In recognition of America's 250th anniversary, the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, will present a slate of co-curated exhibitions that address significant moments and themes in American art and culture. Curators worked collectively to tell not one but many stories of American art and its histories entirely from the Hood Museum's collection. Most of the galleries will be dedicated to the presentation of twelve exhibitions––including three faculty-curated teaching shows—that aim to acknowledge and expand upon the ways American art has created and shaped this country. Featured throughout the year will be new acquisitions, collection highlights, and objects never before shown.
John Stomberg, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director, explains, "In recent years, the Hood Museum has taken part in ongoing dialogues to expand the 'American art' canon in ways that acknowledge, critique, and celebrate the multiplicity and complexity of our nation and its histories. The 2026 exhibitions build on this work and demonstrate the vital role artists have always played in helping us contextualize the past and imagine possible futures. We look forward to inviting audiences to participate in these dialogues with us."
The Hood Museum's curatorial team collaborated to introduce these exhibitions through a multitude of voices and academic and cultural viewpoints, enabling all visitors to engage in the conversation about how art in America has been and continues to be perceived. "It seemed important to us to take up the democratic process as a method as well as a topic. The shows in this project have benefited enormously from team curation," notes Stomberg.
Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Indigenous Art Jami Powell adds, "Throughout the 2026 exhibitions, audiences will recognize many of the works of art on view and see familiar visual narratives. But they will also see something new. We are excited for people to bring their existing understandings of American art and its histories into the galleries while also encountering works by artists who may be unfamiliar, narratives they may not know, and questions they may not have considered."
Sestercentennial Exhibitions
*Exhibitions marked with an asterisk will be on view during the United States' 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026.
*From Mastodon to Mosaic: Building an Academic Art Collection in America
Through February 27, 2027
Drawn from the museum's permanent collection of over 70,000 objects, From Mastodon to Mosaic looks at how significant works of global art from historical cultures came to Dartmouth and impacted both the academic and aesthetic life of the College and the local community. Over more than 250 years, the museum's collection has changed in scope, size, and physical location, moving among seven different buildings on campus until the construction of the Hood Museum of Art in 1985.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by The William Chase Grant 1919 Memorial Fund.
*Always Already: Abstraction in the United States
Through March 20, 2027
Always Already expands the conversations related to and broadens the history of "American Abstraction" by celebrating diverse approaches to color, geometry, and composition. In addition to paintings and drawings, the exhibition features textiles, ceramics, and sculpture. These works emerge from a wide variety of artistic impulses and inspirations, and the overarching strength of their visual relationships suggests the merit of a history of American abstraction that extends beyond issues of legacy or influence.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Hall Fund.
*Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda
Through August 8, 2026
Revolution Reconsidered explores how visual representations of the American Revolution became, and remain, potent carriers of national history and identity. Beginning with Dartmouth's role in the Revolutionary era, the exhibition revisits well-known images of the American Revolution and traces the reappearance and repurposing of Revolutionary imagery to the present day, asking how each generation reshapes our understanding of US art and history.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the Philip Fowler 1927 Memorial Fund.
*American Pop
December 13, 2025–November 7, 2026
American Pop considers how artists respond to, appropriate, and critique popular imagery from visual culture in what is now the United States. By incorporating familiar symbols from both pop culture and art history, these artists interrogate concepts including consumer culture, settler colonialism, and environmental extraction. Highlighting significant artists from the mid-20th-century Pop Art movement such as Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol, the exhibition also features artists working more recently such as Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Tony Abeyta, and Cannupa Hanska Luger.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Hall Fund.
*Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives
December 20, 2025–July 11, 2026
Inhabiting Historical Time explores slavery's impact and enduring legacies via histories of oppression, resistance, subversion, and resilience. Objects related to these themes range from a 19th-century jug by David Drake, an enslaved man, to civil rights–era photography and contemporary artists' explorations of enslavement and resistance. Inhabiting Historical Time asks how we understand the legacies of slavery and how they continue to shape our nation today.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by The William B. Jaffe Memorial Fund.
*Art Histories/Art Futures
January 10–July 25, 2026
Art Histories/Art Futures features artists who are drawing on a range of histories and positionalities as they create work to look ahead. Because of its central location in the museum's Kaish Gallery, this exhibition will set the stage for the entire 2026 slate of shows and supply the groundwork for how the Hood Museum is thinking about US art histories. The juxtaposition of these artists encourages the viewer to imagine the possibilities of a shared future informed by a variety of perspectives.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the Hansen Family Fund.
*Nurturing Nationhood: Artistic Constructions of America, 1790–1940
February 7–August 29, 2026
Nurturing Nationhood explores how artists defined, perpetuated, and nurtured ideas of nationhood in US and Native American art in the 19th and 20th centuries. While expansive landscape paintings certainly presented one vision of the nation, portraits, textiles, basketry, and other kinds of artworks also contributed to how people understood the connections between their lives and this place. Countering the idea of a single objective truth, however, some of the works in this exhibition shape alternately intersecting and conflicting notions and perspectives, highlighting both contrasting communal knowledge systems and the constantly evolving concept of American nationhood.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the Bernard R. Siskind Fund.
Division of Labor: Work in the United States
July 25–November 7, 2026
Division of Labor explores how artists have visualized labor in the United States from the 19th to the 21st centuries and especially the transition from agriculture to industry to office work. It also examines how visual depictions of labor impact understandings of class, race, and gender. A central work within the exhibition is Lorna Simpson's Corridor (2003), a two-channel video installation that was last on view at the Hood Museum twenty years ago. Division of Labor encourages visitors to consider how art can both challenge and reinforce the ways we have been socialized to think about and value work.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund.
Shared Ground: Asian American Art in Conversation
August 22–November 28, 2026
Shared Ground explores Asian American art from the Hood Museum's collection by focusing on its cultural, social, and intellectual dialogues with broader American art. It seeks both to highlight the significance of Asian American art within the larger context of American art history and to demonstrate its integration into a connected artistic community. This approach ultimately locates Asian American art as an active, participatory element in the contemporary American art scene.
This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the Ray Winfield Smith 1918 Memorial Fund.
Dartmouth Faculty-Curated Exhibitions
Behind the Scenes: Race, Labor, and Stardom in the Hollywood Musical
January 17–March 21, 2026
Behind the Scenes presents selections from the Hood Museum's John Kobal Foundation Collection of Hollywood photography with a focus on the American musical. This exhibition is organized by Desirée Garcia, Chair and Professor, Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and affiliate of the Department of Film and Media Studies at Dartmouth.
American Printmaking
March 28–June 20, 2026
American Printmaking brings together works that highlight the diversity of printmaking in America and the medium's impact upon artists and their work. This exhibition is organized by Tricia Treacy, Chair and Professor, Department of Studio Art at Dartmouth.
*La Mirada Boricua: Making Spaces for Self-Reflection and Decolonial Thought
June 27–November 21, 2026
La Mirada Boricua translates as "The Boricua Gaze," with "Boricua" derived from the Taíno indigenous name for Puerto Ricans. This exhibition explores contemporary Puerto Rican art and the intimate and public spaces it creates for engaging with the archipelago's colonial history, the experience of migration and diaspora, and the possibilities for a decolonial future. This exhibition is organized by Israel Reyes, Chair and Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Dartmouth.
These exhibitions are organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the Harrington Gallery Fund.
Upcoming Sestercentennial-Related Programming
6 February, Friday, 5:00–6:30 pm
WINTER EXHIBITION OPENING RECEPTION
Enjoy an evening of in-gallery exploration, music, refreshments, and remarks from Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director John R. Stomberg.
11 February, Wednesday, 12:30–1:30 pm
EXHIBITION TOUR
Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda
Join exhibition co-curator Elizabeth Rice Mattison for an introduction to the exhibition.
26 February, Thursday, 12:30–1:30 pm
EXHIBITION TOUR
Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives
Join exhibition co-curator Alisa Swindell for an introduction to the exhibition.
11 March, Wednesday, 12:30–1:30 pm
CONVERSATIONS AND CONNECTIONS
Join Trica Keaton, Evans Family Distinguished Professor, Department of African and African American Studies and Departments of Sociology and Film and Media Studies, for an informal discussion around the exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives.
Watch the Hood Museum's website for more events and programming related to the Sestercentennial!