Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Cultivating America's Gardens

Highlights early horticulture publications using books and objects from Libraries and Gardens collections of the Smithsonian.

May 4, 2017 – September 16, 2018

American History Museum

Bob Greenberg Selects

Selections by Bob Greenberg, founder, chairman, and CEO of R/GA, a 2003 National Design Award winner for Communication Design, and a pioneer in the advertising and communications industry.

February 23, 2018 – September 9, 2018

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

In Memoriam: Senator John S. McCain III

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery recognizes the life and legacy of late Senator and former presidential nominee John S. McCain III with a photograph by the British-born photographer Steve Pyke.

August 27, 2018 – September 9, 2018

Portrait Gallery

In Her Words: Women's Duty and Service in World War I

Through the letters and artifacts of four women, visitors can explore unique, personal perspectives on life, duty, and service during the war.

February 2, 2018 – September 5, 2018

Postal Museum

T is for Television

This exhibition features treasured objects from children’s television.

November 27, 2017 – September 4, 2018

American History Museum

Access + Ability

The exhibition features more than 70 works, from adaptive clothing and eating implements that assist with daily routines to apps and “smart” technologies that aid in social interactions and navigating the environment.

December 15, 2017 – September 3, 2018

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

World on the Horizon: Swahili Arts Across the Indian Ocean

World on the Horizon explores Swahili arts as objects of mobility, outcomes of encounter, and as products of trade and imperialism.

May 9, 2018 – September 3, 2018

African Art Museum

22nd Annual Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards

Selected from more than 26,000 submitted entries, see 60 extraordinary images that capture the beauty and diversity of the natural world.

October 24, 2017 – September 3, 2018

Natural History Museum

The Sweat of Their Face: Portraying American Workers

The Sweat of Their Face combines art and social history with representations of American laborers across genres and centuries of art.

November 3, 2017 – September 3, 2018

Portrait Gallery

Wish Tree for Washington, D.C.

A summer favorite, Ono’s interactive artwork invites visitors to tie handwritten wishes to branches of a living Japanese dogwood tree.

June 23, 2018 – September 3, 2018

Hirshhorn Museum

Hear, See, Play: Designing with Sound

An interactive exploration of how designers use and create sounds to enhance the user experience and give objects human-like personalities.

October 13, 2017 – August 26, 2018

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

In Memoriam: Aretha Franklin

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery recognizes the life of acclaimed singer and musician Aretha Franklin.

August 17, 2018 – August 22, 2018

Portrait Gallery

Does the body rule the mind, or does the mind rule the body?

This is the first exhibition in the museum’s history to focus on live performance art, presenting new and recent works by leading performance artists who mix avant-garde gesture with popular culture, expressed through the rigor and dynamism of contemporary dance.

June 21, 2018 – August 12, 2018

Hirshhorn Museum

Do Ho Suh: Almost Home

Do Ho Suh’s immersive, dreamlike work explores the nature and meaning of home, fastening ties between personal space and shared experience.

March 16, 2018 – August 5, 2018

American Art Museum

The Prince and the Shah: Royal Portraits from Qajar Iran

Through a selection of about thirty works from the Freer and Sackler collections, this exhibition explores how Persian artists transformed modes of representing royalty and nobility.

February 24, 2018 – August 5, 2018

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

To Dye For: Ikats from Central Asia

Thirty of the finest historical Central Asian ikat hangings and coats from the Freer|Sackler collections, donated by Guido Goldman, as well as seven of Oscar de la Renta’s iconic creations are on view.

March 24, 2018 – July 29, 2018

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Passion for the Exotic: Japonism

The exhibition explores how American and European designers, following the opening of Japan to the West in the late 19th century, created objects inspired by Japanese imports and other examples of Eastern design through form, technique, motifs, and materials.

September 9, 2017 – July 22, 2018

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

The First Lady of Song: Ella Fitzgerald at 100

Highlighting Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), one of the greatest American singers.

April 1, 2017 – July 15, 2018

American History Museum

Life in One Cubic Foot

What can we discover in just a cubic foot of ocean? Enter the small worlds of marine biocubes to find out!

March 4, 2016 – July 8, 2018

Natural History Museum

Remembering Robert F. Kennedy

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery celebrates the life and legacy of Robert (“Bobby”) Kennedy with a portrait created by Roy Lichtenstein in 1968, commissioned for the cover of Time magazine.

June 6, 2018 – July 8, 2018

Portrait Gallery

Jim Chuchu's Invocations

Kenyan multimedia artist Jim Chuchu’s mesmerizing suite of video projections, Invocation: The Severance of Ties (2015) and Invocation: Release (2015) are on display.

June 21, 2017 – June 24, 2018

African Art Museum

Bridging the Americas: Community and Belonging from Panama to Washington, D.C.

This exhibition highlights major themes that link the U.S. and Panama and the makings of community.

April 13, 2015 – June 12, 2018

Anacostia Community Museum

Secrets of the Lacquer Buddha

Secrets of the Lacquer Buddha unites the only sixth- and seventh-century, life-size Chinese lacquer buddha sculptures known: one from the Walters Art Museum, one from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and one from the Freer Gallery of Art.

December 9, 2017 – June 10, 2018

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Antebellum Portraits by Mathew Brady

This Daguerreian Gallery exhibition traces the trajectory of Brady’s early career through portrait daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and salted-paper prints in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.

June 16, 2017 – June 3, 2018

Portrait Gallery

RECOGNIZE

The National Portrait Gallery turns 50 this year, and so does Marc Anthony. His portrait by Puerto Rican photographer ADÁL is on display.

May 3, 2018 – June 3, 2018

Portrait Gallery