A Museum in the Making
A Museum in the Making examines how Charles Lang Freer, an American industrialist and art collector, transformed his Detroit home into an innovative setting for art and design before founding the nation’s first national art museum. Created in partnership with Freer House Detroit for the United States’ 250th-anniversary celebration, the exhibition explores how artists, architects, and designers shaped both Freer’s home and the galleries of the National Museum of Asian Art.
The exhibition features works by American painters James McNeill Whistler, Dwight William Tryon, and Thomas Wilmer Dewing, along with Pewabic pottery and ceramics from China, Japan, and Syria. It also highlights architect Stanford White and Mary Chase Perry Stratton, an important figure in the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Visitors can consider how Freer and his collaborators coordinated frames, lighting, walls, windows, furniture, and artworks to create a unified environment, and can identify related design features in the museum, including its skylights and courtyard.
When: June 27, 2026–August 1, 2027
Location: West Building, Gallery 8
Collection Area: American Art
Tickets: Price not available
Exhibition focus: The exhibition traces Freer’s experiments with displaying art in his Detroit residence and the lasting influence of those experiments on the National Museum of Asian Art.
Artists and makers: Works and ideas associated with James McNeill Whistler, Dwight William Tryon, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Stanford White, and Mary Chase Perry Stratton are presented alongside Pewabic pottery and ceramics from China, Japan, and Syria.
Digital component: A video walk-through offers a virtual visit to the present-day Charles Lang Freer House in Detroit. The footage shows the house’s exterior, gardens, wood-paneled interiors, fireplaces, skylights, decorative carvings, built-in furniture, artworks, architectural details, and Arts and Crafts-inspired design elements. The video is silent and is accompanied by a descriptive transcript.
Accessibility: Exhibition wall and case text is available online in a format that can be resized or read aloud with a screen reader. A descriptive transcript is also provided for the exhibition’s video.
Anniversary program: The exhibition is part of the Smithsonian’s celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary, titled Our Shared Future: 250.