Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

The Year of the Monkey

Enjoy different representations of the monkey as seen in 13 Japanese and Chinese screens, scrolls, and lacquerware from the 16th and 19th centuries.

April 1, 1980 – February 1, 1981

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Treasures of Ancient Nigeria: Legacy of 2,000 Years

See approximately 100 objects that comprise the first comprehensive exhibition of Nigerian art in the U.S.

December 18, 1980 – February 1, 1981

African Art Museum

Western Views and Eastern Visions

View 170 photographs and 15 paintings and drawings of the "Western Wilderness" executed by early U.S. Geological Survey explorer-photographers, artists, and their predecessors.

July 31, 1980 – February 1, 1981

American History Museum

Waiting for the Hour: The Emancipation Proclamation

This small exhibition takes its name from a painting on loan from the White House, Watch Meeting--December 31, 1862--Waiting for the Hour. The oil by William Tolman Carlton portrays slaves waiting for the appointed hour of their liberation on New Year's Eve.

March 3, 1980 – February 8, 1981

Portrait Gallery

Jan Matulka, 1890-1972

Enjoy 71 paintings, drawings, watercolors, and prints by a major figure in the art world of the Twenties and Thirties.

November 21, 1980 – February 8, 1981

American Art Museum

The Nation's Attic

This wide-ranging exhibit, set in a simulated attic, features 100 legendary technological oddities and near misses from the national collections.

April 1, 1980 – February 8, 1981

American History Museum

The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910-1930: New Perspectives

This is the second and final showing of this unprecedented exhibition including over 450 works by 40 artists, including Chagall, Exter and Malevich. The development of Russian avant-garde art is presented in chronological order.

November 20, 1980 – February 16, 1981

Hirshhorn Museum

The Art of Mali and Guinea

View a new segment of the permanent collection featuring ceremonial masks and figures of the peoples of Mali and Guinea, as well as photo-murals of Dogon villages by Eliot Elisofon.

November 15, 1980 – February 20, 1981

African Art Museum

Andre Masson: Prints from the Museum Collection

View 34 works by the surrealist French artist, born in 1896. Included are etchings, lithographs, and drypoints from the HMSG Collection, primarily from the 1950s.

October 16, 1980 – February 22, 1981

Hirshhorn Museum

The Clockwork Universe: German Clocks and Automata, 1550-1650

Displayed in a major exhibition are 120 of the most significant and precious Renaissance clocks, mechanical globes, and automata.

November 7, 1980 – February 22, 1981

American History Museum

"Now I Lay Me Down to Eat" A Salute to the Unknown Art of Living

See hundreds of objects--furniture, household articles, paintings, drawings and prints, and contemporary products--in an exhibition which examines, in a lively way, eating, sleeping, cleansing, bathing, and sitting.

November 18, 1980 – February 22, 1981

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Jupiter and Its Moons

See 75 color and black-and-white photographs from transmissions sent back to Earth from the Voyager spacecraft, Including some of the most beautiful photographs taken from space.

November 1, 1980 – February 22, 1981

Air and Space Museum

Kabuki Dance

See musical instruments and kimonos worn in Kabuki Dance.

February 10, 1981 – February 22, 1981

Natural History Museum

Imperial Mughal Albums

See 20 paintings from the court of India's 17th-century Mughal emperors.

November 1, 1979 – February 28, 1981

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Hans Richter and Stalingrad (Victory in the East)

See a 16-foot long scroll-collage created in 1943 by the German-born artist/filmmaker, including preliminary studies.

February 7, 1980 – February 28, 1981

Hirshhorn Museum

An Interior Decorated: Joyce Kozloff

Inspired by exotic and intricate motifs of Egyptian, Islamic and American Indian cultures, the New York artist transforms one of the Renwick's galleries into a striking array of color and pattern.

August 15, 1980 – March 1, 1981

Renwick Gallery

Painted Weavings by Lia Cook and Neda Alhilali

Examine 14 contemporary works created from industrial materials which have been woven, pressed, hammered, or rolled, and then painted.

August 15, 1980 – March 1, 1981

Renwick Gallery

Children's Toys: Renderings from the Index of American Design

See 24 watercolors depicting toys in the United States from the Colonial period to the end of the 19th century.

December 12, 1980 – March 12, 1981

Renwick Gallery

Thomas Wilmer Dewing

See 28 paintings, pastels, and drawings by the American artist Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938), selected from the Freer's collection.

June 19, 1980 – March 15, 1981

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Ancient Chinese Jade

View more than 130 jade objects, dating from the third millennium B.C. through the 3rd century A.D.

September 4, 1980 – March 15, 1981

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Ceramics As Historical Evidence

See equipment used by scientists to learn about the past from artifacts.

September 30, 1980 – March 15, 1981

American History Museum

Great Traditions in Chinese Landscape Painting

See 27 Chinese paintings that range in time from the Sung to the Ch'ing dynasties. Several of these--although not new acquisitions--have never been exhibited before.

November 15, 1980 – March 15, 1981

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery