters, and ecclesiastical vessels).

November 1, 1983 – January 22, 1984

The Capital Image: Painters in Washington, 1800-1915

This major exhibition reveals the early cultural life of the city and documents the history of the capital through approximately 200 paintings, 25 prints, 50 photographs, representative sculpture, and a reconstruction of a late 19th-century artist's studio.

October 19, 1983 – January 22, 1984

American Art Museum

Contemporary Continuous Pattern

Admire more than 20 floor-to-ceiling panels of printed and hand-painted fabrics, wallcoverings, and woven fabrics and 21 design drawings in an exhibition of continuous pattern in contemporary styles.

September 20, 1983 – January 15, 1984

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Lafayette Square 1963-83: Architecture, Preservation & the Presidency

Trace President John F. Kennedy's intervention to preserve the historic character of the square opposite the White House. The evolution of architect John Carl Warnecke's design is documented as well as the project's influence on architecture that combines old buildings with new construction.

October 21, 1983 – January 15, 1984