Exhibitions in Washington, DC

Folger Shakespeare LibraryFree

Curated by Patricia Akhimie, some 100 photographs, playbills, diaries and costumes trace 450 years of Black women engaging Shakespeare, from Phillis Wheatley to Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison.

The Phillips Collection

Beauford Delaney (1901-1979) from 1940s New York street scenes and portraits to 1960s Paris abstraction, hung alongside influences such as Monet and Stuart Davis and peers including Sam Francis and Ed Clark.

National Portrait GalleryFree

The museum turns its lens on its own building: the early Patent Office, told through portraits of Andrew Jackson, Samuel Morse and Lincoln, the only president to hold a patent.

Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens

Hillwood's golden-anniversary show traces gold as material and colour, from Post's gilded boxes, watches and objets d'art to new work by Alfredo Jaar, Tawny Chatmon and Fabiola Jean-Louis.

National Gallery of ArtFree

Nearly 50 drawings examine women's roles in the Depression-era art project that sought to document American designs in applied, decorative, and folk art. East Building.

National Gallery of ArtFree

An intimate look at how artists like Pablo Picasso, Mary Cassatt, and Rembrandt experimented, revised, and problem-solved through printmaking. West Building.

National Gallery of ArtFree

How a fragment tells a whole story. West Building, Main Floor.

Library of CongressFree

Library collections trace how Americans have argued with, rallied around and reached for the Declaration of Independence — its ideals of equality, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenFree

Ten room-swallowing installations trace immersive art from the late 1960s on — Flavin, Gilliam, Irwin, Pape and Long, then Chan, Eliasson, Finch, Johnson and Rottenberg. Five shown here for the first time.

National Archives MuseumFree

America250 show marking the Declaration's 250th anniversary, in three parts: the Revolution, the preservation of the original parchment, and how Americans have celebrated independence since 1776.

National Portrait GalleryFree

More than twenty portraits of musicians, dancers and actors, mostly paintings and sculpture from the past century: Paul Robeson, Katharine Hepburn, Dizzy Gillespie, Maria Callas, LL Cool J.

National Gallery of ArtFree

What does it mean to have a "homeland" when it's shaped by movement, memory, and change? East Building Mezzanine.

National Museum of Asian ArtFree

How Charles Lang Freer used his Detroit home as a proving ground for what became the first national art museum of the United States.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

NMWA's hallmark biennial series returns with contemporary artists' books: sculptural, printed and paper works that rethink what a book can be, chosen with the museum's global committees.

Smithsonian American Art MuseumFree

A mid-career survey of nearly forty of Bisa Butler's large-scale quilted portraits, shown alongside work by influences including Faith Ringgold and Betye Saar.

National Gallery of ArtFree

One of today's most influential artists proposes new ways of seeing art and histories through language. East Building.

National Portrait GalleryFree

New portraits of the 2025 award winners — Jamie Dimon, Temple Grandin, Joy Harjo and Steven Spielberg — including commissions by David Lenz and Kate Capshaw.

National Portrait GalleryFree

The photographs department turns fifty with more than one hundred works spanning the daguerreian era to the digital age.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture GardenFree

Three towering white aluminium heads by Yoshitomo Nara, enlarged from small 2021 clay heads, open the revitalized Sculpture Garden's West Lawn series.

National Museum of American HistoryFree

The overlooked history of a trailblazing Filipino community in California, from the 1910s to the 1970s.

Anacostia Community MuseumFree

Ahead of the museum's 60th anniversary, this show asks how Washingtonians keep their own history - anchored by the diary of Adam Francis Plummer, with letters, photographs and hands-on archiving stations.

National Museum of Asian ArtFree

Edo-period maki-e lacquer from the collection of philanthropist Jacqueline Avant: gold-on-black hairpins, combs, boxes and a princess's litter.

Renwick GalleryFree

Mid-career survey of Saya Woolfalk's Empathics, part-plant, part-human beings, told through immersive installations, sculptural garments, glass and video projections.

Library of CongressFree

Highlights from the American Folklife Center's 50 years of collecting: recordings, photos and objects on the living traditions of food, play, work and place.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

The museum-wide collection installation, rejecting chronology for themes like Photo Credit, Seeing Red and Objectified across six continents and six centuries of women artists.

National Gallery of ArtFree

Once coveted by America's wealthy, these landscape paintings were largely lost to history. West Building.

National Museum of the American IndianFree

Original treaties on loan from the National Archives, wampum belts and peace medals tell the story of US–Native diplomacy from the colonial era to the present.

National Portrait GalleryFree

All-new work across seven galleries by Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Wendy Red Star, whose portraiture reworks archival images of Native leaders.

National Portrait GalleryFree

Nine modern prints struck from Mathew Brady's original Civil War-era negatives — Lincoln, Hawthorne, Grant and Emma, Queen of Hawai'i — shown with a glass plate and Brady's wooden storage box.

National Museum of American HistoryFree

From the streets of Havana to the dance floors of New York and beyond, this bilingual show traces how salsa grew into a defining sound of the United States.

National Museum of Asian ArtFree

On the Freer plaza facing the National Mall, a monumental empty plinth held aloft by hundreds of small striding figures, questioning who monuments are for.

National Museum of Natural HistoryFree

America's national mammal, from 100,000 years of shaping the prairie to near-extinction and recovery. A six-foot bull bison, an ancient bison skull and a North American prairie soundscape.

National Museum of Natural HistoryFree

More than 600 specimens and cultural belongings from all 50 states, DC and five US territories — fossils, minerals and treasures chosen to represent every corner of the country.