Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian is the world's largest museum and research complex, consisting of 19 museums and galleries, the National Zoological Park, and nine research facilities.
An examination of our collection of scientific glassware, from the 1770s to the 1970s, reveals the underlying story of the growth of laboratory science in America.
From fairy gardens to green walls, vignettes in this exhibit feature pieces from the Smithsonian Gardens’ Garden Furnishing Collection and plants grown at the Smithsonian Gardens Greenhouses.
The paintings of Awa Tsireh (1898–1955), also known by his Spanish name, Alfonso Roybal, represent an encounter between the art traditions of native Pueblo peoples…
Our iconic 8-ton, 14-foot-tall African Elephant has undergone a remake! The new setting explores the evolution of elephants from their earliest predecessors to the three modern-day species. Learn about elephant behavior and the threats facing elephants today.
Egyptian-Lebanese artist Lara Baladi (born 1969) experiments with the photographic medium, investigating its history and its role in shaping perceptions of the Middle East—particularly Egypt, where she is based.
The museum’s historians and curators selected three players’ portraits for the public to choose from: Roberto Clemente, Babe Ruth or Sandy Koufax. Thousands of votes were cast on Smithsonianmag.com, and Charles “Teenie” Harris’ photograph of Clemente received the most votes for dipslay.
The exhibition consists of a single 25-minute film, “Ancha es Castilla” or “N’importe quoi” (2022). These titles loosely translate to “Anything Goes” and “Whatever,” among other renderings, but the artist prefers not to provide translations.
This exhibition of nearly 20 works from the museum’s collection follows Italian contributions to the transnational evolution of abstraction, through movements and tendencies…
The earliest known photograph of the Castle, taken in 1850 during the building's contruction, is on view.
This exhibition showcases a selection of personal address books of influential American artists, from Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner to Joseph Cornell and Ad Reinhardt…
More than 500 artfully decorated postcards mailed anonymously from around the world reveal regret, fear, betrayal, desire, confession, childhood humiliation, and other compelling confessions
Above and Beyond celebrates the power of innovation. Packed with interactive challenges; vehicle concept models and prototypes; immersive media presentations; and inspiring innovator stories, this exhibition invites you to experience what it takes to make impossible dreams take flight.
A new, state-of-the-art exhibition called Destination Moon will replace the Apollo to the Moon gallery. Destination Moon will feature many of the key artifacts in the old exhibition, as well as some now in other locations or in storage.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is organizing a major retrospective on the art of Bill Traylor. Traylor was born into slavery in 1853 on an Alabama cotton plantation near the town of Benton…
Explores how a nation committed to the principles of popular sovereignty debated how to make this idealistic vision work and what living in a democracy really means.
Presents the five-hundred-year journey of how many distinct peoples and cultures met, mingled, and created the culture of the United States.
In 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 and, with a stroke of a pen, reshaped the history of Americans of Japanese descent and upset the delicate balance between the rights of the citizen and the power of the State…
Martin Puryear (b. 1945) is one of the leading sculptors of his generation, whose work is recognized internationally for its evocative forms and exquisite craftsmanship…
Robert Irwin: All the Rules Will Change is a major exhibition by one of the leading postwar American artists. It is the first museum survey devoted to Irwin’s work in the pivotal decade of the 1960s.
This exhibition reflects the dynamic tradition of narrative art among Native nations from the Great Plains. The exhibition traces the evolution of the art form from historic hides, muslins, and ledger books to more than 50 contemporary works…
The exhibition by the Freer and Sackler Galleries will transform the International Gallery into an Afghan caravanserai…
What can we discover in just a cubic foot of ocean? Enter the small worlds of marine biocubes to find out!
The exhibition brings together six artists who use computer animation in their work: Ed Atkins, Antoine Catala, Ian Cheng, Josh Kline, Helen Marten and Agnieszka Polska.
This display will highlight John Norie's unique Marine Atlas, a large bound book of sea charts dating to the early 19th century, within the historical context of the guano and nitrate trades…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 2023.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In this exhibition, Chinese and Japanese paintings, lacquer ware, and ceramics illuminate this remarkable period of cultural contact and synthesis.