Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Workers and Managers: The Crises of Control in American Manufacturing

Trace methods of worker control by management from the 1870s to the present.

October 2, 1989 – February 28, 1990

American History Museum

Work and Commerce: Everyday Life in Chinese Painting

View Chinese paintings dating from the 12th to the 18th centuries picturing the daily activities of common people.

June 19, 2004 – January 17, 2005

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Words of Wisdom: Buddhist Calligraphy from Japan

Japan had not yet developed a written language of its own prior to the year 552, and its introduction by Korean emissaries changed the country’s history forever.

April 1, 2023 – February 25, 2024

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Words in Remembrance

View Asian poetry, written between the 1st and 12th centuries on the themes of life, death, and friends who have died, illustrated by Asian calligraphers in the Washington, D.C. area.

December 1, 1989 – December 31, 1989

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Words Cannot Express: Death in the Archives

See how the art world responds to the death of one of their own—from letters of condolence and drafts of eulogies to firsthand accounts of artists’ funerals and expressions of personal loss.

October 31, 2011 – December 31, 2011

Archives of American Art

Word, Shout, Song: Lorenzo Dow Turner - Connecting Communities through Language

Learn how the Gullah people of Georgia and South Carolina have retained traces of their West African culture and language that their enslaved ancestors brought to the Americas.

August 9, 2010 – July 24, 2011

Anacostia Community Museum

Word Play: Contemporary Art by Xu Bing

View Chinese artist Xu Bing's seminal, best-known piece A Book from the Sky (Tianshu), along with books, scrolls, and wall posters all using 2,000 unreadable imitation "Chinese characters" that were invented by the artist to express humankind's struggle with communication.

October 21, 2001 – May 12, 2002

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Wooden Carvings of North American Birds

View some 15 carvings, realistically painted and in natural poses, by James Eddleman of Lubbock, Texas.

January 1, 1978 – May 31, 1978

Natural History 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

Wood Turning since 1930

Admire 130 works in this exhibit that documents six decades of wood turning in North America.

March 15, 2002 – July 14, 2002

Renwick Gallery

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

Wondrous Cold: An Antarctic Journey

See 50 color and black-and-white photographs of the Antarctic landscape by award-winning photographer Joan Myers. Large panoramas of Antarctica's beauty and desolation are juxtaposed with scenes of wildlife, people, and abandoned historic huts of early explorers.

May 18, 2006 – September 4, 2006

Natural History Museum

Wonders of Creation, Oddities of Existence: An Exhibition in Celebration of Halley's Comet

See 21 paintings, 2 pieces of metalwork, and a ceramic bowl that examine Islamic attitudes toward the cosmos from the 13th through the 18th centuries.

March 3, 1986 – October 1, 1986

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Wonder Woman: Symbol of the 80s

Examine the comic book character, "Wonder Woman", through this exhibition.

March 11, 1982 – May 4, 1982

American History 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

Wonder Bound

See a selection of rare books from the 18th and 19th centuries, along with specimens, that document the peculiarities of early museum collecting practices and the origins of natural history museums.

May 24, 2002 – November 15, 2002

Natural History Museum

Women on Time

See original art for some 20 Time magazine cover portraits in an exhibition that includes women as disparate as comedian Lily Tomlin and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

August 17, 1985 – December 14, 1986

Portrait Gallery

Women of Progress: Early Camera Portraits

This exhibition of daguerreotypes and ambrotypes from the 1840s and 1850s features portraits of early feminist icons.

June 14, 2019 – June 13, 2021

Portrait Gallery

Women of Our Time: Twentieth-Century Photographs

Women of Our Time is a photographic celebration of 91 women who have challenged and changed America.

October 10, 2008 – February 1, 2009

Portrait Gallery

Women of Our Time: Photographs from the National Portrait Gallery

This wide-ranging survey featured 75 of the most important American women of the 20th century, as seen by many of the finest photographers of our time.

August 22, 2003 – January 2, 2005

Portrait Gallery