Anacostia Community Museum

A dynamic, community-oriented exploration of the cultural expressions and social experience of African Americans awaits visitors of the Anacostia Community Museum.

Exhibits:

The African Presence in Mexico: From Yanga to the Present

11/08/2009 - 07/04/2010
Main Gallery
This traveling exhibition looks at the history, culture, and art of Afro-Mexicans, beginning in the colonial era and continuing to present day. Highlights of the exhibition include "casta" paintings -- paintings used to delineate racial categories and the ever-increasing complexity of racial mixture -- and discussions of African slavery in Mexico and the hero/slave rebel Yanga; artifacts related to the traditions and popular culture of the Afro-Mexicans; and many paintings, masks, photography, and other works of art.

The African Presence in Mexico also includes a section on "Who Are We Now? Roots, Resistance, and Recognition," which charts the history of the relationship between Mexicans and African Americans in the United States, as well as the relationship between African Americans and the country of Mexico.

Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia

11/10/2008 - Ongoing
Program Room
Please Note: Call first to check the monthly viewing schedule as the exhibition may not be available when an activity is taking place in the Program Room: 202-633-4820 (recording).

After a recent successful run at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., a condensed version of this popular exhibition is on view at the museum. From Reconstruction to the second half of the 20th century, baseball, the great American pastime, was played in Washington, D.C., on segregated fields. This exhibition looks at the phenomenal popularity and community draw of this sport when played by African Americans. Featured are such personalities as Josh Gibson and "Buck" Leonard, star players of the Negro Leagues most celebrated team, the Washington Homestead Grays. The show also highlights community teams that gave rise to the various amateur, collegiate, and semi-pro black baseball teams and leagues.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Together, the Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art form the national museum of Asian art for the United States.

Exhibits:

Moving Perspectives: Yeondoo Jung

11/21/2009 - 03/14/2010
1st Level
As part of the year-long series Moving Perspectives that focuses on recent works of video art that provide rich sensory experiences of the many changes taking place in contemporary Asia, works by Yeondoo Jung are shown continuously.

Through photography and video, Yeondoo Jung (b. 1969, Jinju, Korea) invites the viewer into the dreams and memories of others. This exhibition features two new video works, including a multi-screen installation, in which anonymous strangers are filmed recalling moments in their lives. As stories of past loves, youthful ambitions, hardship, or lifelong secrets are shared, a team of stagehands reconstructs the settings for these memories. By orchestrating clever set re-creations and filming the process from beginning to end, or manipulating camera angles and lighting effects in long outdoor sequences, Jung emphasizes the artifice of the scene unfurling before the viewer's eyes. Ultimately, these videos suggest that reality, filtered through nostalgia and the passage of time, exists somewhere between truth and imagination.

Falnama: The Book of Omens

10/24/2009 - 01/24/2010
1st Level, Main Gallery & Northeast Galleries
Whether by consulting the position of the planets, casting horoscopes, or interpreting dreams, the art of divination was widely practiced throughout the Islamic world. This is the first exhibition to display the most splendid tool devised to foretell the future, a type of illustrated text known as Falnama (Book of Omens). Of some 60 artworks that are on view, the centerpiece are manuscripts -- noted for their monumental size, brilliantly painted compositions, and unusual subject matter -- created in Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Illustrated catalogue

Moving Perspectives: Shahzia Sikander/Xun

07/18/2009 - 11/08/2009
1st Level
As part of the year-long series Moving Perspectives that focuses on recent works of video art that provide rich sensory experiences of the many changes taking place in contemporary Asia, works by Shahzia Sikander and Sun Xun will be on shown continuously.

Trained in Pakistan and in the United States, Shahzia Sikander (b. 1969, Lahore, Pakistan) deftly reinterprets miniature painting by isolating and abstracting formal compositional elements often found in this densely layered and intricate art form. The dynamism of her paintings is further set in motion in her video works, where the repetition of abstract forms becomes a buzzing hive, calligraphy whirls in and out of view, and imaginary curves morph into vivid landscapes.

Similarly, Sun Xun (b. 1980, Fuxin, China) creates hundreds of paintings and drawings using sheets of old newspapers or entire blank walls. Filming his hand-drawn images, he transforms clocks, magicians, words, and insects into animated symbols flickering across the screen in dark allegories on the nature of historical consciousness and the passage of time.

Sculpture: Monkeys Grasping for the Moon

- Ongoing
Sky-lit Atrium to 3rd Level
It was originally created as a temporary display by expatriate Chinese artist Xu Bing (b. 1955) for the 2001 exhibition Word Play: Contemporary Art by Xu Bing. In order for it to remain on permanent view, it was re-created under Xu Bing's supervision and was given to the museum by the family of Madame Chiang Kai-shek in 2004 to coincide with the Year of the Monkey. This sculpture -- suspended from the sky-lit atrium down to the 3rd-level reflecting pool -- is composed of 21 laminated wood pieces, with each forming the word "monkey" in a dozen different languages. Based on a Chinese folktale, the monkeys linked arms and tails to form a chain to reach down to the pool below to capture the shimmering moon, only to discover it was a reflection. Moral: We often waste much time on futile goals.

Sculpture of South and Southeast Asia

11/26/1992 - Ongoing
1st Level, South Corridor Galleries
Sculptures from 3 major religions are presented: Hindu stone, bronze, brass, and terra-cotta temple sculptures from India; and Jain and Buddhist bronze, gilt bronze, and stone sculptures from India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Tibet.

Contemporary Japanese Porcelain

- Ongoing
3rd Level
Twentieth-century Japanese artists give fresh interpretations to the time-honored art of porcelain in this selection of works from the Sackler Gallery's collection. The distinctive decorations, which range from natural motifs to more abstract designs, are created using iron and cobalt pigments and platinum, gold, and silver enamels.

The Arts of China

11/18/1990 - Ongoing
1st Level
A variety of materials, techniques, and motifs, which span almost six thousand years, are explored in this exhibition of 228 objects highlighting the Sackler Gallery's permanent holdings of Chinese art. The exhibition features jades and bronzes, Buddhist sculpture and wall paintings, glass, lacquerware, furniture, and paintings from the Neolithic period to the 20th century.

Taking Shape: Ceramics in Southeast Asia

04/01/2007 - Ongoing
1st Level, Galleries connecting Freer & Sackler Galleries
This exhibition of approximately 200 diverse and visually striking ceramic vessels from Southeast Asia explores the migration of pots from their makers to their users. This exhibition also illuminates the dimensions of international trade that brought southern Chinese ceramics into mainland Southeast Asia and from there reaching distant markets -- from Japan to Turkey. Spanning four millennia on invention and exchange, from the prehistoric period to the present, the vessels on view were crafted for rituals, burials, domestic use, and trade. These clay pots and jars, made permanent by firing in bonfires or kilns, form the most enduring record of human activities, interactions, and ideas about form and decoration in mainland Southeast Asia.

Perspectives: S-Curve by Anish Kapoor

11/22/2008 - 01/03/2010
Street Level, Pavilion
As part of the Perspectives series of contemporary Asian art, on view is S-Curve (2006) by internationally-renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor. Consisting of two 16-foot lengths of polished steel that are gently curved to create a continuous convex and concave curve, the work recalls the exploration of form most famously embodied in Cloud Gate, in Chicago's Millennium Park. At a height of 7 feet and with highly reflective surfaces, S-Curve engages the viewer in a powerful physical experience. Known for his sublime approach to pure form, space, and materials since the early 1980s, Kapoor continues to examine spatial perception and the immateriality of the object in this work.

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution is the only museum in the nation devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design.

Exhibits:

Design USA: Contemporary Innovation

10/16/2009 - 04/04/2010
1st Floor Galleries
This exhibition celebrates the accomplishments of the winners honored during the first 10 years of the prestigious National Design Awards. The exhibition features outstanding contemporary achievements in American architecture, landscape design, interior design, product design, communication design, corporate design, interaction design, and fashion. Developed in collaboration with the renowned firm 2x4, this exhibition focuses on innovation through the lens of technology, material, method, craft, and transformation.

Design for a Living World

05/14/2009 - 01/04/2010
2nd Floor Galleries
Ten leading designers have been commissioned to develop new uses for sustainably grown and harvested materials in order to tell a unique story about the life cycle of materials and the power of conservation and design. The featured designers and places include Yves Behar/Costa Rica, Stephen Burks/Australia, Hella Jongerius/Mexico, Maya Lin/Maine, Christien Meindertsma/Idaho, Abbott Miller/Bolivia, Isaac Mizrahi/Alaska, Ted Muehling/Micronesia, Kate Spade/Marshall Islands, and Ezri Tarazi/China. The exhibition will feature the prototypes, drawings and finished products created by the designers.

Freer Gallery of Art

The Freer holds one of the finest collections of Asian art and the greatest collection of work by the American artist James McNeill Whistler in the Western world.

Exhibits:

Children at Play in Chinese Painting

11/14/2009 - 05/23/2010
Gallery 13 (Chinese Art)
Children at play in fragrant gardens or at work in lush fields have been a recurring theme in Chinese art over the past two millennia. Objects and paintings dating from the first through the 20th century, complemented by ceramics and ivory carvings, depict children playing in urban and rural settings. Relationships among family members, from infants in mothers' arms to siblings splashing in a tub of water, are explored through various media. Common childhood delights of catching butterflies and skipping rope are juxtaposed with lively images of boys herding oxen and romping in fields, all lovingly depicted in engaging scenes throughout the centuries.

The Texture of Night: James McNeill Whistler

06/06/2009 - 06/06/2010
Ground Floor
Whistler's Nocturnes, the artist's term for his nearly abstract moonlit landscapes, represent his signature contribution to 19th-century art. Beginning with oil paintings of the river Thames, Whistler expanded his exploration of urban darkness to include other sites and a range of media: lithography, watercolors, and above all, etching. This exhibition highlights 15 of these works on paper. Though small in scale, these nighttime views of London, Venice, and Amsterdam are among Whistler's most aesthetically suggestive and technically innovative works.

Vietnamese Ceramics from the Red River Delta

07/09/2005 - Ongoing
West Corridor
Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the normalization of relations between Vietnam and the United States, this first major presentation of 25 works from the Freer's Vietnamese ceramic collection reflects recent scholarship linking these Vietnamese ceramics with 12th- to 16th-century production centers in the Red River delta in northern Vietnam. Works on view include ceramics originally thought to be Japanese and a bowl thought to be Chinese when it was acquired in 1929 (now identified as identical to bowls excavated from the 15th-century layer of the Thang Long citadel site in Hanoi).

The Religious Art of Japan (rotating)

12/21/2002 - Ongoing
Gallery 8 (Japanese Art)
Important works from the Freer's collection of Japanese religious art are exhibited in several thematic rotations over a period of several years.

The Peacock Room

- Ongoing
Gallery 12
The Peacock Room was once the dining room in the London home of Frederick R. Leyland, a wealthy shipowner from Liverpool, England. Leyland commissioned the American-born artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) to paint the dining room. Between 1876 and 1877, Whistler brightened the room with golden peacocks, painting every inch of the ceiling and walls to create an elegant setting in which Leyland could display his blue-and-white porcelain as well as Whistler's painting, The Princess from the Land of Porcelain. Purchased by Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919) in 1904 and installed in the Freer Gallery of Art after his death, the Peacock Room is on permanent display.

Korean Ceramics

03/01/1997 - Ongoing
Gallery 9 (Korean Art)
Ceramics have always been an integral part of Korean culture and an important vehicle of the Korean aesthetic. This gallery presents 30 Korean ceramics made between 200 and 1900 -- from the Three Kingdoms period (1st-7th centuries) Choson period (1392-1910) -- ranging from tableware and Buddhist cinerary urns made for courtiers to bowls, bottles, and storage jars used by peasants.

Japanese Screens (rotating)

05/09/1993 - Ongoing
Gallery 5 (Japanese Art)
Features a selection from the nearly 200 screens held by the Freer Gallery. Ranging in date from the 15th to the 19th century, the screens represent the major thematic and stylistic examples of this popular format.

Note: Screens rotate periodically.

Charles Lang Freer and Egypt

06/13/1998 - Ongoing
Gallery 16
Some 70 small glass vessels, bronzes, amulets, and sculptures from the New Kingdom (1550-1070 B.C.) to the Roman Period (30 B.C.-A.D. 395) are on view from Freer's eclectic collection of Egyptian artifacts. These objects illustrate many features of this ancient civilization, including deities, scripts, and materials and techniques of manufacture. Gallery founder Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) visited Egypt on three separate occasions between 1906 and 1909. He was deeply attracted to the rich blue and green colors of Egyptian glass and glazes and their often luminous appearance.

Black & White: Chinese Ceramics from the 10th-14th Centuries

12/18/2004 - Ongoing
Gallery 18 (Chinese Art)
This exhibition of 43 objects -- mostly tablewares, wine jars, and vases, ranging from everyday goods to those fit for an emperor -- showcases the variety of glossy black-glazed wares, brilliant white porcelains, and eye-catching combinations of both colors on single vessels created during the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties. These striking works (including notable Ding, Cizhou, Jian, and Jizhou wares from the Freer's collection) were produced as a result of important developments in Chinese ceramic technology, including the use of streaked dark glazes and different modes of decoration.

Arts of the Islamic World

05/03/1998 - Ongoing
Galleries 3 & 4 (Islamic Art)
The arts of the Islamic world flourished in a vast geographic area extending from Morocco and Spain to the islands of Southeast Asia. Although distinct in their cultural, artistic, ethnic, and linguistic identities, the people of this region have shared one predominant faith, Islam. The works on view here represent the three principal media for artistic expression in the Islamic world: architecture (both religious and secular), the arts of the book (calligraphy, illustration, illumination, and bookbinding), and the arts of the object (ceramics, metalwork, glass, woodwork, textiles, and ivory).

Arts of the Indian Subcontinent and the Himalayas

10/16/2004 - Ongoing
Galleries 1 & 2 (South Asian Art)
To show the cultural and religious diversity of the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan plateau, this new long-term rotating exhibition currently features 39 artifacts, including Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain sculptures, as well as rarely exhibited paintings and luxury arts from the Mughal, Rajput, and Deccani courts.

Ancient Chinese Pottery and Bronze

03/07/1997 - Ongoing
Galleries 14 & 15 (Ancient Chinese Art)
The selection of ceramic and bronze vessels on view begins at the important juncture between the end of the Neolithic pottery tradition and the emergence of the metalworking tradition (around 2000 B.C.E.), and stops at the end of the Bronze Age and the rise of glazed stoneware (around 200 C.E.). The exhibition shows the complex, changing relationship between two of China's oldest artistic traditions.

Surface Beauty: American Art and Freer's Aesthetic Vision

02/23/2008 - Ongoing
Gallery 19 (Special Exhibitions)
This exhibition features a group of decorative paintings by American artists Thomas Dewing (1851-1938) and Dwight Tryon (1849-1925) -- whose interest in surface beauty resonated with the work of James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) -- and a selection of ceramics from the Detroit Pewabic Pottery to highlight the importance of surface beauty to Charles Lang Freer's aesthetic philosophy. Freer began collecting American paintings in the early 1890s and while his focus shifted to Asia by the turn of the century, his interest in tonal, textured surfaces remained constant, allowing him to establish "points of contact" between his Asian and American collections.

Freer & Whistler: Points of Contact

02/23/2008 - Ongoing
Galleries 10 & 11 (American Art)
Some 23 oil paintings represent a choice selection of the more than 1,300 paintings, prints, and drawings by Whistler in the gallery's collection. The works on view were chosen to exemplify both Freer's philosophy of collecting and Whistler's own self-conscious synthesis of western and Asian artistic traditions. Highlights include a sequence of views of the Thames from Whistler's Chelsea residence; an ensemble of Nocturnes (Whistler's term for his paintings of the moonlit urban landscape), and a pair of full-length portraits, including the magnificent Arrangement in Black: Portrait of F.R. Leyland, which depicts the patron of the renowned Peacock Room, adjacent to this exhibition.

Golden Seams: The Japanese Art of Mending Ceramics

11/08/2008 - 11/08/2009
Gallery 6A (Japanese Art)
Clay vessels are remarkably durable, yet they are vulnerable to breakage if mishandled or dropped. This small exhibition presents 13 ceramics from China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan that were mended and enhanced by a unique method created by Japanese craftsmen. This distinctive technique was based on the longstanding practice of using plant resin lacquer as an adhesive, but Japanese craftsmen transformed the appearance of the repair by sprinkling the lacquer with powdered gold, thus creating a new component for appreciation. "Gold" lacquer repairs became closely associated with ceramic utensils used for tea (chanoyu).

Moonlight and Clouds: Silver and Gold in the Arts of Japan

11/08/2008 - 11/08/2009
Galleries 6 & 7 (Japanese Art)
This exhibition features 32 examples of lacquer, painting, calligraphy, ceramics, and metalwork that showcase the distinctive repertoire of techniques for applying gold and silver on a variety of materials that Japanese artists developed beginning in the 17th century. One distinctive achievement in the arts of East Asia is the Japanese methods for lacquer decoration in gold and silver that enabled refined pictorial designs.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

The eye-catching architecture of the Hirshhorn sets it apart from the other museums on the National Mall. The Hirshhorn is an arresting, elevated hollow cylinder that is 82 feet high and 231 feet in diameter.

Food:

Outdoor Café (seasonal)
Featuring Hot Dogs, Italian Sausages, Wraps, Salads, and Soft Drinks
Hours: Daily 10a.m.-3p.m.

Exhibits:

Black Box: Phoebe Greenberg

11/30/2009 - 04/04/2010
Lower Level
The Black Box theater showcases rotating exhibitions of contemporary artists who use film or video as their creative medium. Films or videos run continuously.

November 30, 2009-April 4, 2010:
Curator and arts advocate Phoebe Greenberg worked with Caroline Binet, Denis Villeneuve, Jacques Davidts, and a feature film-style team to bring this part dream, part morality tale scenario to life.

Next Floor (12 min., 2008, created and produced by Phoebe Greenberg) -- part nightmare, part morality tale -- is inspired by the lavish cinematic tableaux associated with Peter Greenaway and responds to the endless appetites of pre-economic crash consumerism. The themes suggested in this film continue to resonate during a time of global struggle to regain economic equilibrium. In 2008, it was awarded Best Short Film in Cannes, France.

Outdoor Installation: UP7TH

10/02/2009 - Ongoing
Offsite at the corner of 7th & H Streets, NW
The Hirshhorn Museum debuts new works by animator David Polonsky (b. 1973, Kiev, USSR) on three massive high-resolution LED screens outside above the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro Station (7th and H Sts.). Several times each hour, a 30-second-long artwork appears.

Recently purchased by the Hirshhorn, Sunset Song is the first work by Susan Philipsz (b. 1965, Scotland) to enter the collection. She creates sound works that often investigates gender issues, loss, and loneliness and records her own voice singing songs from various sources.

Directions -- John Gerrard

11/05/2009 - 03/28/2010
3rd Floor
As part of the Directions series, this exhibition features works by Irish artist John Gerrard (b. 1974, Dublin) who photographed actual sites of farms and oil fields from 360 degrees and then simulated cinematic movement around the sites using the computer, complete with shifting, natural lighting effects.

With new technologies offering artists opportunities to create works with dimensions no one has seen before, he uses customized 3-D gaming software to re-imagine landscape art. A former student of the Art Institute of Chicago, Gerrard is inspired by the look, the history, and politics of the Dust Bowl region. He creates contemplative, vivid scenes of farms and oil fields that raise questions about the effect of human progress on the environment.

Anne Truitt: Perception and Reflection

10/08/2009 - 01/03/2010
2nd Level
This is the first major survey spanning Anne Truitt's 40-year career since her death in 2004. In addition to a variety of three-dimensional works -- suggestive of walls, towers, and other architectural forms -- in which she explored the effects of scale and proportion, the retrospective with over 80 objects presents the column sculptures that became her hallmark. While the geometric shapes of her work resonated with minimal art appearing in the 1960s, Truitt pursued an independent course, incorporating influences from Washington Color Field artists, as well as mid-century abstract painters like Ad Reinhardt and Barnett Newman. Truitt (born in 1921 in Baltimore, Maryland) was based in Washington, D.C., for most of her adult life and has been largely under-recognized for her contribution to post-1960 art.

Strange Bodies: Figurative Works from the Hirshhorn Collection

12/11/2008 - 11/15/2009
Lower Level
This exhibition brings together some of the most praised and popular examples of figuration, such as Untitled (Big Man) by Ron Mueck, from the Hirshhorn collection to show how expressionistic and surrealistic impulses toward human representation have evolved from the early and mid-20th century to recent decades. Also included is a video A Life of Errors by Nicolas and Sheila Pye.

April 20, 2009-October 11, 2009:
Guido Van der Werve (b. 1977, Papendrecht, Netherlands, lives and works in Amsterdam) is multi-talented, focusing first on painting, then performance art, and finally, film. To date, he has completed 10 short films that he describes as "possible scenarios of imaginary realities." The artist is often at the center of his elaborate and sly dramas: playing a piano on a float in the middle of a lake, launching an asteroid back to where it came from, greeting a flock of ballerinas in the middle of the street, hoisting a grand piano through an apartment window, or turning slowly (in the opposite direction of the earth's rotation).

In Nummer Acht (#8) everything is going to be alright (2007, 10 min. continous loop) the artist plods just ahead of a gigantic ice-breaking ship as it crashes through the Gulf of Bothnia in Finland. He seems oblivious to the giant craft at his heels. The romantic notion of his isolated and harrowing plight is made vivid by van der Werve's daring performance. His stride is at once quaint and ambitious, dangerous and hilarious, ridiculous and sublime. He is a stand-in for everyman who presses on despite all perils.

National Air and Space Museum

Since the building opened in 1976, the National Air and Space Museum has been the most-visited museum in the world, and a must-see for visitors to Washington, DC.

Food & Entertainment:

Dining Court features McDonald's, Boston Market and Donatos Pizzaria
Features hamburgers, French fries, chicken, pizza, salad and desserts
Group and bulk packages available
Hours: Daily 10a.m.-5p.m.

McCafé
Features panini and wrap sandwiches, pastries, specialty coffees and teas
Hours: Daily 10a.m.-5p.m.

Outdoor Kiosk (seasonal, weather permitting)
Providing hot dogs, chips, bottled beverages and ice cream
Hours: Daily 9a.m.-4p.m.

Flight Simluators
Experience being an engineer and.or astornaut during a space shuttle mission.

Exhibits:

Moving Beyond Earth

11/19/2009 - Ongoing
Gallery 113, 1st Floor, East Wing
This exhibition explores the achievements and challenges of human spaceflight in the United States during the space shuttle and space station era through artifacts, immersive experiences, and interactive computer stations. Highlights include:

• a 12-foot-tall space-shuttle model and other launch-vehicle models
• astronaut gear, space gloves, and parts of the Hubble Space Telescope, including COSTAR, an instrument designed to correct the Hubble's spherical aberration, which was recently brought down from Hubble
• the suit worn by space tourist Dennis Tito and a model of the Ares launch vehicle
• a Presentation Center for live events, broadcasts, and Webcasts

Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, First Artist on Another World

07/16/2009 - 01/13/2010
Flight and the Arts, Gallery 211, 2nd Floor, East Wing
On view are approximately 40 original paintings and drawings of the moon's landscape, fellow Apollo moonwalkers, and views of Earth from space by Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean, the fourth astronaut and only artist to walk on the lunar surface November 19, 1969. His works enable viewers to experience a world 238,000 miles away as seen first hand through his eyes. Also on view are artifacts from the museum's collection similar to the lunar equipment depicted in the paintings.

Organized to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the first Apollo Moon Landing on July 20, 1969.

The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age

10/11/2003 - Ongoing
Gallery 209, 2nd Floor, East Wing
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' historic first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, this exhibition presents the Wrights' technical achievements and examines the cultural impact of early powered flight. The centerpiece of the gallery is the original 1903 Wright Flyer, displayed on the ground for the first time since acquired by the Smithsonian in 1948. Also on view are 250 photographs and 150 other artifacts, including the stop watch used to time the first powered flights, a Wright wind tunnel test instrument used in unlocking the secrets of aerodynamics, a reproduction of the Wright Brothers' 1899 experimental kite, and full-size reproductions of their 1900 and 1902 experimental gliders.

Hands-on stations and interactive computer stations: both provide an understanding of flight

Free Family Guide

World War II Aviation

07/01/1976 - Ongoing
World War II Aviation, Gallery 205, 2nd Floor, West Wing
This gallery highlights land-based aviation during World War II and features fighter aircraft from each of 5 countries.

Space Race

05/16/1997 - Ongoing
Space Race, Gallery 114, 1st Floor, East Wing
This major exhibition traces the competition in space between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union from its origins in the 1950s to the recent international cooperation. Objects include a Soyuz TM-10 spacecraft, a Kosmos 1443 "Merkur" spacecraft, and a space suit made for the never-accomplished mission to land a Russian on the Moon.

Sea-Air Operations

07/01/1976 - Ongoing
Sea-Air Operations, Gallery 203, 2nd Floor, West Wing
This gallery explores overwater flight, focusing on carrier operations from 1911 to the present.

Pioneers of Flight, Barron Hilton

07/01/1976 - Ongoing
Pioneers of Flight, Gallery 208, 2nd Floor, Center
Note: This gallery closed for renovation February 1, 2009, and is anticipated to reopen early May 2010 (TBA).

This gallery features famous "firsts" and record setters. Since the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, men and women have had to break both physical and psychological barriers to flight. In these historic aircraft, individuals strived to claim their place in aviation history.

Milestones of Flight

07/01/1976 - Ongoing
Milestones of Flight, Gallery 100, 1st Floor, Center
This gallery features famous airplanes and spacecraft that exemplify the major achievements in the history of flight.

Lunar Exploration Vehicles

07/01/1976 - Ongoing
Lunar Exploration Vehicles, Gallery 112, 1st Floor, East Wing
This gallery highlights NASA lunar surface exploration.

Highlights include:
• Apollo Lunar Module: a duplicate of the spacecraft that carried astronauts to the surface of the moon in the Apollo Program, late 1960s and early 1970s
• Surveyor Spacecraft: soft-landed on the moon to study lunar soil composition and physical properties of the lunar surface, 1966-68
• Lunar Orbital Spacecraft: circled the moon to perform mapping of the entire lunar surface, 1966-67
• Ranger: provided the first closeup photographs of the lunar surface, 1962-65
• Clementine: designed for a two-month mapping mission in orbit around the moon in 1994. Clementine provided answers to many of the questions about the moon that remained from the Apollo era.

Looking at Earth

05/08/1986 - Ongoing
Looking at Earth, Gallery 110, 1st Floor, East Wing
This gallery traces the development of technology for viewing Earth from balloons, aircraft, and spacecraft. The quest for ever-higher, ever-clearer images of the Earth is reflected in photographs and spacecraft images from a few feet to 7.5 million miles away. Some photographs are mural-size.

Legend, Memory, and the Great War in the Air (WWI Aviation)

11/13/1991 - Ongoing
Great War in the Air, Gallery 206, 2nd Floor, West Wing
This gallery features the emergence of air power in World War I. Gear, pontoons, and a streamlined boat hull examine the real nature of WWI aviation, plus the power of legend and public perception in history.

Jet Aviation

07/01/1981 - Ongoing
Jet Aviation, Gallery 106, 1st Floor, West Wing
This gallery illustrates the first 40 years of jet aviation (1939-1979), including the evolution of commercial and military jet aircraft.

How Things Fly

09/20/1996 - Ongoing
How Things Fly, Gallery 109, 1st Floor, East Wing
This interactive gallery explains the basic principles of air and space flight through hands-on activities. The gallery features a Cessna 150, a section of a Boeing 757 fuselage, a model of the International Space Station, and more than 50 interactives.

The Golden Age of Flight

04/05/1984 - Ongoing
Golden Age of Flight, Gallery 105, 1st Floor, West Wing
This gallery covers the years between the World Wars (1919-1939) but focuses on the period shortly after Lindbergh's flight in 1927 through 1939. Described as "golden" because of many advances in aviation technology, record-making flights, and intense interest by the public in aviation events, the era produced many of today's legendary aviation heroes. Aircraft and engines, newsreel coverage of aviation events, photographs, models and reproductions, and newspaper headlines are included. Opening coincided with the 60th anniversary of the takeoff of the Douglas World Cruisers, a major event during the Golden Age.

Exploring the Planets

- Ongoing
Exploring the Planets, Gallery 207, 2nd Floor, West Wing
This gallery highlights the history and achievements of planetary exploration, both Earth-based and by spacecraft.

Highlights include:
• Voyager: full-scale replica of the spacecraft that explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune in the 1970s and 1980s
• A Piece of Mars? A meteorite fragment discovered in Antarctica in 1979 and thought to be from Mars (placed on view 6/16/1990)
• Surveyor 3 television camera: retrieved from the surface of the Moon by the Apollo 12 astronauts

Explore the Universe

09/21/2001 - Ongoing
Explore the Universe, Gallery 111, 1st Floor, East Wing
Through objects, interactives, and videos, this exhibition explains what scientists think our universe is like, how the present scientific view of the universe came to be, how it is being shaped today, and what mysteries remain. With the development of each new tool to explore the universe -- telescopes, photography, spectroscopy -- our understanding of the universe changed dramatically. Despite these new advances, many of our questions remain unanswered: What is the universe? How big is it? How old is it? How did it begin? A changing section on what's new in our exploration of the universe will keep the exhibition up to date and attempt to answer these questions.

Early Flight, The Samuel P. Langley Gallery of

03/26/1980 - Ongoing
Early Flight, Gallery 107, 1st Floor, West Wing
This re-created indoor aeronautical exhibition (circa 1913) highlights the early history of the airplane from antiquity through the first decade of powered flight. Period furnishings, talking mannequins, and ragtime music combine to bring back the special ambience of the time.

Beyond the Limits: Flight Enters the Computer Age

05/12/1989 - Ongoing
Beyond the Limits, Gallery 213, 2nd Floor, East Wing
The gallery illustrates how the electronic computer has revolutionized aerospace engineering, aviation, and spaceflight. Computers are used to design and build air- and spacecraft, monitor air traffic, navigate and control flights, and train pilots.

Apollo to the Moon

07/01/1976 - Ongoing
Apollo to the Moon, Gallery 210, 2nd Floor, East Wing
This gallery traces NASA's manned space program beginning with Project Mercury's Freedom 7 (5/5/61); then the Gemini Project (1965-66); followed by the Apollo Program (1967-1972), with Apollo 17 as the last manned exploration of the moon.

America by Air

11/17/2007 - Ongoing
1st Floor, NW Wing, Gallery 102 (previously Air Transportation)
How did the first commercial airline companies get off the ground? How has the experience of air travel changed over the past century? How will the politics of today affect the way we fly tomorrow? These are some of the issues in the development of commercial air transport this new gallery explores, while expanding on the history of air transportation from only a few years after the invention of powered flight to the commercial challenges and technical sophistication of the 21st-century jet age.

Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)

04/24/2008 - Ongoing
1st Floor, West End, suspended above Gallery 104
On view are 6 aircraft -- Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) -- that represent a cross-section of modern unmanned flight systems technology. These aircraft are commonly used by all four military services around the globe to perform many types of missions, including reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, bomb damage assessment, and attack. The evolution of unmanned military aircraft began during World War I and continues today.

National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

The National Air and Space Museum's spectacular Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center is a massive complex displaying aviation and space artifacts both large and small.

Food & Entertainment:

McDonald's
Full service McDonald's menu featuring burgers, fries, chicken sandwiches, sodas, and sundaes.
Group and bulk packages available
Hours: Daily 10 a.m.-5p.m.

McCafé
Offering specialty coffees, teas and pastries
Hours: Daily 10 a.m.-5p.m.

Flight Simluators
Experience being an engineer and.or astornaut during a space shuttle mission.

Exhibits:

Grand Opening: Took Place December 15, 2003

12/15/2003 - Ongoing
Near Dulles International Airport, Rt. 28 & Air & Space Pkwy.
On December 15, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, the National Air and Space Museum opened its new major companion facility, designed to display and preserve its collection of historic aviation and space artifacts. This facility has allowed the museum to take out of storage and ultimately display nearly all of its collection of aircraft and spacecraft. For general information on the kinds of aircraft on view, see the Boeing Aviation Hangar entry and for general information on spacecraft on view, see the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar entry.

James S. McDonnell Space Hangar

11/01/2004 - Ongoing
West of Aviation Hangar
Some 154 large and 500 smaller space history artifacts are on view to illustrate the scope of space exploration history as organized around the following 4 main themes: rocketry and missiles, human spaceflight, application satellites, and space science.

Boeing Aviation Hangar

12/15/2003 - Ongoing
Main Level
Some 163 aircraft are currently on view to illustrate the scope of aviation history, including military, commercial, business, sports, and pre-1920 aviation and vertical flight (helicopters).

Balloonamania (2 large cases)

12/15/2003 - Ongoing
Boeing Aviation Hangar
The commotion created when the Montgolfier brothers sent the first successful unmanned balloon aloft in 1783 in France was as great as that created by the Wright Brothers' first flight a century later. Because communication worked differently in the 18th century, historic events were recorded visually on a variety of objects from clocks to teacups. Some 400 objects from the museum's collection of ballooning memorabilia illustrate the impact of ballooning upon the public's imagination of the day both in Europe and America. Included in the 2 exhibition cases are such items as ceramic saucers; ashtrays; pocket watches; paperweights; boxes of tortoiseshell, ivory, and amber; and 18th-century walnut chairs -- all beautifully decorated with ballooning scenes. Also on view is the barometer carried by American physician John Jeffries on the first balloon crossing of the English Channel in January 1785.

Case: Japanese American Pioneers of the Jet Age

- Ongoing
Near Dulles International Airport, Rt. 28 & Air & Space Pkwy.
In 1955, Pan American World Airways -- in an effort to become the pre-eminent carrier for routes over the Pacific -- recruited Japanese American stewardesses as ambassadors to the growing tide of world travelers and established an Asian language base in Honolulu. Photographs and such memorabilia as uniforms, flight bags, and scrapbooks provide a peak at the role of these Japanese America stewardesses.

National Museum of African Art

The National Museum of African Art is America's only museum dedicated to the collection, conservation, study and exhibition of African art in all its forms.

Exhibits:

Yinka Shonibare MBE

11/10/2009 - 03/07/2010
Sublevel 1, Sylvia H. Williams Gallery; Sublevel 2
On display is the most comprehensive exhibition of works -- including dramatic sculptural tableaux, paintings, photographs, and film -- by this internationally renowned Nigerian, London-based artist to date.

Artful Animals

07/01/2009 - 07/25/2010
Sublevel 1
Dedicated to young audiences, this exhibition explores how African artists create striking works of art using images from an array of domestic and untamed animals. On view are approximately 125 works that capture not only the physical characteristics of animals but also the many ways that animals, from spiders to leopards, act out our human shortcomings and successes. From rock art to contemporary painting, animals are used as symbols of royal arts and in masquerades for the ancestors. Many of the elements of design are derived through direct observation of the animals in their natural habitat. It is the animal's conduct and distinct behaviors that carry the messages in performances, stories, and proverbs. Themes include notions of nurturing, power, wisdom, transformation, beauty, and aggression.

Ceramics at the National Museum of African Art

01/14/1998 - Ongoing
Sublevel 3
Drawn from the museum's extensive collection of 140 ceramic works, on view are 14 vessels representing various regions of the African continent, including five objects that have never been exhibited in the museum. The vessels are representative of master potters, primarily women who display their dexterity by hand-building a variety of vessels. A few pieces from an important group of 85 vessels from Central Africa are on display, along with a beer container from the Chewa of Malawi, a water vessel from the Yoruba of Nigeria, and water and oil containers from the Berber of Algeria.

Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Highlights

05/18/2009 - Ongoing
Sublevel 1
On view are 60 objects and 4 in the lobby from this comprehensive 525-piece collection of African art representing 20 African countries and 75 peoples and covers 5 centuries of African art, including most major styles ranging from a highly abstract Cameroon mask to a naturalistic carved wooden male figure from Madagascar. Many of the works inspired such 20th-century artists as Picasso and Juan Gris.

Catalogue: $39.95 (paper)

National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center

The National Museum of American History collects artifacts of all kinds, from gowns to locomotives, to preserve for the American people an enduring record of their past. The Museum has more than three million artifacts in its collection.

Food & Entertainment:

Stars and Stripes Cafe
The main eatery for the National Museum of American History is the newly renovated Stars and Stripes Cafe, which seats 600 and is large enough to accommodate groups. Menu includes all-American barbeques, soups, salad bar, burgers, pizza and desserts. Cash and credit cards accepted.
Hours: 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Constitution Cafe
The new Constitution Cafe, open the same hours as the Museum, is the perfect place for morning coffee, a light lunch or a mid-afternoon ice cream. Its large picture window has a terrific view of the Museum’s fountain and the street.
Hours: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

Ride Simulators
If taking a short, wild adventure is your idea of a break, then you will enjoy our new ride simulators. They will take you on a variety of journeys like driving a racecar or riding a roller coaster.

Exhibits:

Invention Case: Hot Spots of Invention

11/06/2009 - Ongoing
1st Floor, West Wing
This case featuring rotating displays complements the Lemelson Hall of Invention exhibit nearby on the first floor and its case on the third floor.

• Hot Spots of Invention

Invention happens everywhere, but sometimes a "hot spot of invention" takes shape when the right mix of creative people, resources, and inspiring surroundings come together. In the 1930s, a hot spot began to form among the industrial labs and universities of New England. As World War II neared, this hot spot matured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This case highlights how three war-era labs at MIT helped transform Cambridge into a dynamic place of invention.

See "Calendar One-Time Events" in InfoWeb: Nov. 6 and 7

Holidays on Display

11/13/2009 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, West Wing, near National Treasures of Popular Culture
This exhibition examines the art, industry, and history of holiday displays across the United States, primarily between the 1920s and the 1960s, at the height of their popularity. On view are photographs, postcards, and illustrations of parade floats and window displays -- featuring Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and Marshall Field and Company's Christmas windows -- as well as objects relating to the early creation of these displays.

Keeping History: Plains Indian Ledger Drawings

11/13/2009 - 02/15/2010
Albert Small Documents Gallery, 2nd Floor, East Wing
This exhibition features ledger drawings, a style of visual history, developed by Native warriors from the Northern and Southern Plains in the late 19th century. These drawings serve as valuable, firsthand biographical documentation of the personal and cultural histories of a Native people and tell the stories of battles, bravery, and loss. They illustrate Native hunters and horsemen of the Plains and their rich ceremonial and cultural life, which was threatened by soldiers and settlers flooding into their traditional lands. The exhibit also gives examples of the influence of ledger drawings on contemporary Native art and history.

Artifact Walls: Constitution Ave. Entrance Corridor

11/21/2008 - Ongoing
Constitution Ave. Entrance Corridor
On view in floor-to-ceiling, glass-fronted walls on both sides of the Constitution Avenue entrance are objects highlighting the depth and breadth of the museum's permanent collection and our nation's rich and diverse history. The objects are organized around the following themes:

• Arts
• Popular Culture
• Business, Work, and the Economy
• Home and Family
• Community
• Land and Natural Resources
• Peopling America
• Politics and Reform
• Science
• Medicine
• Technology
• America's Role in the World

On view in floor-to-ceiling, glass-fronted walls flanking the grand staircase near the Constitution Avenue entrance are five cases dedicated to the following themes:

• Cameras Before Digital
October 28, 2009-TBA
This case features 22 cameras from the museum's collection -- from daguerreotype and view cameras to 20th-century military, aerial, digital, and promotional models -- to reveal the technological progress made from the camera's invention in 1839 to the advent of digital photography.
See "Calendar One-Time Events" in InfoWeb: Nov. 8

• Creating Hawai'i
August 21, 2009-August 2010
Objects from the museum's collection highlight Hawaii's unique culture and the extensive changes in tradition and diversity throughout its history -- from kingdom to republic, and from territory to state. Celebrates the 50th anniversary of Hawaii becoming the 50th state (1959).

• Mobilizing Young American Minds, 1950-1970 examines the changes in math and science education during the Cold War, especially following the 1957 launch of the USSR's Sputnik satellite.

• Producing for the American Table highlights how Mexican American food production has shaped the United States economy and culture.

See November 2008 Smithsonian magazine, pp. 27-30

Archives Center Cases: Addison Scurlock's Portrait Studies of Women

08/03/2009 - 11/29/2009
1st Floor, West Wing
In changing display cases, the Archives Center features items from the museum's archival collection that document America's history and its diverse cultures, ranging from correspondences, diaries, financial and legal documents, photographs, and sound recordings. The current case features:

• Addison Scurlock's Portrait Studies of Women

On view are 14 photographic portraits of young women taken by African American photographer Addison Scurlock (1883-1964) during the 1920s. Scurlock opened a photo studio in Washington, D.C., in 1911 that became one of the premiere African American studios in the country. The images on view depict an idealized view of feminine beauty and demonstrate Scurlock's mastery of the photographic process -- from lighting and focus to retouching of negatives to hand coloring of final prints.

Note/s:
• No photography permitted
• See related exhibition The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise.

Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964

09/09/2009 - 01/03/2010
2nd Floor, West Wing, near First Ladies at the Smithsonian
Through photographs and audio excerpts from oral histories, this exhibition examines the experiences of bracero workers and their families while providing insight into Mexican American history and historical context to today's debates on guest worker programs. Begun in 1942 to fill labor shortages in agriculture and the railroads caused by World War II, the bracero program eventually became the largest guest worker program in U.S. history. Small farmers, large growers, and farm associations in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, and 23 other states hired Mexican braceros to provide manpower during peak harvest and cultivation times. By the time the program was canceled in 1964, an estimated 4.6 million contracts had been awarded. Bittersweet, the bracero experience tells a story of both exploitation and opportunity to earn money. The exhibition draws extensively from the museum's collection of photographs taken by photojournalist Leonard Nadel in 1956, as well as oral histories, documents, and objects collected by the Bracero Oral History Project.

Stories on Money

06/11/2009 - Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing
Through objects from the museum's National Numismatic Collection, this exhibition explores the development and meaning behind American coinage and currency and demonstrates the interplay among people, money, and history from the earliest times to the present.

• "America's Money" shows what money looked like in colonial America and at pivotal times in the nation's history, including the gold rush, the Great Depression, and the current era. It also compares coins from the 19th century with those produced during the renaissance of American coinage in the early 20th century.

• "The Power of Liberty" features an array of coins from the U.S. and around the world depicting Liberty, the feminine personification of freedom, as well as coins featuring real and mythological women.

Interactive stations allow visitors to view enlarged images and learn more about numismatic history.

On view are the boots he wore during his 1948 hike, maps he used, photographs taken of various parts of the trail, and diaries he kept to prove his accomplishment. The exhibition also addresses the conception and development of the Appalachian Trail and its cultural and environmental impact.

Interactive kiosks

Cases: Taking America to Lunch

04/13/2004 - Ongoing
Lower Level, near entrance to Stars and Stripes Cafe, south wall
On view are more than 50 children's and workers' illustrated metal lunch boxes and beverage containers dating from the 1890s through the 1980s to celebrate the history and endurance of American lunch boxes. After reaching the height of their popularity at the dawn of the television era, lunch box sales became barometers for what was current in popular culture.

See September 2004 Smithsonian magazine, pp. 43-44

Within These Walls...

05/16/2001 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, West Wing
This exhibition tells the history of the re-created, 2 1/2-story, Georgian-style house that stood at 16 Elm Street in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and 5 of the many families who occupied it from the mid-1760s through 1945. The exhibition explores some of the important ways ordinary people, in their daily lives, have been part of the great changes and events in American history. Walking around the exterior of the house, visitors can view -- through open walls, windows, and doorways -- settings played out against the backdrop of Colonial America, the American Revolution, the abolitionist movement, the industrial era, and World War II. Near the exit is a list of all the families who lived in the house through the 1960s.

Science in American Life

04/27/1994 - Ongoing
1st Floor, West Wing
This exhibition examines the interaction between science and society from 1876 to the present. Through artifacts, historical photographs, computer interactives, and multimedia technology, the exhibition brings to life many of the scientific issues, controversies, and achievements that have shaped modern American culture.

Price of Freedom: Americans at War, The

11/11/2004 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, East Wing, Armed Forces History Hall
This exhibition surveys the history of America's military from the Colonial Era to the present conflict in Iraq, exploring how wars have been defining episodes in American history. Through more than 800 artifacts, images, and interactive stations, the exhibition reveals how Americans have fought to establish the nation's independence, determine its borders, shape its values of freedom and opportunity, and define its role in world affairs. It also explores the social impact of America's wars, presenting the link between military conflict and American political leadership, social values, technological innovation, and personal sacrifice.

Power Machinery

- Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing
By the late 19th century, America's Industrial Revolution had a full head of steam. This hall follows the development of the increasingly efficient power machinery that helped the United States become a world leader in industrial production during this time. Full-size engines and models illustrate attempts to harness atmospheric force (1660-1700), the early age of steam power (1700-1770), the development of high-pressure and high-speed engines (1800-1920). The exhibition also shows the evolution of steam boilers and the steam turbine and progress in the techniques of harnessing water power. A number of pumps, waterwheels, and historic internal combustion engines are also on view.

Musical Instruments Hall

- Ongoing
3rd Floor, West Wing, North Gallery
Note: Because many of the musical instruments are used during special concerts, some instruments may be off view periodically.

On view are dozens of string instruments -- many carefully restored to playing condition -- and other artifacts relating to the history, performance styles, and techniques of European and American music and the development of musical instruments.

Highlights include:
• the Servais cello (1701), made by Antonio Stradivarius
• the Herbert R. Axelrod Quartet of Decorated Instruments, made by Stradivarius, featuring: violin, the Ole Bull (1687); violincello, the Marylebone (1688); viola, the Axelrod (1695); and violin, the Greffuhle (1709)

Gunboat Philadelphia

- Ongoing
3rd Floor, East Wing
Note: Temporarily off view for refurbishment beginning Tuesday, October 13; scheduled to reopen Friday, November 20, 2009.

Built in 1776, the gunboat Philadelphia is the oldest American fighting vessel in existence. She sank on October 11, 1776, in Lake Champlain during the battle of Valcour Island, when an American flotilla commanded by General Benedict Arnold was defeated by a British fleet. The gunboat Philadelphia was raised in 1935 and came to the museum in 1964, complete with the 24-pound ball that sent it to the bottom.

Electricity: Lighting a Revolution

- Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing, Electricity Hall
This exhibition reveals -- through five interwoven stages -- how Thomas Edison's incandescent electric light bulb and other inventions began to transform our world and examines the similarities and differences between the process of invention in Edison's era and today.

Highlights include:
• several of Edison's early light bulbs

Communities in a Changing Nation: The Promise of 19th-Century America

02/12/1999 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, West Wing
This permanent exhibition explores the excitement and dynamism of American life during the 19th century through the experiences of 3 communities: Industrial Era Bridgeport, Connecticut; Jewish Immigrant Community of Cincinnati, Ohio; and African-Americans living in 19th-century Charleston, South Carolina. Major artifacts include a model of an Eli Whitney cotton gin and an Edison light bulb.

Bradford Dollhouse

- Ongoing
3rd Floor, West Wing (south of original location)
Note: Temporarily off view for improvements to the display beginning Wednesday, September 30; scheduled to reopen Monday, November 23, 2009.

This miniature dollhouse represents a romantic view of the life of a large and affluent American family in the early 1900s. Its 23 rooms contain more than 800 items, including furniture, linens, toys, and other household items. The late Faith Bradford, a records expert at the Library of Congress, spent more than a half century designing and building the miniature furnishings; it was donated to the museum in 1951. Also on view is Ms. Bradford's scrapbook, which shows her methods of creating the house.

Bon Appetit! Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian

08/19/2002 - Ongoing
1st floor, West Wing
Ms. Child's 14-foot x 20-foot kitchen -- custom-made by her husband -- has been reassembled here exactly as it was in her Cambridge, Massachusetts home. The kitchen, which Child (1912-2004) used as the set of three television shows and as the testing ground for many recipes featured in her cookbooks, is composed of more that 1,200 individual pieces, including everything from her stainless-steel kitchen sink, to her six-burner Garland commercial range, to her personal cookbooks. The kitchen represents Julia Child's extraordinary influence on the way Americans think about their food and its history. When Child moved back to her home state of California in 2001, she donated her kitchen to the museum. The museum staff packed and catalogued the entire kitchen, then reassembled it in the museum exactly as it was in Child's home.

American Presidency: A Glorious Burden, The

11/15/2000 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, Center Corridor, Views into the Collection Gallery
More than 900 objects related to the 43 men who have held the nation's highest office are used to explore the public, personal, ceremonial, and executive boundaries of the presidency. Composed of 11 thematic sections, the exhibition addresses such topics as inaugural celebrations, presidential roles, life at the White House, limits of presidential power, assassinations and mourning, the influence of the media, and life after the presidency.

America on the Move

11/22/2003 - Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing, Transportation Hall
This major exhibition examines how transportation -- from 1876 to 1999 -- has shaped our American identity from a mostly rural nation into a major economic power, forged a sense of national unity, delivered consumer abundance, and encouraged a degree of social and economic mobility unlike that of any other nation of the world.

Arranged chronologically and through 19 sections, historical moments explored include the coming of the railroad to a California town in 1876, the role of the streetcar and the automobile in creating suburbs outside of cities, and the transformation of a U.S. port with the introduction of containerized shipping in the 1960s.

Lemelson Center Case: Jerome Lemelson: Toying with Invention

11/21/2008 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, West Wing
This new changing exhibition case complements the Lemelson Hall of Invention on the first floor.

• Jerome Lemelson: Toying with Invention

On view in this case are notebooks with sketches of toy ideas and examples of some of the toys Jerome Lemelson invented. Lemelson earned more than 600 patents; some 70 of them describe toys -- inflatable toys, jumping toys, toys with propellers, toys that run on tracks, target games, dolls, and more. In fact, Lemelson's first patent, issued in 1953, was for a new kind of propeller beanie.

Invention Case: Sporting Invention

01/07/2009 - Ongoing
1st Floor, West Wing
This case featuring rotating displays complements the Lemelson Hall of Invention exhibit nearby on the first floor and its case on the third floor.

• Sporting Invention

In this showcase, items from drawings and prototypes to final products, as well as little-known stories motivating the inventors, trace the development of sports inventions and highlight aspects of universal design in sports technology development. Objects include the skis and tennis rackets invented by Howard Head and an accessible snowboard for the disabled developed by student inventors at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The inventors' sketches and models on view provide an appreciation for how inventors transform the way Americans play.

National Treasures of American Popular Culture

11/21/2008 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, West Wing
This exhibition displays iconic and well-loved artifacts -- Dorothy's ruby slippers, Muhammad Ali's and Joe Louis's boxing gloves, a Harlem Globetrotters jersey, a boom box owned by hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy, Minnie Pearl's hat, Warner Brothers cartoon animation cells, Jim Henson's Kermit the Frog, Archie Bunker's chair, and a costume worn by Tejana singer Selena -- that mirror the ways music, sports, and entertainment have played major roles in American life, shaping our national memory and often defining what is American to the nation and to the world.

Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration

11/21/2008 - 04/10/2010
1st Floor, West Wing, SI Libraries Gallery
Through 40 rare books from the Smithsonian Institution's libraries, as well as objects from the museum's Graphic Arts Division, this exhibition explores the power of pictures and book illustrations by answering the following questions:

-- Why are pictures so powerful? Pictures influence, inform, and inspire us in many ways. They attract us, offering a feast for the eye as well as food for the mind. They explain complicated ideas at a glance and even teach those who cannot read.

-- Why do books include pictures? Pictures reach audiences more directly than text alone. They add beauty, color, and life to the printed page. They communicate the author's tone and approach to the subject, and enhance our understanding and enjoyment of the text. They engage us, prompt our imagination, and appeal to readers and non-readers alike.

Invention at Play

11/21/2008 - Ongoing
1st Floor, West, Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Hall of Invention
What do the inventors behind Post-it Notes, robotic ants, Kevlar, and the telephone have in common with children? Play! Created especially for families, this exhibition focuses on the similarities between the ways children and adults play and the creative skills and processes used by inventors. Through interactive and engaging activities, it encourages various playful habits of mind that underlie invention: curiosity, imagination, visual thinking, model building, and problem solving. It introduces inventors and innovators through compelling personal stories, photos, and artifacts. It even provides a chance to try learning to windsurf on the Sailboard Simulator, which is based on a design by sailboard inventor Newman Darby. This is the first exhibition in the new Lemelson Hall of Invention.

Artifact Walls: Mall Entrance Corridor

11/21/2008 - Ongoing
Madison Dr. Entrance Corridor
On view in floor-to-ceiling, glass-fronted walls on both sides of the Mall entrance are objects highlighting the depth and breadth of the museum's permanent collection and our nation's rich and diverse history. The objects are organized around the following themes:

• Arts
• Popular Culture
• Business, Work, and the Economy
• Home and Family
• Community
• Land and Natural Resources
• Peopling America
• Politics and Reform
• Science
• Medicine
• Technology
• America's Role in the World

See November 2008 Smithsonian magazine, pp. 27-30

The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag that Inspired the National Anthem

11/21/2008 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, Center
After undergoing a lengthy conservation period, the nation's flag is the centerpiece of the museum. Soaring above the entrance to the gallery is an architectural representation of a waving flag -- approximately 40 feet long and up to 19 feet high and composed of 960 reflective tiles made of polycarbonate material.

An introductory section in the entry corridor sets the scene for the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. Around the corner, the 30-by-34-foot wool-and-cotton flag is on view in a new dramatic display behind a 35-foot-long, floor-to-ceiling glass wall in a climate-controlled gallery that re-creates the dawn's early light, similar to Francis Scott Key's experience the morning of September 14, 1814, when he saw the flag flying over Ft. McHenry in Baltimore Harbor, inspiring him to pen the famous lyrics. The first stanza of the national anthem is projected prominently on the wall above the flag. Sections in the exit corridor trace the flag's history, including its safekeeping by Major George Armistead and his descendants, the Smithsonian's efforts to preserve it for more than 100 years, and how both the flag and the national anthem have come to represent diverse ideas of patriotism and national identity.

Also at the exit are an interactive table with a virtual, life-size image of the flag and a tactile panel with an outline of the flag and a full-size star for visitors who are visually impaired.

No photography permitted

See November 2008 Smithsonian magazine, pp. 68-76

Related publications:
- The Star-Spangled Banner: The Making of an American Icon: $29.95 (cloth)
- Book of 33 postcards:$7.95

Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life

01/16/2009 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, Center, Rose Gallery, enter from American Presidency
To celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, this exhibition explores the life and legacy of our 16th president through objects from the museum's collection, augmented with personal stories told by him and the people who knew him best. It showcases more than 60 historical treasures associated with Lincoln's life -- from an iron wedge he used to split wood in the early 1830s in New Salem, Illinois, to his gold pocket watch and his iconic top hat he wore the night he was assassinated at Ford's Theatre.

Video (runs continuously)

The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise

01/30/2009 - 02/28/2010
2nd Floor, East Wing
Nearly a century's worth of photographs from the Scurlock Studio, which operated from 1911-1994, form a vivid portrait of black Washington, D.C., in all its guises -- its challenges and its victories, its dignity and its determination. The exhibition features more than 100 images created by one of the premiere African American studios in the country and one of the longest-running black businesses in Washington. Highlights include cameras and equipment from the studio and period artifacts from Washington.

Beginning of the early 20th century and continuing into the early 1990s, Addison Scurlock (1883-1964), followed by his sons, Robert (1916-1994) and George (1919-2005), used their cameras to document and celebrate a community unique in the world. They captured weddings, baptisms, graduations, sporting events, civil protests, high-society affairs, and visiting dignitaries. It was for portraiture, however, that the Scurlocks became renowned; they continue to be recognized today by scholars and artists as among the very best of 20th-century photographers who recorded the rapid changes in African American urban communities nationwide.

First Ladies at the Smithsonian

12/19/2008 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, West Wing
This exhibition highlights the role of the first lady and features 14 First Ladies' gowns, as well as portraits, White House china, and personal possessions from the Smithsonian's collection. A section discussing the tradition of the First Ladies' inaugural gown answers some of the most frequently asked questions about the gown collection. The final section focuses on the contributions of the first ladies, the country's expectations of them, and the ways in which they have supported the most powerful office in the country.

Gowns on view include those worn by Helen Taft, Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Sarah Polk, Mary Todd Lincoln, Lucy Hayes, Frances Cleveland, Florence Harding, Grace Coolidge, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mamie Eisenhower, Jacqueline Kennedy, Rosalyn Carter, and Laura Bush.

Video (runs continuously)

On the Water: Stories from Maritime America

05/22/2009 - Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing, American Maritime Enterprise
Marine transportation and waterborne commerce underlie American history like a strong and steady ocean current. Maritime trade established major cities, created connections between people and places, and opened the continent. This exhibition traces American maritime history from 18th-century sailing ships, to 19th-century steamboats and fishing craft, to today's huge container ships. Items featured include rigged ship models, patent models, documents, and images from the Smithsonian's National Watercraft Collection. American maritime history is brought to life through the stories of whaling crews, fishermen, shipbuilders, merchant mariners, passengers, and many others who work on the nation's waterways.

Audio and video components
Interactive stations

National Museum of Natural History

The wonders of the natural world await you beneath the dome of this classical building, which has recently been undergoing extensive renovation.

Food:

Atrium Café (Ground Floor)
Featuring natural and sustainable foods including natural beef burgers, rotisserie chicken. pizza, taqueria, sandwiches, soups, salads, pastas and desserts.
Discounts for Smithsonian members
Group packages available
Hours: Mon-Fri: 11a.m.-3p.m. Sat: 11a.m.-5p.m. Sun: 11a.m.-4p.m.

Firday Night Jazz Café
call 202-633-1000 for schedule and details

Fossil Café (First Floor)
Espresso/Cappuccino bar featuring sandwiches, salads, soups and desserts.
Discounts for Smithsonian Members
Hours: Daily 10a.m.-7p.m.

Specialty Ice Cream and Coffee Bar (Ground Floor)
Daily from 11:30a.m.-5p.m., 7p.m. on Fridays

Outdoor Carts (seasonal)
Hot Dogs, Pretzels, Sodas, Ice Cream and Dippin' Dots
Hours: Daily 10a.m.-3p.m. Sat-Sun: 11a.m.-5p.m.

Exhibits:

Nature's Best 2009 Photography Awards: Windland Smith Rice International Awards

11/12/2009 - 05/02/2010
2nd floor, Northwest Wing, Special Exhibit Gallery (Hall 25)
On view are winners in 19 categories from the 2009 Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards, including the Grand Prize, Conservation Photographer of the Year, Youth Photographer of the Year, and selected Highly Honored images. The annual awards honor the best amateur and professional nature photographers from around the world.

Since Darwin: The Evolution of Evolution

09/12/2009 - 07/18/2010
First Floor, West Wing, Special Exhibit Gallery (near Mammals)
This exhibition reveals the significant role Darwin's theories have played in explaining and unifying all the biological sciences. Specimens from the museum's diverse collections, along with documentation from its ongoing research, illustrate the importance of evolution as a scientific foundation and how our knowledge of evolution has evolved over the last 150 years.

Celebrates the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of his groundbreaking book On the Origin of Species.

See February 2009 Smithsonian magazine, pp. 40-48 and 50-54.

See also related exhibition Cases: Darwin's Legacy

Cases: Darwin's Legacy

09/10/2009 - 09/12/2010
Ground Floor, Constitution Ave. Lobby, East & West Sides
Charles Darwin served as an unpaid naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle during a scientific expedition around South America and the Galapagos Islands from 1831 to 1836. The studies he performed and the specimens he collected during that voyage served as the basis of his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he expounded in his groundbreaking book On the Origin of Species. These cases feature objects and books related to that voyage to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth.

Highlights include:
• On the Origin of Species, published November 1859
• Beautifully illustrated volumes from the Zoology of the H.M.S. Beagle, edited by Charles Darwin and published 1838-1843
• Galapagos land iguana and mockingbird specimens from the museum's collections
• Charles Darwin's silk neckerchief

See also related exhibition Since Darwin: The Evolution of Evolution.

Western Cultures Hall: Origins of Western Culture

- Ongoing
2nd Floor, West Wing (Hall 26)
The institutions, traditions and ideals of North American cultures are deeply rooted in those of western Asia, northern Africa, and Europe. This hall explores some examples from various cultures in the western world including northern Iraq, ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome and the recent discovery of the Iceman, a Copper Age mummy found in an Italian glacier.

Reptiles

- Ongoing
2nd Floor, West Wing (Hall 29)
Life-size displays illustrate the eating habits, defenses, and locomotion of a variety of snakes and amphibians. Reptiles on view include a preserved king cobra, reticulated python, and boa constrictors from the Malayan and Amazonian jungles; sea turtles; crocodiles; and lizards.

Osteology: Hall of Bones

- Ongoing
2nd Floor, West Wing (Hall 28)
Hundreds of skeletons of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes -- ranging from the gigantic extinct Steller sea cow to the tiny pocket mouse -- are shown in characteristic poses and grouped by order to illustrate their relationships. Exhibits show how bone structures evolved in adaptation to environment.

Mammals, Kenneth E. Behring Family Hall of

11/15/2003 - Ongoing
1st Floor, West Wing, Mammals Hall (Halls 14, 15, & 16)
This hall showcases some 274 mammals and explores their diversity and how they originated and adapted to changing landscapes and environments over the last 225 million years -- from polar to desert regions and from dry to humid environments. The exhibition addresses such questions as: What is a mammal? Why do some mammals live in groups while others live alone? How many kinds of mammals are there and what are their habitat preferences? How are mammals related? How and why do scientists study mammals? The exhibition also shares information about the unusual -- the oddest specimens (including egg-laying mammals), the rarest specimens (an okapi from Africa), and the oldest known mammal (Morganucadon) from 210 million years ago.

Life in the Ancient Seas

05/18/1990 - Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing (Hall 5), near Dinosaurs Hall
Fantastic marine fossils tell the story of evolution and extinction in the seas in three acts: the Paleozoic Era (540 to 250 million years ago), when odd prehistoric creatures such as trilobites abounded; the Mesozoic Era (250 to 65 million years ago), when marine reptiles such as mososaurs appeared; and the Cenozoic Era (65 million years ago to today), when the numbers and kinds of shelled animals increased, and when the primitive whale took to the seas.

Insect Zoo, O. Orkin

09/10/1993 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, West Wing, near Reptiles
The Insect Zoo focuses on insects and their relationships with plants, animals, and humans. The exhibition contains a section about the evolution of insects and showcases live insects and their environments, including:

• The Termites' Turf
• Water-loving Bugs
• Familiar Insects
• The Bee Hive
• Desert Dwellers
• Rain Forests--Home to Millions

Geology, Gems, and Minerals, Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of

09/20/1997 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, East Wing (Halls 18, 19, & 20)
This hall features 2,500 minerals and gems, including the Hope Diamond, Hooker Emerald Brooch, and Star of Asia sapphire. It also explores the birth and evolution of the solar system and the earth's changing surface through computer interactives and video presentations

Garden: Butterfly Habitat Garden (outside, seasonal)

06/30/1995 - Ongoing
Outside along 9th Street between Madison Dr. & Constitution Ave.
The Garden has signs that identify four habitats: wetland, meadow, wood's edge, and urban backyard. The signage discusses the connections between plants and butterflies and explains butterfly behaviors. As many as 30 species of butterflies may be attracted to the native plants in the Garden. The Garden is a joint project of the Horticultural Services Division and NMNH, with partial funding from the Smithsonian Women's Committee.

Fossil Plants and Animals: The Conquest of Land

04/17/1980 - Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing, (2nd half of Hall 4), near Dinosaurs Hall
This exhibition focuses on the earliest plants and animals to evolve the complex adaptations needed to live on land. In an animated video, evoking television coverage of the first lunar landing, characters Frank Anchorfish and Arthur Pod explain the characteristics plants and animals needed to pioneer the harsh, dry terrestrial environment. Just beyond an arbor formed by a diorama of the first forests are still more fossils: specimens of a 16-foot fossil of an early tree, Callixyon; other fossil trees and smaller plants from the ancient coal forests of North America.

Fossil Mammals: Mammals in the Limelight

05/30/1985 - Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing (Hall 3), behind Dinosaurs Hall
This exhibition focuses on the spectacular evolution of mammals as the dominant class of vertebrates following the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.

Dinosaurs: Reptiles: Masters of Land

12/04/1981 - Ongoing
1st Floor, East Wing (Hall 2)
All of the old favorites are on view in the exhibition hall, including the gigantic 90-foot-long Diplodocus, horned Triceratops, and the Stegosaurus model. Other attractions include Quetzalcoatlus, a huge toothless pterosaur with a 40-foot wingspan, posed in flight; a nest of dinosaur eggs; and the meat-eating Allosaurus -- 8 feet tall and 20 feet long -- challenging newly re-mounted Stegosaurus.

Blast from the Past (case)

06/27/1997 - Ongoing
1st Floor, Dinosaurs Hall (Hall 2), south side of FossiLab
This showcase features a 11.5-meter tubular core sample that shows physical and biological effects of Earth's collision with a giant asteroid 65 million years ago, which resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs. The sample, taken from 130 meters below the ocean floor east of St. Augustine, Florida, contains the best preserved Cretaceous/Tertiary sequence yet recovered. The exhibition highlights the work of Smithsonian micropaleontologist Brian Huber, who interprets past climate change by studying tiny marine fossils.

Birds of the District of Columbia

- Ongoing
Ground Floor, East Ambulatory
Year-round and seasonal residents, migrants and vagrants--hundreds of bird species--are displayed. They all live in the region extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Allegheny Mountains. Learn where and when to look for a snowy owl or ruffed grouse, warbling vireo or orange-crowned warbler, chickadee or indigo bunting.

African Voices

12/15/1999 - Ongoing
1st Floor, Northeast Wing, African Cultures Hall (Hall 7)
This exhibition examines the diversity, dynamism, and global influence of Africa's peoples and cultures over time in the realms of family, work, community, and the natural environment. Included are historical and contemporary objects from the museum's collections, as well as commissioned sculptures, textiles, and pottery. Video interactives and sound stations provide selections from contemporary interviews, literature, proverbs, prayers, folk tales, songs, and oral epics.

African Elephant

- Ongoing
1st Floor, Kenneth E. Behring Family Rotunda & 2nd Floor Balcony
The museum's 8-ton, 14-foot-tall African elephant is in a setting that re-creates the Angolan bush. Important ideas in botany, entomology, mineral sciences, and zoology, as well as information on the ancestors of modern-day elephants and the elephants' importance in African cultures, are discussed.

Butterflies + Plants: Partners in Evolution

02/15/2008 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, Southwest Wing, near Insect Zoo (Hall 30)
This exhibition shows how butterflies have evolved, adapted, and diversified with their plant partners over millions of years. Housed within this exhibition is a special Butterfly Pavilion, which looks like a cocoon, where visitors can walk among hundreds of live butterflies and pesticide-free plants to observe butterfly behaviors ranging from flying and sipping nectar at flowers to roosting and emerging from chrysalides. These butterflies will hatch from pupae raised on farms in Africa, Asia, and North and South America.
Note: To maintain an environment conducive for butterflies, the temperature inside the Pavilion will be 80-85 degrees with high humidity.

For ticketing information, visit the Web at www.butterflies.si.edu/tickets

Dig It! The Secrets of Soil

07/19/2008 - 01/03/2010
2nd floor, Northeast Wing, Special Exhibit Gallery (Hall 23)
Through dioramas; cultural artifacts; and soil cross-sections from each state, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, this exhibition introduces the study of soil science and demonstrates the vital role soil plays in sustaining human welfare, assuring future agricultural productivity, and environmental sustainability.

Hands-On Interactive Components
Theater: 10-minute detective story about soil (runs continuously)
Soil Display: On view are 54 soil samples representing each U.S. state and territory and the District of Columbia.

The Sant Ocean Hall

09/27/2008 - Ongoing
1st Floor, North Center (Halls 8, 9, & 10)
Covering 71% of the Earth's surface and containing 97% of the planet's water, the ocean is a vast and complex ecosystem; it is intrinsically connected to other global ecosystems and is essential to all life, including our own. In this new hall, the importance and complexity of the ocean is revealed through a cross-disciplinary perspective -- biological, geological, and anthropological. Information on understanding and predicting changes to the Earth's environment and on how to conserve and manage coastal and marine resources to meet our nation's economic, social, and environmental needs is also highlighted.

Highlights include a life-size model of a 45-foot North Atlantic right whale, based on the real female whale named Phoenix, the centerpiece of the exhibition; two giant squids; a set of 7-foot-tall jaws of the extinct great white shark (Carcharodon megalodon), the biggest shark that ever lived; and a 26-foot long Northwest Coast canoe, carved especially for the exhibition by a Tlingit master carver.

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

02/07/2009 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, West, between Reptiles & Western Cultures (new space)
This exhibition features archaeological discoveries that reveal the historic importance of Jamestown and its contribution to the American way of life. The exhibition addresses such subjects as life and death in the colonies, activity and physical labor, health and disease, dietary resources, internal strife, and inter-population relationships and includes the stories of all peoples affected by the colonization of North America -- Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans -- and their role in the formation and function of the first permanent settlements and capitals of Maryland and Virginia.

National Museum of the American Indian

The National Museum of the American Indian is home to one of the largest and most diverse collections of American Indian art and cultural objects in the world.

Food:

Mitsitam Café
"Mitsitam" means "let's eat!" in the Native language of the Delaware and Piscataway peoples. The museum's Mitsitam Native Foods Café enhances the museum experience by offering Native-inspired cuisines from five regions of the Western Hemisphere including the Northern Woodlands, South America, the Northwest Coast, Meso America and the Great Plains.
Menu includes tamales, roasted turkey, grilled salmon, homemade seasonal soups, buffalo burgers, Indian fry bread, and a seasonal variety of aqua fresca.
Discount for Smithsonian members
Group dining packages available
Hours: Daily 10a.m.-5p.m.

Exhibits:

IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas

11/10/2009 - 05/30/2010
2nd Level, Sealaska Gallery
Compelling text with powerful graphics on 20 banners discusses the cultural integration and diffusion of African American and American Indian people, especially those of blended heritage. This exhibition also sheds light on the dynamics of race, community, culture, and creativity and addresses the human desire to belong.

Related publication
10-minute video

Brian Jungen: Strange Comfort

10/16/2009 - 08/08/2010
3rd Level, W. Richard West Jr. Contemporary Changing Gallery
This major survey features iconic works by Brian Jungen (Dunne-za First Nations/Swiss/Canadian), as well as major pieces never before seen in the United States. Jungen is widely regarded as the foremost Native artist of his generation; his art transforms the familiar and banal into exquisite objects that reference themes of globalization, pop culture, museums, and the commodification of Indian imagery. He first came to prominence with Prototypes for New Understandings (1998-2005), which fashioned Nike footwear into masks that suggested Northwest Coast iconography. Later works have included a pod of whales made from plastic chairs, totem poles made from golf bags, and a massive basketball court made from 224 sewing tables.

Outdoor Sculptures: Always Becoming

09/21/2007 - Ongoing
Outside, near Maryland Ave. entrance
On view outside the museum is a family of five sculptures hand-built by artist Nora Naranjo-Morse (Santa Clara Pueblo, Espanola, N.M.), winner of the museum's outdoor sculpture design competition. Based on aboriginal architecture and made of organic, nontoxic materials -- dirt, straw, sand, clay, wood, and moss -- the tipi-like forms are from 6 to 15 feet tall and 3 to 4 inches deep. Each will take on a life of its own as the elements of nature slowly erode the organic materials over time, thus the name Always Becoming.

Note: Nora Naranjo-Morse is the first Native American woman to create an outdoor sculpture in Washington, D.C.

Window on Collections: Many Hands, Many Voices

09/21/2004 - Ongoing
3rd and 4th levels
These permanent displays feature more than 3,500 items from the museum's collection that reveal the remarkable breadth and diversity of Native American objects. Located on the third and fourth levels of the museum and housed in drawers and glass-fronted cases, objects are arranged by categories, including beadwork, peace medals, arrowheads and other projectile points, containers, dolls, and animal objects.

Sculptures and Individual Art Installations

- Ongoing

• Crux: (as seen from those who sleep on the surface of the earth under the night sky) (2008): Brian Jungen's suspended mobile depicts five animal and is constructed from steel, new and used suitcases, and a wooden rowboat. 1st level, Potomac Rotunda (opened late July/early August 2009).

• Sacred Rain Arrow (1988, 94" x 58"): Allan Houser's bronze sculpture represents the legend of a young Apache warrior selected in times of drought to shoot a sacred arrow to the heavens carrying his people's prayer for rain to the Spirit World. 3rd Level, near entrance to Our Lives (new location as of July 22, 2009).
Note: Previously on view 1st Level, Potomac Rotunda.

Return to a Native Place: Algonquian Peoples of Chesapeake

11/13/2006 - Ongoing
2nd level
Through photographs, maps, ceremonial and everyday objects, and interactives, this panel display provides both an overview of the history and events affecting the Native peoples -- Nanticoke, Powhatan, and Piscataway tribes -- of the Chesapeake Bay region (what is now Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.) and information on their continued presence today.

Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World

09/21/2004 - Ongoing
4th level
Focusing on Native cosmology and organized around one solar year, this exhibition explores the annual ceremonies of Native peoples as a window on their ancestral teachings. Under a "night sky" of fiber-optic stars and constellations, discover how celestial bodies shape the daily lives -- and establish the calendars of ceremonies and celebrations -- of Native peoples today. Featured communities: Mapuche (Chile), Lakota (South Dakota), Quechua (Peru), Yup'ik (Alaska), Q'eq'chi, Maya (Guatemala), Santa Clara Pueblo (New Mexico), Anishinaabe (Hollow Water, Manitoba, Canada), and Hupa (California). The exhibition also highlights the Denver (Colorado) March Powwow, the North American Indigenous Games, and the Day of the Dead -- seasonal celebrations that bring Native peoples together.

Our Peoples: Giving Voice to Our Histories

09/21/2004 - Ongoing
4th level
This exhibition discusses events that shaped the lives and outlook of Native peoples from 1491 to the present. The first part of the exhibition reveals the forces that affected the lives of Native peoples; it shows how Native peoples have struggled to maintain traditions in the face of adversity, and explains why so little of this history is familiar. The second area consists of eight small galleries that recount the histories of individual tribes: Blackfeet (Montana), Chiricahua Apache (New Mexico), Kiowa (Oklahoma), Tohono O'odham (Arizona), Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation (North Carolina), Nahua (Mexico), Ka'apor (Brazil), and Wixarikari -- sometimes known as Huichol -- (Mexico). The exhibition also includes a "wall of gold" featuring over 400 gold figurines, dating back to 1490, along with European swords, coins, and crosses made from melted gold.

Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identities

09/21/2004 - Ongoing
3rd level
This exhibition examines the identities of Native peoples in the 21st century, and how those identities, both individual and communal, are the results of deliberate, often difficult choices made in challenging circumstances. This exhibition explores the forces in modern Native life that Native peoples are profoundly influenced by -- their families and communities, the language they speak, the places they live and identify with, and their own self determination. Eight communities contributed their stories to this telling: the Campo Band of Kumeyaay Indians (Southern California), urban Indian community of Chicago (Illinois), Yakama Nation (Washington State),Igloolik (Nunavut, Canada), Kahnawake Mohawk (Quebec, Canada), Saint-Laurent Metis (Manitoba, Canada), Kalinago (Dominica), and Pamunkey (Virginia).

Cases: Orientation Exhibition

11/13/2008 - Ongoing
1st Level, South Wall, Potomac Atrium
These nine introductory exhibition cases cover the following topics:

• Our Place in the Universe
• Ceremony
• Native Identities
• Leadership
• Contact and Confrontation
• Challenges and Solutions
• Achievements and Contributions
• Learning More

National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center

Opened in October 1994, the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, at the historic Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in lower Manhattan, serves as the National Museum of the American Indian's exhibition and education facility in New York City.

Exhibits:

A Song for the Horse Nation

11/14/2009 - 07/07/2011
George Gustav Heye Center, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
This exhibition presents the epic story of the horse's influence on American Indian tribes from the 1600s to the present. It features approximately 100 works from the museum's collection to reveal how horses shaped the social, economic, cultural, and spiritual foundations of American Indian life, particularly on the Great Plains. Highlights include historical ledger drawings, beaded bags, hide robes, and paintings, including new works by contemporary Native artists. Also on view is a Hunkpapa Lakota winter count by Long Soldier (c. 1902) that depicts the horse's first appearance in the community.

Annie Pootoogook

06/13/2009 - 01/10/2010
George Gustav Heye Center, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
This exhibition features 39 works that chronicle the social, economic, and cultural realities of Inuit life in the Canadian North by Annie Pootoogook (Inuit, b. 1969). Her detailed drawings -- outlined shapes in black filled with blocks of solid color -- recall traditional Inuit drawings, while her subject matter reflects the unvarnished viewpoint of her generation that includes the integration of modern technology and domestic strife and tragedy.

Andrea Carlson

06/13/2009 - 01/10/2010
George Gustav Heye Center, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
On view are more than 20 works on paper, including new and large-scale pieces, by Minnesota-based artist Andrea Carlson (Anishinaabe/European, b. 1979). Her works reflect cultural narratives and stories while offering a sharp commentary on museums, collections, and contemporary storytelling. Each has a metaphoric and literal biting edge, with sharp lines and layered meanings.

Orientation Exhibition

10/30/1994 - Ongoing
George Gustav Heye Center, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
Informational panels provide a brief history of the Delaware or Lenni Lenape tribe, one of the first inhabitants of Manhattan; the museum's mission; and the architecture of the Custom House.

Beauty Surrounds Us

09/23/2006 - 03/31/2010
George Gustav Heye Center, Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
In this new space designed to showcase the integration of art and daily life in Native cultures throughout the hemisphere, the exhibition features 77 extraordinary objects from the museum's permanent collection. Highlights include an elaborate Quechua girl's dance outfit, a Northwest Coast chief's staff with carved animal figures and crest designs, Seminole turtle shell dance leggins, a conch shell trumpet from pre-Columbian Mexico, a Navajo saddle blanket, and an Inupiak (Eskimo) ivory cribbage board.

National Portrait Gallery

Generations of remarkable Americans are kept in the company of their fellow citizens at the National Portrait Gallery. The National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum are located in the heart of downtown Washington, DC.

Food:

Courtyard Café
Featuring soups, sandwiches, salads, antipasti, desserts, ice cream, coffee, beer, wine, and soft drinks.

Hours
Daily, 11:30 AM-4 PM: See menu above
Daily, 4 PM-6:30 PM: Limited selection of menu above

Portico Café (seasonal and weather permitting)
Features pastries, sandwiches, specialty coffees and beverages. Wine, beer and cocktails are available in late afternoon and evening hours.
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

Exhibits:

One Life: Echoes of Elvis

01/08/2010 - 08/29/2010
1st Floor, East Side
The One Life gallery within the museum is devoted to the exploration of the life of one individual.

This exhibition will feature Elvis Presley and will celebrate the 75th anniversary of his birth. Although Elvis died more than thirty years ago, the world remains fascinated with his image and music. His records have continued to sell by the millions and public interest in his music, career, and life has yet to subside. During the last half century, Elvis became part of the artistic discourse as well. Early in Elvis's career, Andy Warhol illuminated the role he played in the new and youth-powered popular American culture; later, Ralph Wolfe Cowan, Red Grooms, and others created mythical, spiritual, and earthly images of the man whose legacy includes multiple superlative moments in music, entertainment, life, and afterlife. To this day, both the historical Elvis Presley and the fantasy-based vision of Elvis are the subject of poetry, literature, music, film, and the visual arts.

Portraiture Now: Communities

11/06/2009 - 07/05/2010
1st Floor
How do we define community today? Through new electronic networking, our connections are increasingly widespread; yet, we are still drawn to the idea of small communities and face-to-face interaction. Three artists -- Rose Frantzen, Jim Torok, and Rebecca Westcott -- explore the idea of community in portraits of friends, neighbors, or family. On view are portraits of people from Frantzen's hometown Maquoketa, Iowa, that were created over a 12-month period; Torok's meticulous small-scale panel portraits of fellow New York artists and a series documenting three generations of a single family; and full-length images of Westcott's peers, often Philadelphians in their 20s.

Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009

10/23/2009 - 08/22/2010
2nd Floor
The National Portrait Gallery presents 49 of the finalists' works that were selected from the second triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. With a grand prize of $25,000 and an opportunity to create a portrait for the Portrait Gallery's permanent collection, the competition invited artists working in the figurative arts to submit portraits of people close to them. Submissions were accepted in any visual arts media, including film, video, and digital animation.

Related catalogue: $13.95

Faces of the Frontier: Photographic Portraits from the American West, 1845-1924

09/25/2009 - 01/24/2010
2nd Floor
Through more than 100 portrait photographs, this exhibition tells the story of the changes that occurred in the American West during the 80 years between the Mexican War and passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. It chronicles such events as the completion of the transcontinental railroad, ongoing conflicts between Native Americans and non-Natives, the emergence of the national parks movement, and the admittance of 19 new states west of the Mississippi. Visitors encounter those who explored, fought over, developed, and represented this vast territory. Such individuals who contributed to the transformation of this region's nature and identity include Albert Bierstadt, Kit Carson, Geronimo, John Fremont, Annie Oakley, and Brigham Young.

One Life: Thomas Paine, The Radical Founding Father

08/07/2009 - 11/29/2009
1st Floor, East Side
The One Life gallery within the museum is devoted to the exploration of the life of one individual.

This exhibition features Thomas Paine (1737-1809), whose pamphlet Common Sense fired up Americans to get on with a declaration of independence and whose exhortation, "These are the times that try men's souls," was read by General Washington to his dispirited troops. His story begins in Philadelphia when he arrived in 1774; continues through his tumultuous years in England, where his anti-monarchy diatribe -- Rights of Man -- brought charges of seditious libel; and ends in revolutionary France, where he barely escaped the guillotine. Paine, also the author of The Age of Reason -- a bold attack on organized religion -- returned to America in 1802 to find himself scorned by his old associates and much of the public. He died in poverty, his bones were later stolen and dispersed, but his words have resounded down through the ages. Featured in the exhibition is the museum's recently acquired portrait of Paine depicted by the French artist Laurant Dabos around 1792.

Twentieth-Century Americans

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, South Side and Mezzanines
Six galleries focus on 20th-century Americans:

3rd Floor, south side: Four galleries showcase the major cultural, scientific, and political figures of the 20th century. The exhibition also traces the unceasing struggle to achieve the American goal of justice for all from the reform movement of the first two decades to the social justice and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and from World War I through the Persian Gulf War.

3rd Floor, mezzanines: Two additional exhibitions relating to the 20th century are featured:
• BRAVO! showcases individuals who have brought the performing arts to life, beginning with P.T. Barnum, who raised the curtain on modern entertainment in the late 19th century and continuing to the present.
• Champions showcases American sports figures whose impact has extended beyond the ring, the court, and the field to become a part of the larger story of the life and culture of our nation.
Note: A lively combination of portraits, artifacts, memorabilia, and videos enhances both exhibitions.

Lunder Conservation Center

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
3rd Floor Mezzanine & 4th Floor, West
The Lunder Conservation Center -- shared with the Smithsonian American Art Museum -- is the first facility that provides a unique opportunity for the public to view through glass walls conservators at work in several labs examining, treating, and preserving art.

Jo Davidson: Biographer in Bronze

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, North and Northwest
On view are 14 bronze and terra-cotta portraits made by renowned American sculptor Jo Davidson between 1908 and 1946, including depictions of Gertrude Stein, Franklin D. Roosevelt, artist John Marin, and Lincoln Steffens.

American Origins, 1600-1900

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
1st Floor
In 17 galleries and alcoves, this exhibition chronologically arranged starts from the days of contact between Native Americans and European explorers through the struggles of independence to the Gilded Age. Major figures from Pocahontas to Chief Joseph, Sam Adams to Henry Clay, and Nathaniel Hawthorne to Mark Twain are included. Three of the galleries are devoted to the Civil War, examining this conflict in depth. Complementing this section is a group of modern photographic prints produced from Mathew Brady's original negatives. Highlights from its daguerreotype collection -- the earliest practical form of photography -- also are on view.

Presidents in Waiting

01/20/2009 - 01/03/2010
2nd Floor, West Wing
John Adams, perhaps our most cantankerous founding father, viewed the office of the vice president as the "most insignificant office" ever invented by man. He would never have guessed that 14 vice presidents, almost one-third of America's vice presidents, either by the death or resignation of an incumbent president or by winning an election on their own, became presidents. If some still remain unconvinced about the significance of the vice president and those who occupied it, this exhibition shows that most of the vice presidents who succeeded to the presidency were highly capable political figures with the experience and aptitude to be president.

National Postal Museum

Don't look for it on the National Mall but on Capitol Hill at the corner of First St. and Massachusetts Ave., NE, just west of Union Station. The building, which was the Washington City Post Office from 1914 to 1986, is big and grand, and the National Postal Museum occupies most of the lower level.

Exhibits:

Delivering Hope: FDR & Stamps of the Great Depression

06/09/2009 - 06/06/2010
Lower Level
Franklin D. Roosevelt, president during the Great Depression, used stamps to communicate with the American people. A stamp collector himself, he understood the power of visual imagery, and he changed the look of stamps to convey messages of hope, optimism, and the solidity of the federal government. This exhibition offers novel insights into FDR's personality, his relationship with Postmaster General James A. Farley, and his concern for the welfare of the American people.

Philatelic Gallery

07/30/1993 - Ongoing
Lower Level, West, U.S. & International Stamp Galleries
The history of the stamp begins in 1840, when Great Britain issued the first gummed postage stamp. Since then stamps of every subject, shape, and design have been produced for consumer use or as collectibles. Some stamps tell stories while others contain secrets and hidden meanings. This gallery is for all collectors, as well as for those who know little about the renowned hobby of philately.

Moving the Mail

07/30/1993 - Ongoing
Lower Level, Center, Moving the Mail
Faced with the challenge of moving the mail quickly, the postal service looked to trains, automobiles, airplanes, and buses to deliver the mail, all of which are the focus of the museum's 90-foot-high Atrium gallery.

Customers and Communities

07/30/1993 - Ongoing
Lower Level, East, Customers and Communities
By the turn of the 20th century, nearly 10,000 letter carriers worked in over 400 cities. The nation's population was expanding at top speed, and with it, the nation's mail volume and the need for personal mail delivery. This gallery focuses on the modern changes in mail service introduced at the turn of the century

Binding the Nation

07/30/1993 - Ongoing
Lower Level, North, Binding the Nation
This gallery provides an overview of events in America from colonial times through the 19th century, stressing the importance of written communication in the young nation. As early as 1673, regular mail was carried between New York and Boston following Indian trails. That route, once known as the King's Best Highway, is now U.S. Route 1.

The Art of Cards and Letters

07/30/1993 - Ongoing
Lower Level, Northwest, The Art of Cards and Letters
While other galleries focus on mail service, this gallery emphasizes the art of letter writing, a cherished art form providing a window into history.

Postal Inspectors: The Silent Service

02/07/2007 - 02/28/2010
Lower Level, North, Binding the Nation Gallery
This exhibition spotlights the oldest federal law enforcement agency and its role in fighting crime from the earliest days of our nation to the present. Featured objects include the handcuffs used on Ted Kaczynski (the "Unabomber") when he was apprehended, a mail bomb, a Tommy gun, a detonator used in a 1923 train robbery, and a bio-hazard suit.

Hands-on learning activities

Amelia Earhart's Personal Collection

11/12/2007 - Ongoing
Lower Level, Southwest, Philatelic Gallery
Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, was an avid stamp and cover collector. On view are key pieces from her collection, including photographs and stamps commemorating her flights. She often flew signed pieces of mail that were then sold to philatelists to support her endeavors.

Victory Mail

03/06/2008 - 03/10/2010
Lower Level, Northwest, Art of Cards and Letters Gallery
This exhibition showcases the museum's collection of World War II V-mail correspondence. The V-mail system, named after the WWII "V for Victory" symbol, was developed to help reduce the shipping space needed for the massive increase in mail being sent between American armed forces overseas and their family and friends at home. By reducing letters to microfilm size for the trip, thousands of pieces of mail could be shipped taking up only a fraction of the space traditional letters used. Once transported, microfilmed mail was reproduced to a quarter of the original size for final delivery. More letters meant better morale and less shipping space ensured other vital war materials reached the battlefront.

Among the items on display are a rare strip of 16mm V-mail microfilm, which were usually destroyed after the contents were printed, and various letters that reveal the local color and humor of military life in the Pacific and European Theaters.

Alphabetilately: An Alphabet of Philately

09/26/2008 - 10/29/2010
Lower Level, Jeanette Cantrell Rudy Gallery (changing exhibits)
To celebrate the museum's 15th anniversary, this exhibition presents an alphabet of philately through 26 topics, in which each letter stands for some aspect of stamp collecting or the sending of mail. From Advertising Covers to Zeppelins, each topic is introduced by a non-postage stamp image (called a Cinderella), designed by 26 designers in the San Francisco area. The 26 topics and their delightful definitions provide an ideal showcase for displaying both historical and modern items from the museum's collection.

Abraham Lincoln Certified Plate Proofs

11/15/2008 - Ongoing
Lower Level, Philatelic Gallery
Eleven certified plate proofs for postage stamps honoring Abraham Lincoln are on view in the Philatelic Gallery pullout frames. Certified plate proofs are the last printed proof of the plate before printing the stamps. These plate proofs are each unique, with the approval signatures and date. Issued from 1894 to 1959, the stamps feature a variety of Lincoln portraits.

National Zoological Park

Come meet the Zoo's more than 2,400 animals. Fascinating creatures, great and small, inhabit our beautiful park's urban oasis in the heart of Washington, DC.

Food:

Cafés/Grills
Mane Restaurant on Lion/Tiger Hill
Panda Cafe near the Fujifilm Giant Panda Habitat
Express Grill at Panda Plaza
Popstop across from the Small Mammal House (seasonal)

Snack Stands
Located throughout the park as are soda, water, and snack vending machines.

Bring Your Own Picnic
Visitors may bring their own food and beverages. Coolers are permitted but not grills or other cooking devices. There are picnic areas throughout the Zoo, available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Exhibits:

Think Tank

10/27/1995 - Ongoing
Olmsted Walk, near Reptile Discovery Center
This exhibition explores the biology and evolution of animal thinking, focusing on primates. It also demonstrates how animals use tools, send sophisticated messages, and employ social strategies. In conjunction with this exhibition is the O-Line, an orangutan transit system for orangutans to travel from the Great Ape House to Think Tank.

Small Mammal House

04/01/1983 - Ongoing
Olmsted Walk, near Great Ape House
Most species in the Zoo's Small Mammal House are no bigger than a breadbox. The exhibition features the golden lion tamarin, the three-banded armadillo, the prehensile-tailed porcupine, naked mole-rats, tree shrews, meerkats, black-tailed prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, and more.

Seals

- Ongoing
Valley Trail (also referred to as Beaver Valley)
This exhibition is home to one species of pinnipeds: gray seals.

Reptile Discovery Center

- Ongoing
Olmsted Walk
The Reptile Discovery Center is an interactive, educational exhibition designed for visitors to explore the biology of reptiles and amphibians. The Center features some 70 species from snakes to frogs to turtles to lizards to crocodiles to Komodo dragons.

Prairie Dog Playland

11/19/2005 - Ongoing
Near Prairie Dogs and Lemur Island
This prairie-dog-themed playground, designed for children ages 2-6, reveals a prairie-dog's perspective on survival. Children can crawl through a series of tubes that resemble prairie dogs' underground tunnels, can pop up "above ground," and can look through scopes to scan for large cutouts of such predators as black-footed ferrets and hawks.

Pollinarium

04/19/1996 - Ongoing
In Invertebrate Exhibit
Living plants, butterflies, and bees are used to explore pollination -- the means of plant reproduction. The evolution, beauty, and mechanics of pollination are examined. The exhibition also includes a 7-foot tall, 3-panel, glass enclosed beehive.

Lemur Island

10/18/2001 - Ongoing
Lemur Island (formerly Monkey Island)
This open-air exhibition is home to both ring-tailed (Lemur catta) and red-fronted (Eulemur fulvus rufus) lemurs. These prosimians -- a suborder of primates -- are found only on Madagascar, an island off the southeastern coast of Africa. Today's prosimians retain much of the appearance of the earliest primates. Like many other animal species, wild lemur populations are rapidly declining due to extensive habitat loss.

Kids' Farm

06/12/2004 - Ongoing
Near Rock Creek entrance
This child-friendly exhibition reveals that most of the food we eat comes from a farm and allows visitors to lend a hand around the farm.

Highlights include:
• A Play Area, featuring an oversize, climb-on pizza that connects familiar pizza ingredients with plants grown on a farm. The pizza garden includes tomatoes, herbs, garlic, onions, green peppers, and wheat. Note: Open weather permitting.
• The Barn gives visitors a view into how animals are housed and cared for.
• Goat and Miniature Donkey Yards, where visitors are able to touch the animals through the fence. The area also includes a Caring Corral, where children are invited inside to help take care of the animals.
• The Cow Pasture, where visitors are able to touch the animals when they approach the fence.

Additions:
• Late fall 2007: Alpacas and Ossabaw Island Hogs
• September 2008: Male silver fox rabbits

Invertebrates

05/07/1987 - Ongoing
Olmsted Walk, Reptile House, Lower Level
Invertebrates -- creatures without backbones -- are the most abundant creatures on earth, crawling, flying, floating, or swimming in virtually all of Earth's habitats. About 99 percent of all known living species are invertebrates. The Zoo's Invertebrate Exhibit is home to such invertebrate species as sea stars; spiny lobsters; sea anemones; corals; insects; spiders, including tarantulas; and mollusks, including a giant Pacific octopus.

Great Cats (tigers)

10/01/1998 - Ongoing
Lion & Tiger Hill and surrounding area
This exhibition includes graphic panels, an education site for children to learn more about the Sumatran tiger, and an area featuring a bronzed Tyrannosaurus rex skull from the Museum of the Rockies.

Great Ape House

04/15/1981 - Ongoing
Olmsted Walk
Today, this exhibition is home to seven western lowland gorillas and six orangutans, which may be seen outside in the yard or inside the Great Ape House. The orangutans have access to the Think Tank by using the aboveground O Line; for details, see Think Tank.

The exhibition was designed to encourage physical activity and normal social interaction within each group. Features include 8 spacious, glass-fronted indoor areas, 2-3 stories high, equipped with floor-to-ceiling climbing structures; large outdoor areas with dry moats confining animals without visual obstructions; and interpretive graphics.

Giant Panda Habitat, Fujifilm

10/17/2006 - Ongoing

Father Tian Tian, mother Mei Xiang, and offspring Tai Shan can be seen in their habitat wrestling in the grass, sleeping in a tree, munching on stalks of bamboo, or lounging in a misty grotto.

Note: The pandas may be resting indoors during hot weather.

Elephant House

- Ongoing
Olmsted Walk
Note: The Elephant House, built in the 1930s, closed to the public September 14, 2009, to undergo renovation as part of the upcoming exhibition Elephant Trails (scheduled to open in 2011).

The three elephants can be seen in their outdoor habitat 10 AM-4 PM on most days (weather permitting), but occasionally, they may be indoors, during which time they will be off view.

Bird House and the Outdoor Flight Exhibit

- Ongoing
Bird House
The National Zoo is home to hundreds of birds from all over the world. Since birds are an integral part of virtually every ecosystem, it's not surprising that birds are all over the Zoo, too, as residents and visitors.

• Bird House: The widest variety of birds at the Zoo live indoors at the Bird House where a series of smaller exhibits encircle a large indoor jungle complete with free-flying tropical birds.

Bald Eagle Refuge

07/04/2003 - Ongoing
Valley Trail (also referred to as Beaver Valley)
This exhibition features 2 bald eagles and includes information about the National Wildlife Refuge System sites. The nearby woodlands are planted to improve wildlife habitat and enhance the natural appearance of the refuge.

Asia Trail

10/17/2006 - Ongoing

This exhibition features Asian animals already living at the Zoo -- sloth bears, fishing cats, Asian small-clawed otters, and red pandas -- along with the clouded leopards (returning to the Zoo after several decades). Also featured are the beloved giant pandas (see separate listing).

Amazonia

11/18/1992 - Ongoing
Amazonia Building
Animals and plants of the New World are included in this rain forest habitat featuring a re-created microcosm of the world's largest rain forest and the Amazon River. Giant Amazon fish are a special feature.

Animals on View

- Ongoing

For a complete listing of animals on view at the Zoo, see the Web site at: nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/AnimalIndex/

Renwick Gallery

The Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is dedicated to exhibiting American crafts from the 19th to the 21st centuries.

Exhibits:

Renwick Craft Invitational 2011

03/25/2011 - 07/31/2011
1st Floor, Special Exhibitions Gallery
This exhibition will feature works by the following four extraordinary artists, who create works of superior craftsmanship that address the classic craft notion of function without sacrificing a contemporary aesthetic:

• Cliff Lee (b. 1951), a neurosurgeon whose practice is in Stevens, Pennsylvania, creates elegant porcelain vessels with the exactitude of a doctor, often using his knowledge of chemistry to re-create medieval Chinese glazes long thought lost to history.
• Matthias Pliessnig (b. 1978), a furniture maker in Philadelphia, uses boat-building techniques in new ways to create graceful forms with curved wood strips that may have up to 5,000 points of contact without the aid of hardware.
• Judith Schaechter (b. 1961), a glass artist based in Philadelphia, brings a wealth of knowledge about traditional stained-glass practice to her moody windows.
• Ubaldo Vitali (b. 1944), a fourth-generation silversmith and master conservator of historic silver working in Maplewood, New Jersey, uses classical techniques he learned in Rome to create luminous works for popes, kings, and presidents.

Staged Stories: Renwick Craft Invitational 2009

08/07/2009 - 01/03/2010
1st Floor, Special Exhibitions Gallery
This exhibition features works by the following four artists:
• Christyl Boger (b. 1959), who creates large-scale gilded ceramic figurines that incorporate contemporary props
• Mark Newport (b. 1964), who examines issues of masculinity through knitted superhero costumes
• Mary Van Cline (b. 1954), who uses plate glass and pate de verre to construct sculptural pieces that often incorporate black-and-white photographs
• SunKoo Yuh (b. 1960), who creates densely layered ceramic sculptures that explore complex issues of family, faith, and community with Eastern and Western imagery

Grand Salon Installation: Paintings from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

06/06/2009 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, Grand Salon
On view are 70 paintings from the 1840s to the 1930s -- landscapes, portraits, and allegorical works -- by 51 American artists, including Edward Mitchell Bannister, Romaine Brooks, Elliott Daingerfield, Daniel Garber, William Morris Hunt, George Inness, Homer Dodge Martin, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Abbott Handerson Thayer, John Henry Twachtman, and Irving R. Wiles. The room is installed salon style, with paintings hung one-atop-another and side by side. Free Visitor Guide featuring short biographies of the artists

Permanent Collection

- Ongoing
Craft Galleries, 2nd Floor
Features contemporary American crafts in glass, ceramics, metal, wood, and fiber. Highlights include:

• Game Fish (1988) by Larry Fuente (b. 1947)
• Bureau of Bureaucracy by Kim Schmahmann (a cabinet sculpture described by the artist as a "contemporary cabinet of curiosities")
• Ghost Clock by Wendell Castle
• Bancketje (Banquet) by Beth Lipman
• The Renwick 30th Anniversary Plate by Irma Starr

S. Dillon Ripley Center, International Gallery

Entered from a copper domed kiosk on Jefferson Drive between the "Castle" and the Freer Gallery of Art, the S. Dillon Ripley Center houses the International Gallery, The Smithsonian Associates and the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service.

Exhibits:

Women and Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America

01/15/2010 - 04/25/2010
International Gallery
Rare artifacts and photographs from more than 400 communities will be on view to explore the role of Catholic sisters in American life. From the time they first arrived in America nearly 300 years ago, sisters built schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages, homeless shelters, and many other enduring social institutions. As nurses, teachers, and social workers, they entered professional ranks decades earlier than most other women. They shared common experiences of immigration and migration and endured the same national crises as other Americans. Despite being considered "weak women" by some, these sisters have made a lasting contribution to American life.

Panamanian Passages

10/14/2009 - 05/31/2010
Sublevel 3, Concourse
This bilingual (English/Spanish) exhibition traces Panama's human and natural history since the rise of the isthmus over 3 million years ago -- beginning with the isthmus' ancient geological history and culminating with the expansion of a Panama Canal and its challenges for the future -- and highlights key chapters in Panamanian history from early indigenous settlement to Panama's 20th-century struggle for sovereignty.

Accelerate: A National Juried Exhibition for Emerging Artists with Disabilities, Ages 16-25

09/10/2009 - 01/06/2010
Sublevel 3, Corridor Leading to the International Gallery
On view are works by 15 award-winning emerging artists with disabilities, ages 16 to 25. Their work reflects their experiences as emerging artists and reveals how their disability has motivated, shaped, and transformed their lives.

This is the 8th juried exhibition for emerging artists with disabilities organized by VSA arts.

Graphic Eloquence: Limited-Edition Prints from The Smithsonian Associates Art Collectors Program

- Ongoing
Concourse, near escalators
On view are limited-edition works on paper created by American artists -- including Sean Scully, Janet Fish, Wolf Kahn, and Elizabeth Catlett -- for the Art Collectors Program, which began in the early 1970's. The works are commissioned annually by the Art Collectors Program and many now hang in the permanent collections of national museums.

Related illustrated list of works

Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Donald W. Reynolds Center is home to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery

Food:

Courtyard Café
Featuring soups, sandwiches, salads, antipasti, desserts, ice cream, coffee, beer, wine, and soft drinks.

Hours
Daily, 11:30 AM-4 PM: See menu above
Daily, 4 PM-6:30 PM: Limited selection of menu above

Portico Café (seasonal and weather permitting)
Features pastries, sandwiches, specialty coffees and beverages. Wine, beer and cocktails are available in late afternoon and evening hours.
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

Exhibits:

Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg

07/02/2010 - 01/02/2011
Location TBA
Two of America's best-known modern filmmakers -- George Lucas and Steven Spielberg -- recognized a kindred spirit in the artist Norman Rockwell and formed in-depth collections of his work. Lucas, Spielberg, and Rockwell have perpetuated American ideals about love of country, personal honor, and the value of family through their work. With humor and pathos, they have transformed ordinary people and the quotidian incidents of everyday experience into stories that show us our better selves and the values that have sustained Americans through good times and bad. All three share an ability to communicate visually with mass audiences using popular media of their time. Telling Stories will reveal for the first time the connections between Rockwell's iconic images of American life and the movies.

This exhibition will showcase more than 50 major Rockwell paintings and drawings from these private collections that are rarely seen by the public.

Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O'Sullivan

02/12/2010 - 05/09/2010
1st Floor, West Galleries
Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840-1882) spent six seasons between 1867 and 1874 in the mountain and desert west as photographer for government-sponsored geological surveys and expeditions led by Clarence King and Lt. George Wheeler. His photographs go beyond mere documentation of newly explored landscapes; they show a forthright and rigorous style formed in response to the American West. This first major look at O'Sullivan's photographs in more than 25 years will feature more than 80 of his photographs and sterographs and will explore the artist's images, the conditions under which they were made, the influences that shaped his work, and his continuing influence on American photography.

Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

01/29/2010 - 08/08/2010
2nd Floor, South Wing, Graphics Gallery
On view will be watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the 1960s to the 1990s to celebrate the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper. The works on view will reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Artists represented will include such masters as Robert Arneson, Jennifer Bartlett, Philip Guston, Luis Jimenez, and Wayne Thiebaud.

Catalogue: $19.95

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

10/02/2009 - 01/24/2010
3rd Floor
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. Art, politics, war, global warming, foolishness, ambition, hypocrisy, and irony are summoned by Wiley's fertile imagination and recorded in the personal vocabulary of symbols, puns, and images that fill his objects. His wit and sense of the absurd make his art accessible to all with multiple layers of meaning revealed through careful examination.

This retrospective, which features 88 works from the 1960s to the present, is the first full-scale look at Wiley's long career and explores important themes and ideas expressed in his work. His work ranges from traditional drawing, watercolor, acrylic painting, sculpture, and printmaking to performances, constructions of assorted materials, and, more recently, printed pins, tapestries, and a pinball machine. Many artworks in the exhibition are on public display for the first time, and the installation includes several of Wiley's avant-garde films of the 1970s, which are rarely screened.

Catalogue: $65 (cloth); $39.95 (paper)

Thomas Moran Landscapes and George Catlin Indian Portraits

05/08/2009 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, North Lobby
On view are two large landscape paintings by Thomas Moran, on long-term loan from the U.S. Department of the Interior: The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872) and The Chasm of the Colorado (1873-1874), along with a smaller Moran painting. Also on view are 18 Indian portraits by George Catlin.

Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

06/19/2009 - 01/10/2010
2nd Floor, South Wing, Graphics Gallery
On view are watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the 1920s to the 1960s to celebrate the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper. The works on view reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Artists represented include such masters as Stuart Davis, Sam Francis, Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning, Grant Wood, and Andrew Wyeth.

Sculptures by Paul Manship

07/15/2007 - Ongoing
1st Floor, North Corridors, near G St. entrance
From the museum's collection of nearly 500 works by Paul Manship (1885-1966) are 25 graceful sculptures -- including such mythological figures such as Atalanta and Europa, as well as a collection of gilded animal figures. As a young artist studying in Rome, Manship fell in love with both Roman and Greek sculpture and was captivated by animals and mythological figures. He also studied Egyptian, Asian, and Assyrian art. An exponent of Art Deco in the United States, he developed a style that was both representational and highly stylized.

Note: Additional works are on view in the Luce Foundation Center, 3rd floor.

With Liberty: Folk Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
1st Floor, West
These galleries serve as a reminder that not all artists are formally trained, and that the making of art is as much an act of passion as of intellect. Artists represented range from Mose Tolliver and Howard Finster to Felipe Archuleta and Thorton Dial, Sr. To provide the installation a particular point of view, the museum asked artist William Christenberry to curate -- choose the objects and provide the wall labels and quotes that express his deep regard for folk art.

Highlights include:
• James Hampton's The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly (1950-64), a visionary work made from salvaged materials covered in gold and silver foil.

Modern and Contemporary Art

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, East, in the Lincoln Gallery
Located in the Lincoln Gallery with soaring arches, this exhibition features modern and contemporary art.

Lunder Conservation Center

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
3rd Floor Mezzanine & 4th Floor, West
The Lunder Conservation Center -- shared with the National Portrait Gallery -- is the first facility that provides a unique opportunity for the public to view through glass walls conservators at work in several labs examining, treating, and preserving art.

Luce Foundation Center for American Art

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
3rd & 4th Floors and 3rd Floor Mezzanine, West
The Luce Foundation Center for American Art is the first visible art storage and study center in Washington that showcases more than 3,300 artworks from the museum's permanent collection: paintings densely hung on screens; sculptures, contemporary crafts, and art objects arranged on shelves; and portrait miniatures, bronze medals, and contemporary jewelry in drawers that slide open with the touch of a button. The space allows the museum to display five times the number of works on public view.

David Beck's MVSEVM

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, South Center
Commissioned by the museum, David Beck created MVSEVM, an exquisitely crafted world in miniature; the work reflects the neoclassical architecture of the building, from the 1840s when it was the U.S. Patent Office to the present day.

Art Since 1945

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
3rd Floor, North
On view is modern and contemporary art, including works from Color Field, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art; a room-size installation Megatron Matrix by Nam June Paik; and 20th-century paintings by such artists as Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Helen Frankenthaler.

Related Book America's Art: $65 (cloth), $45 (paper)

American Experience

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
1st Floor, Southwest (near Main Lobby)
These introductory galleries feature paintings by Edward Hopper, 19th- and 20th-century landscapes from across the United States that convey a sense of place and the defining role of land in the American imagination, and 56 photographs from Lee Friedlander's series "The American Monument" (1963-2001) -- a new acquisition -- that offer his sometimes ironic, sometimes elegiac record of outdoor sculptures across the country.

American Art through 1940

07/01/2006 - Ongoing
2nd Floor, East, South, and North
This exhibition links artworks to major moments in America's past in nine thematic sections in 31 galleries. The introductory area features Frederic Auguste Bartholdi's model for the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of America as a place welcoming to all immigrants whose ingenuity and creativity plays a key role throughout America's art.

The Honor of Your Company Is Requested: President Lincoln's Inaugural Ball

03/08/2008 - 01/18/2010
2nd Floor, South Wing
On view in this small exhibition to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball is ephemera from the ball, including the invitation and menu, as well as engravings illustrating the night's events and other artifacts. The ball took place in the building on March 6, 1865, during the final stages of the Civil War and only six weeks before Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre.

1934: A New Deal for Artists

02/27/2009 - 01/03/2010
1st Floor, West Galleries
On view are 56 paintings created by artists from across the United States working under the Public Works of Art Program, a federal New Deal program that lasted only six months from mid-December 1933 to June 1934. Artists participating in the program were encouraged to depict the American scene, but were free to portray any subject matter; they created works ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life. Their paintings are a lasting visual record of America at a specific moment in time.

Celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Public Works of Art Program.

Smithsonian Institution Building, the Castle

The Castle, the Smithsonian's original home, is a Medieval Revival building designed by James Renwick Jr. and completed in 1855. Its nine towers, battlements and chimneys make it an easy landmark to spot on the National Mall.

Food:

Castle Café and Coffee Bar
Featuring an Espresso/Cappuccino bar, Argentinean Gelato, Panini, Antipasti, Organic salads, Specialty Sandwiches, Soups and Pastries.
Discount for Smithsonian Members
Hours: 8:30a.m.-5p.m.

Exhibits:

World View: Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest

07/01/2009 - 01/17/2010
Great Hall
From over 17,000 entries submitted from the United States and around the world to the Smithsonian magazine for its 6th Annual Photo Contest, 50 finalists were selected. The images selected represent the following five categories: The Natural World, People, Americana, Altered Images, and Travel.

The Smithsonian Institution: America's Treasure Chest

05/08/2005 - Ongoing
The Commons (West Wing)
In display cases framing the walls of this historic room are selected objects representing all of the museums that offer a tantalizing sample of the breadth and depth of the Smithsonian's vast collections.

Note: The room is open to the public during regular hours except when it has been booked for a special event.

Featured Areas: Children's Room, The Commons, Schermer Hall

- Ongoing
First Floor
• Children's Room: (First Floor, South Entrance, Independence Avenue)
The Children's Room -- with the theme "Knowledge Begins in Wonder" -- was installed in the south tower of the Castle in 1901 and featured natural history exhibitions for children. The original decorative scheme by designer Grace Lincoln Temple was restored in the mid-1980s.

• The Commons: (First Floor, West Wing)
The Commons, in the 19th-century Gothic Revival architectural style, features a soaring, groin-vaulted ceiling, elaborate corbels, a ribbed-vaulted apse, and a rose window on the south wall. Encircling the room are 28 walnut exhibit cases built in 1871 and refurbished in July 2004 with selected objects representing the Smithsonian's collections (for details, see permanent exhibition The Smithsonian Institution: America's Treasure Chest). The room served as a dining facility for many years, closing in June 2004.

• Schermer Hall: (First Floor, West Wing)
Schermer Hall, named for Smithsonian donors Lloyd G. and Betty A. Schermer, is in the Romanesque Revival style with clerestory windows, rounded arches, and a barrel-vaulted ceiling. Furnishings from the Castle Collection include a pair of Rococo Revival gilded mirrors that belonged to Simon Cameron, Secretary of War (1860-1862) under President Lincoln; a pair of Renaissance Revival armchairs (c. 1860) that belonged to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War (1862-1867) under Presidents Lincoln and Grant; and Georgian Revival tables (c. 1910) in mahogany and verdi marble with classically carved motifs, including anthemion and acanthus leaves and guilloche (running dog) borders. Also in this room is a small, 2-panel display on the history of the west wing; for details, see permanent exhibition The West Wing: A Chronology.

Garden: Enid A. Haupt Garden

05/21/1987 - Ongoing
Outside, south of the Castle (The Quadrangle)
A 4.2-acre rooftop park, named for its donor, features an embroidered parterre in a geometric design of plants and flowers rotated seasonally. Other features include an Asian-influenced garden adjacent to the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, a Moorish-influenced garden adjacent to the National Museum of African Art, and garden furnishings from the Horticulture Services Division's Garden Furniture Collection.

Garden: Folger Rose Garden, including the Keith Fountain (seasonal)

10/07/1998 - Ongoing
Outside, Jefferson Drive between Castle and Arts & Industries
The garden features roses, annuals, perennials, and woody plants chosen for year-round interest, and was donated by the Folger family in honor of their mother, Kathrine Dulin Folger.

Exhibit Panels: The West Wing: A Chronology

- Ongoing
Schermer Hall, West Wing
This 2-panel exhibit reveals the history of the west wing of the Castle -- from its first use as the Institution's library to its use as The Commons dining room (through June 20, 2004) -- through images and text. The text is adapted from The Castle, An Illustrated History of the Smithsonian Institution Building by Cynthia R. Field, Richard E. Stamm, and Heather P. Ewing.

Smithsonian Information Center

- Ongoing

Highlights include:

• 2 information desks, serving the public and Smithsonian Associate members, which are staffed by volunteers from 8:30 AM-4 PM daily.
• 1 orientation theater (northeast wall) featuring an 10-minute video overview of the Institution (runs continuously, beginning at approximately 9 AM).
• 2 interactive "touch-screen" programs on the Smithsonian Institution in 6 languages.
• 1 scale model of Washington's monumental core.
• Smithson's Gift showcase (provides information on the history of the Institution).
• A tactile map of the Washington's monumental core with Braille labels.

Cases: Scientific Illustrators: Artists in Residence in the Castle

10/30/2008 - Ongoing
Schermer Hall
Note: This area is open to the public during regular building hours except when a special event has been scheduled for the space.

Scientific illustration is one aspect of what makes a museum collection important; it enhances and supports scientific research by showing minute details and distinguishing characteristics of the specimens being studied. Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, established a program to publish scientific research -- with detailed scientific illustrations -- in 1848, a mere two years after the founding of the Smithsonian.

On view in these cases are works by four scientific illustrators who worked in the Smithsonian Institution Building between 1852 and 1898: William Stimpson (1832-1872), John H. Richard (1807-1881), Robert Ridgway (1850-1929), and his brother John L. Ridgway (1859-1947). These illustrations offer a glimpse of their lifetime devotion to the study of science and nature. Also on view are several plaster casts of fish painted by John H. Richard.