Past Exhibitions | Smithsonian Institution

Whistler and the Hadens

Trace the early years of Whistler's career through 30 etchings, drypoints, drawings, and an oil painting.

June 20, 1999 – April 30, 2000

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Whistler & Japan

View prints, drawings, and paintings created by Whistler during the 1860s and 1870s from the museum's collection.

May 14, 1995 – February 11, 1996

Asian Art Museum Freer Gallery

Whispered Silences: Japanese American Detention Camps, Fifty Years Later

Let 44 contemporary prints by photographer Joan Myers evoke the wartime experiences of Japanese Americans, as told through the weathered objects, abandoned gardens, and building fragments of World War II detention camp sites.

December 15, 1995 – January 15, 1996

Ripley Center

Whiskey Rebels

See the instrument used by Federal tax collectors to measure the alcohol content of whiskey in a small exhibit about the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.

June 15, 1979 – December 9, 1979

Portrait Gallery

Which Side Are You On?: Organized Labor History in America

View artifacts highlighting the history of the labor movement in America, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

October 24, 1986 – August 10, 1987

American History Museum

Where Next, Columbus?

Examine the motives and methods of past and present space exploration, as well as the options and possibilities for the future.

December 12, 1992 – March 4, 2002

Air and Space Museum

Where Gods and Mortals Meet: Continuity and Renewal in Urhobo Art

See the first exhibition devoted to the arts and culture of the Urhobo people, who live in the Niger River Delta in southern Nigeria.

June 23, 2005 – September 25, 2005

African Art Museum

When the Spirit Moves: African American Dance in History and Art

See more than 300 paintings, photographs, sculpture, and archival objects -- some dating to the early 1600s -- used to trace African American dance from its roots in west and central Africa through the 20th century.

December 14, 2000 – June 1, 2001

Anacostia Community Museum

When Time and Duty Permit: Collecting During World War II

Learn about the Smithsonian's contribution to the war effort in the Pacific during World War II and the contributions of American soldiers to the collections of the National Museum of Natural History.

July 14, 2012 – April 28, 2013

Natural History Museum

When Kingship Descended from Heaven: Masterpieces of Mesopotamian Art from the Louvre

See 32 objects created between 3500 B.C. and 2230 B.C. in the kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad that explore the relationship between kingship and society.

March 8, 1992 – August 9, 1992

Asian Art Museum Sackler Gallery

When Coal Was King: Breakers and Depots

View pen and ink drawings by Fred Bartlett of coal breakers and railroad stations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland.

March 15, 1973 – November 30, 1974

American History Museum

Whatever Happened to Polio?

The story of the polio epidemic in the United States, from vaccine development to current world efforts to stop polio.

April 12, 2005 – September 4, 2006

American History Museum

Whatchamacallit: Natural Art

On view is an environmental sculpture of entwined maple saplings -- approximately 8-1/2 feet high -- created on site by North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty.

January 12, 2000 – August 15, 2001

Natural History Museum

What's in the Mail for You! Customers and Communities

Explore the direct mail industry through this hands-on exhibition featuring interactive displays, videos, computer games, holograms, and graphics.

November 4, 1996 – January 25, 2010

Postal Museum

What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect

Enter the world of artist William T. Wiley (b. 1937), who has created a distinctive body of work during a 50-year career that addresses critical issues of our time.

October 2, 2009 – January 24, 2010

American Art Museum

What's Cooking: Bringing Julia Child's Kitchen to the Smithsonian

What's Cooking? documents the nearly year-long process of acquiring and processing the contents of Julia Child's kitchen.

February 4, 2002 – August 4, 2002

American History Museum

What Is Feminist Art?

On view are more than 75 vibrant and varied personal statements from artists from 1976 and now that elucidate the contours of feminist art.

November 26, 2019 – December 31, 2021

Archives of American Art

What Could Have Been: Unbuilt Architecture of the 80s

View architectural designs from the 1980s, including drawings and models, of plans that have not been constructed.

July 19, 1988 – October 16, 1988

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

What Absence Is Made Of

The exhibition explores the compelling and enigmatic ways in which artists use absence—the loss of body, of physical form or of memory—as a form of artistic expression for more than 70 years.

October 19, 2017 – March 13, 2020

Hirshhorn Museum

Whales: From Bone to Book

Trace the process of Natural History from the discovery of a whale fossil on a beach to museum drawer to scientific illustration.

May 25, 2013 – June 8, 2014

Natural History Museum

Wethersfield Meteorites

View two celebrated meteorites that fell in the same town, Wethersfield, Connecticut, eleven years apart.

July 22, 1983 – October 30, 1983

Natural History Museum

Westward to Promontory: Andrew J. Russell Photographs

Original prints from 1866-1869 of Union Pacific Railroad depict the first transcontinental railroad construction in North America.

April 2, 1991 – June 30, 1991

American History 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

West Wing Exhibition Preview: Second Floor

This sneak peek at the museum's renovations features a World War II billboard, a Godess of Liberty statue, an Apache fiddle, and a menorah with Statue of Liberty candle holders.

September 14, 2013 – January 7, 2018

American History Museum

West Point in the Making of America, 1802-1918

This exhibition tells the story of this renowned military academy in New York from its founding through World War I and highlights the achievements of its graduates.

October 19, 2002 – January 11, 2004

American History Museum