Past Exhibitions

Summer of Yoko Ono

In celebration of the tenth anniversary of Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree for Washington, DC, the Hirshhorn presents a selection of the artist’s most iconic and emotionally charged installations and performances.

June 17, 2017 – September 17, 2017

Markus Lüpertz: Threads of History

Showcases more than 30 paintings from Lüpertz’s formative years in the 1960s and ’70s.

May 24, 2017 – September 10, 2017

Mail Trolleys

Learn about trolley car mail and increased speed in mail delivery. Between trolleys and multiple daily deliveries in large cities, individuals or businesses could send and receive letters as many as three to four times a day!

May 19, 2017 – September 10, 2017

Postal Museum

21st Annual Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards

Named for nature photographer and conservationist, Windland Smith Rice, the 21st annual Nature’s Best Photography Awards exhibition presents a collection of 83 fine art prints accompanied by an HD video.

October 19, 2016 – September 5, 2017

Natural History Museum

America's Presidents Temporary Installation

While the regular gallery space is being refurbished and updated, America’s Presidents will be temporarily installed in the west gallery on the second floor.

March 24, 2017 – September 4, 2017

Portrait Gallery

Donald Sultan: The Disaster Paintings

The exhibition includes 12 signature paintings from 1984 to 1990, including Plant, May 29, 1985 from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, which will be on view only at SAAM.

May 26, 2017 – September 4, 2017

American Indian Museum New York

Native Fashion Now

From vibrant street clothing to exquisite haute couture, this exhibition celebrates the visual range, creative expression and political nuance of Native American fashion with nearly 100 works spanning the last 50 years.

February 17, 2017 – September 4, 2017

Masterworks from the Hirshhorn Collection

This new rehanging of the third-level permanent collection galleries, features highlights of Joseph Hirshhorn’s original gift alongside some of the newest additions to the collection. Featuring more than 75 works in virtually all media, the exhibition includes several major artworks returning to view after more than a decade, such as Jean-Paul Riopelle’s 1964 Large Triptych, as well as in-depth installations devoted to some of the most important artists in the collection.

June 9, 2016 – September 4, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Jeweled Splendors of the Art Deco Era: The Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan Collection

One hundred extraordinary examples of cigarette and vanity cases, compacts, clocks, and other luxury objects are installed in the Teak Room.

April 7, 2017 – August 27, 2017

June Schwarcz: Invention and Variation

The exhibition will be the first retrospective spanning of the artist's entire career including works never seen before in public from her personal collection. June Schwarcz was the foremost enamelist in the country and known for her innovatatively designed vessels.

March 10, 2017 – August 27, 2017

Renwick Gallery

JFK Centennial Celebration

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s birth on May 29, the Museum displays nine photographs of the 35th President and his family.

May 25, 2017 – August 27, 2017

American History Museum

The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s

The Jazz Age explores the significant impact of European influences, the rapid growth of cities, avant-garde artistic movements, new social mores and the role of technology.

April 7, 2017 – August 20, 2017

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Voulkos: The Breakthrough Years

This is the first exhibition to focus on the early career of Peter Voulkos, who completely re-invented his medium of proper ceramics technique and form. Aproximately thirty-five examples from this crucial body of early work will be featured.

April 7, 2017 – August 20, 2017

Renwick Gallery

100 Years of America's National Park Service: Preserve, Enjoy, Inspire

The National Park Service turns 100 this year! To celebrate, the National Park Service has teamed up with the National Museum of Natural History to present over 50 images by award-winning photographers, showcasing America's national parks.

August 4, 2016 – August 14, 2017

Natural History Museum

Linn Meyers: Our View from Here

Linn Meyers creates her largest work to date, Our View from Here, at the Hirshhorn. The site-specific wall drawing, which occupies the entire circumference of the inner ring galleries, covers nearly 400 linear feet.

May 12, 2016 – August 13, 2017

Down These Mean Streets

The exhibition will examine how Latino photographers depicted America’s urban streets when notions of the inner city began to emerge. The title of the exhibition is taken from Piri Thomas’ bestselling memoir Down These Mean Streets (1967), where the author narrates his tough upbringing in New York City’s El Barrio.

May 12, 2017 – August 6, 2017

Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center

Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 Gloves and Helmet

In commemoration of the 47th anniversary of the first moon landing, Neil Armstrong’s lunar extravehicular gloves and helmet are on display for the first time since 2012.

July 20, 2016 – July 31, 2017

Sculpture of South Asia and the Himalayas

Several centuries of sculptures from South India are on view.

November 26, 1992 – July 9, 2017

The Glazed Elephant: Ceramic Traditions in Cambodia

The Glazed Elephant explores these unconventional forms, their supposed functions, and the people who made and used them during this famous period in Cambodia’s history.

April 15, 2017 – July 9, 2017

Perspectives: Michael Joo

Inspired by the migration patterns of Korean red-crowned cranes, Brooklyn-based artist Michael Joo has created a monumental installation visualizing the bird's movements as lines in space.

July 2, 2016 – July 9, 2017

Measured Perfection: Hiram Powers' Greek Slave

This one-gallery exhibition reveals the inner workings of the studio of Hiram Powers (1805-1873), who was among the most innovative sculptors of the nineteenth century, eagerly adapting long-standing sculpture traditions to new technologies of his age.

July 3, 2015 – July 9, 2017

Inventing Utamaro: A Japanese Masterpiece Rediscovered

For the first time in nearly 140 years, Snow at Fukagawa, Moon at Shinagawa, and Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara, reunite in Inventing Utamaro.

April 8, 2017 – July 9, 2017