Archived - Shows And Events

October 7 - January 1, 2017 - The exhibition shows how Americans found inspiration in the western landscape and also sought to understand its marvels—through paintings, prints, and photographs as well as the botanical and geological specimens that early scientists brought back from their expeditions. Together, these objects attest to the enduring impact of Yosemite, whose awe-inspiring scale and b...

September 15 - December 4, 2016 - This is the first major exhibition to survey the tradition of marine painting that was inextricably linked to Britain’s rise to prominence as a maritime and imperial power, and to position the genre at the heart of the burgeoning British art world of the eighteenth century. This exhibition will reconstruct the full array of representational modes pictorial, planim...

September 1 - December 11, 2016 - This exhibition, which coincides with the Center’s exhibition Spreading Canvas: Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting, will focus on Shonibare’s interest in the British historical figure Admiral Lord Nelson, whom he uses as an emblem of Britain’s imperial history.

August 19 - January 8, 2017 - This groundbreaking exhibition presents a comprehensive survey of Rhode Island furniture from the colonial and early Federal periods, including elaborately carved chairs, high chests, bureau tables, and clocks. Drawing together more than 130 exceptional objects from museums, historical societies, and private collections, the show highlights major aesthetic innovations...

June 16 - August 21, 2016 - This exhibition will explore the works of William Shakespeare from a fresh perspective, placing the literary giant within a tradition of fine craftsmanship on a completely different scale. Nearly one hundred exquisitely bound miniature editions of plays, sonnets, and books inspired by Shakespeare, each measuring three inches high or less and selected from the singular c...

May 20 - August 28, 2016 - Through a selection of sculptures, prints, paintings, enamels, ceramics, and medals, this exhibition explores the relationship between art and power in 16th-century France. Together, the artworks reflect the preferences of the cultured, aristocratic figures of the day the “goût du prince,” or “taste of the prince” and highlight the enduring impact of such preferences on ...

May 20 - September 18, 2016 - This exhibition celebrates the significance and beauty of ancient Andean textiles, demonstrating the spectrum of their designs and functions. It features exceptional loans from private collections, including tunics, mantles, and wall hangings, as well as related feather, gold, and silver ornaments; weaving implements; and ceramic vessels. Characterized by graphically ...

May 11 - August 14, 2016 - This exhibition offers a glimpse of the lost architecture of preindustrial London, as captured in a series of carbon photoprints commissioned between 1875 and 1886 by the short-lived Society for Photographing the Relics of Old London. Intended as a permanent pictorial archive of buildings under threat of demolition, the photographs document ramshackle coaching inns, disi...

May 11 - August 21, 2016 - This exhibition aims to offer a richer understanding of Pritzker’s collecting style while highlighting developments in the work of notable modern British artists. These paintings depict the eerie emptiness of seaside and rural scenes and the isolated figure in which this artist, famous for crowd scenes, became interested later in his career. The exhibition juxtaposes the...

May 1, 2016 - January 8, 2017 - Just a few of the highlights include the first T. rex fossil ever discovered; a small liverwort specimen collected by Charles Darwin during his voyage on the HMS Beagle; a rifle belonging to Buffalo Bill, one of O.C. Marsh’s guides during his fossil expeditions to the American West; a drool collector from Ivan Pavlov; the first microscope purchased by Yale in 1735, ...