Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century Chesapeake

This exhibition features archaeological discoveries that reveal the historic importance of Jamestown and its contribution to the American way of life.

February 7, 2009 – January 5, 2014

Natural History Museum

Strange and Wondrous: Prints of India from the Robert J. Del Bonta Collection

An exceptional group of 50 prints show how perceptions of Indian culture shifted through the centuries, from the Enlightenment to the colonial period and into modernity.

October 19, 2013 – January 5, 2014

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

See how photography in America evolved from a documentary medium to an artistic genre.

June 28, 2013 – January 5, 2014

American Art Museum

Mr. TIME: Portraits by Boris Chaliapin

See 26 portraits by Time magazine’s most prolific artist, Boris Chaliapin.

May 17, 2013 – January 5, 2014

Portrait Gallery

In/finite Earth: A National Juried Exhibition for Emerging Artists with Disabilities, Ages 16-25

See how emerging artists with disabilities illustrate their innovative viewpoints at the intersection of environmentalism, creativity, and disability.

October 24, 2013 – January 5, 2014

Ripley Center

Making Marks: Prints from Crow's Shadow Press

See prints by contemporary Native American artists working at Crow's Shadow Press.

May 17, 2013 – January 5, 2014

American Indian Museum New York

Grand Procession: Dolls from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection

See how five Native American artists turn a centuries-old tradition of doll making into a contemporary art form.

April 20, 2013 – January 1, 2014

American Indian Museum DC

High Art: A Decade of Collecting

See how contemporary artists have depicted flight and space.

July 26, 2013 – January 1, 2014

Air and Space Museum

Featured Object: Storage Jar (Columnar Series)

See a wheelthrown utilitarian vessel, is part of a suite of tall, columnar, lidded vessels made in the 1980s by Val Cushing.

November 1, 1990 – December 18, 2013

Renwick Gallery

The Incredible Bionic Man

See the Bionic Man, a 6-foot-tall robot built entirely from bionic body parts and implantable synthetic organs.

October 18, 2013 – December 10, 2013

Air and Space Museum

A Measure of Earth: The Cole-Ware Collection of American Baskets

See a collection of modern baskets that reveal the central role basketry has played in the everyday life of Americans.

October 17, 2013 – December 8, 2013

Renwick Gallery

Infinite Place: The Ceramic Art of Wayne Higby

See ceramics by Higby, one of the most innovative second-generation artists coming out of the post-World War II American ceramic studio movement.

October 17, 2013 – December 8, 2013

Renwick Gallery

Permanent Collection

Visit the permanent collection of the Renwick Gallery, featuring contemporary American crafts in glass, ceramics, metal, wood, and fiber.

January 28, 1972 – December 8, 2013

Renwick Gallery

Renwick Installation

View jewelry, teapots, stoneware and fiber pieces, earthenware, and wooden bowls.

August 1, 1989 – December 8, 2013

Renwick Gallery

Selections from the Renwick Collection

View 45 masterworks from the museum's permanent collection including the Albert Paley gates, Viktor Schreckengost's Apocalypse '42, Harvey Littleton's Opalescent Red Crown, and James Prestini's turned-wood bowls.

March 6, 1987 – December 8, 2013

Renwick Gallery

The National Woman Suffrage Parade, 1913

Learn about the impact of the 1913 women's suffrage march in Washington, DC, the first civil rights parade to use the nation's capital as a backdrop.

February 28, 2013 – December 2, 2013

American History Museum

Searching for Goldilocks

Angela Palmer's glass sculpture captures the excitement of the Kepler Space Observatory's quest for planets that might fit the criteria for life: not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

July 26, 2013 – December 1, 2013

Air and Space Museum

Suited for Space

Witness the modern technological marvel that is the spacesuit.

July 26, 2013 – December 1, 2013

Air and Space Museum

The Art of Handwriting

See how the handwriting of influential artists can offer new insights into his or her artistic style and personality.

July 2, 2013 – November 17, 2013

Archives of American Art

Black Box: Gerco de Ruijter

View Crop, Gerco de Ruijter's stop-motion animation of the cultivated landscape that is identifiable yet abstract and is set to a stuttering, hypnotic score by Michel Banabila.

August 12, 2013 – November 12, 2013

Hirshhorn Museum

Sense of Place: Landscape Photographs from Asia

See prints by Abbas Kiarostami, Lois Conner, Moriyama Daido, Seifollah Samadian, Hai Bo, and An-My Le that employ views of the landscape to convey personal and cultural contexts of meaning.

August 3, 2013 – November 11, 2013

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

Grand Salon Installation: Paintings from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

On view are 70 paintings from the 1840s to the 1930s installed salon style, with paintings hung one-atop-another and side by side.

June 6, 2009 – November 11, 2013

Renwick Gallery

Inventing a Better Mousetrap: Patent Models from the Rothschild Collection

Back on view are 32 models for 19th-century inventions submitted to the Patent Office by inventors from across the United States that illustrate the imaginative fervor and amazing craftsmanship of the era.

November 11, 2011 – November 4, 2013

American Art Museum

Reclaiming the Edge: Urban Waterways and Civic Engagement

Explore how urban waterways, such as the Anacostia River, can be both barriers and economic resources for the community.

October 15, 2012 – November 3, 2013

Anacostia Community Museum

Recent Acquisitions

See works recently aquired by the museum.

November 9, 2012 – October 27, 2013

Portrait Gallery