March 22, 2025–March 21, 2027     A special group of loans from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will afford visitors to The San Diego Museum of Art an extraordinary view of Dutch society and artistic traditions in the 17th century. By 1600, the Dutch Republic had begun to emerge as an international economic powerhouse. A seafaring nation, albeit…

February 22, 2025–Ongoing     Painting in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century often focused on solitary, contemplative experiences. These were a departure from the very dramatic or “sublime” landscapes of the earlier part of the nineteenth century, and instead of awe or fear, they capture a sense of calm and stillness, even a spiritual connection…

February 8–July 27, 2025 Dutch photographer Ruud van Empel (b. 1958) asks us to look at the world as if for the first time. Hovering between reality and artifice, his photographs offer an impossible density of detail and intensity of color. Van Empel creates these pictures over hundreds and even thousands of hours, constructing them digitally by combining fragments of…

February 1–July 13, 2025   “Although the result is obtained by chemical means, the little work it entails will greatly please ladies.” So wrote one of photography’s inventors, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851), about his eponymous daguerreotype in 1839. Daguerre’s words, which associate women with idleness, are clearly misogynistic. Yet in a backhanded way, Daguerre predicted the pivotal role women would play…

October 19, 2024–August 10, 2025       “It is a quest for an architecture of light and lightness, inspired by nature which is about the quality of life as well as being eco-friendly.” —Norman Foster   Norman Foster (British, b. 1935), is one of the most esteemed international architects of our time, with projects worldwide. Among innumerable accolades, he…

July 27, 2024–January 26, 2025     With a sharp wit, William Gropper (1897–1977) satirized the absurdities and injustices of American political life. Gropper grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where his mother supported the family by working as a seamstress in a sweatshop. This early experience informed Gropper’s commitment to social change, and in thousands of…

June 29, 2024–January 12, 2025 A voracious photographer who shot hundreds of thousands of pictures over his lifetime, Garry Winogrand (1928–1984) was a pivotal figure in twentieth-century American photography. Winogrand used his lightweight Leica camera athletically, moving in and out of crowds—from Manhattan streets to Texas football fields—as he honed an impulsive yet sophisticated sense of composition. With their wide-angle…

May 18–October 27, 2024   One of the most renowned and enduring American artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, Jasper Johns (b. 1930) has had a career spanning many decades. This exhibition features 14 works on paper by Johns, ranging in date from 1960 to 2021, including six drawings on loan from the artist. Drawing has been an essential…

    Art of the Americas reveals the diverse creativity that has flourished within this expansive range of geographies and cultures in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Presenting select dialogues across time and place, the exhibition is organized according to three themes: Site, Spirit, and Self and Society. Showcasing works of art that delve into fundamental aspects of experience, this…

February 3–July 7, 2024 Body adornment amongst African peoples is rich and diverse, an essential aspect of cultural expression, identity, and heritage. Across the continent, different cultures use body art to communicate creativity and cultural identity through performance, sculpture, beadwork, and print form. Such elements collectively illustrate each group’s social status, spiritual support, military strength, and individual cultural aesthetic. Through…