Exhibitions

In this exhibition, Chinese and Japanese paintings, lacquer ware, and ceramics illuminate this remarkable period of cultural contact and synthesis.

In recognition of the end of Stephen Colbert’s decade-long persona for Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, the museum has borrowed Colbert’s portrait, which was created for the final season of the show.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of those first two ventures outside the spacecraft, this exhibition presents art, photography, artifacts, and personal accounts that relate the continuing story of EVA.

Thousands of live orchids and the opportunity to explore how new ideas, technologies, and inventions change the way we study, protect, and enjoy these beautiful plants.

This juried show, the Smithsonian Community Committees’s fourth, pan-Institutional art exhibition, underscores the often hidden talents within the Smithsonian community. A panel of three outside jurors selected 56 artists, from 23 different units, from more than 170 entries.

For just five days, the museum will display the original print of the “cracked plate” portrait of Abraham Lincoln. This photograph by Alexander Gardner is one of the most haunting portraits of any president.

In 2022, President Barack Obama became the first President to be scanned using 3-D technology. Data from the scan were used to create his portraits, and a 3-D printed bust will be on view for Presidents Day weekend Friday, Feb. 13, through Monday, Feb. 16, 2024.

See how self-taught Washington, D.C., artist "Mingering Mike" exercised his youthful fantasy of being a famous soul singer/songwriter in the late 1960s and the 1970s—and reflected the aspirations of countless other kids who dreamed of being discovered.

Cherry trees bloom in this selection of folding screen paintings from the Freer Gallery. These landscapes from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries combine ink painting techniques assimilated from China with the vibrant color and gold of traditional Japanese painting in a new style and grand scale.

A special display of the carriage that transported the President, Mary Todd Lincoln, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris to Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865.

Our “Recognize” wall seeks to commemorate Americans who have influenced politics, history, and culture. The public voted to honor comedian George Carlin for the Portrait Gallery’s most recent Recognize selection.

Included in this exhibition are letters, photographs, writings, and rare printed materials documenting Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s life and work. This exhibition is organized in conjunction with The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Some 70 of Yasuo Kuniyoshi's best paintings and drawings are on view in this first survey of the artist's work in 25 years.

These masterworks from Gilded Age, Impressionist, and Ashcan School painters help to tell the story of the late 19th century and early 20th centuries in America, a “coming-of-age” period in American art.

Artists have fearlessly engaged technological innovation to create an artistic revolution that continuously redefines how we imagine, receive, and understand our time. The exhibition includes forty-four works of art from 1941 to 2013, many of which were recently acquired by the museum.

Media artist Risto-Pekka Blom (Finnish, b. 1970, Mikkeli; lives and works in Tampere) is featured in the newest exhibition in the Black Box space. The exhibition consists of a single work, “Kurdrjavka [Little Ball of Fur]” (2013). It is the first U.S. museum presentation of the artist’s work.