Ancient Near Eastern Art

- Indefinitely
West Corridor
Text to come.

Cornucopia: Ceramics from Southern Japan

December 19, 2009 - January 9, 2011
Galleries 6a, 6, & 7 (Japanese Art)
This exhibition illuminates the engaging variety of local styles of glazing and decoration invented by Kyushu potters over three centuries. Around the year 1600, a heightened fascination with the design and uses of ceramics combined with new access to advanced technology launched an era of extraordinarily diverse and accomplished ceramic production. Southern Japan -- in particular, the island of Kyushu -- was the center for this efflorescence, which included both stoneware coated in muted glazes and porcelain ornamented with cobalt blue or multicolored enamels. Hundreds of kilns produced vessels for the domestic market (with a focus on utensils for dining and for the tea ceremony) and also for export to Europe and Southeast Asia.

Children at Play in Chinese Painting

November 18, 2009 - May 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

June 6, 2009 - June 6, 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.

Surface Beauty: American Art and Freer's Aesthetic Vision

February 23, 2008 - Indefinitely
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

February 23, 2008 - Indefinitely
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.

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

- Indefinitely
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 Indian Subcontinent and the Himalayas

- Indefinitely
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.

The Religious Art of Japan (rotating)

- Indefinitely
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.

Charles Lang Freer and Egypt

- Indefinitely
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.

Arts of the Islamic World

- Indefinitely
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).

Ancient Chinese Pottery and Bronze

- Indefinitely
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.

Korean Ceramics

- Indefinitely
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.

Buddhist Art

- Indefinitely
Gallery 17
Buddhism, a religion that originated in India during the 6th century B.C.E., spread eastward across much of Asia during the next thousand years. While its followers are now established worldwide, Buddhism continues to have an especially strong religious and cultural presence throughout the Asian continent. Each of the civilizations that has embraced Buddhism has given a local and distinctive interpretation and sensibility to the representation of the Buddha as well as to the other images and symbols characteristic of Buddhist art.

Japanese Screens (rotating)

- Indefinitely
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.

Outdoor Sculpture: Twisted Form by Shiro Hayami

- Permanent
Outdoors near Jefferson Drive entrance
Twisted Form (Traveler's Guardian Spirit), 1981, an Agi stone and Peruvian granite sculpture by Shiro Hayami

Sculptures

- Permanent
North corridor at northwest and northeast corners (Jefferson Drive entrance):

• Two huge Kongorikishi (also known as Ni-o) warriors: Japan, Kamakura period, early 14th century, wood

Inside south doors (near Independence Avenue entrance):

• Vimalakirti: A huge 6th-century stone Buddhist sculpture: China, from the Binyang cave at the Longmen Grottoes in Henan Province

The Peacock Room

- Permanent
Gallery 12
The Peacock Room, originally designed by architect Thomas Jeckyll, was once the dining room in the London home of Frederick R. Leyland, a wealthy shipowner from Liverpool, England. Although the architect merely asked for advice about what color to paint the shutters and doors, James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) took over and eventually transformed the entire room. Between 1876 and 1877, he enhanced 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.

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