The countdown to the 250th anniversary of America’s independence has begun, and museums are already lining up celebrations to mark the milestone. Far from empty flag-waving exercises, these exhibitions richly explore the nation’s founding ideals and contested histories through the lenses of art and artifacts. What did independence mean then—and what does it mean now? Here are 10 shows that encourage reflection as much as a deep reckoning.
Through the Artistic Imagination
“Democracy Matters” at The New York Historical, New York
June 19, 2026–January 10, 2027
Johannes Oertel, Tearing Down the Statue of King George III (1852-53). Courtesy of New York Historical.
Why does democracy matter? What does it look like in action? These are some of the questions posed by this show, which inaugurates the Tang Wing for American Democracy at a moment when this form of government is under profound threat all over the world. The show will get into issues like voting, freedom of speech and of worship, and land rights. Works by historical artists like Thomas Cole and contemporary artists like Mel Chin, Fritz Scholder, Nari Ward, and Lady Pink will appear alongside historic documents such as an early printing of the Declaration of Independence—and its counterpart, the loyalists’ Declaration of Dependence (actually a thing!). One piece that resonates strongly with recent U.S. history is Johannes Oertel’s painting Tearing Down the Statue of King George III (1852–53), showing that a moment of Black Lives Matter-inspired iconoclasm in the U.S. has historical precedents.
“America at 250” at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Opening June 19, 2026
Fritz Scholder (La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians and American), Bicentennial Indian (1976). Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The MFA Boston is reshuffling its 18th-century galleries for the first time in 15 years for this show, which integrates fine and decorative; Native and non-native; North, South, and Central American; and Caribbean art to dig into how artists have contributed to or resisted concepts of nationhood and identity. Get ready for some bold juxtapositions, like Gilbert Stuart’s unfinished 1796 portrait of George Washington with a recently acquired work by Mohawk artist Alan Michelson, who offers a critique of the Father of America, known to the Mohawk Nation as “Town Destroyer.” Also included will be Paul Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl (1768), an early piece of American protest art that pays tribute to a group of rebels who paved the way for the Revolution, and a ceramic jar, inscribed with a written message, by the enslaved potter and poet David Drake that exemplifies literacy as an act of resistance.
“Amy Sherald: American Sublime” at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.
September 19, 2025–February 22, 2026
Amy Sherald, (2014). Courtesy of Whitney Museum of American Art.
Sherald’s comprehensive retrospective—which originated at SFMOMA before traveling to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York earlier this year—touches down at the NPG in time for the institution to mark the nation’s semiquincentennial. The sweeping survey celebrates the painter’s evocative portraiture, which recenters the Black figure in the contemporary canon; her powerful images of Breonna Taylor and First Lady Michelle Obama are featured. The show is a homecoming of sorts for Sherald: the artist debuted her work at the museum in 2016, when her portrait took the top prize in its Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. With “American Sublime,” Sherald also becomes the first contemporary Black artist to open a solo show at the NPG.
“A Nation of Artists” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
April 12, 2026–September 2027
Frederic Edwin Church, Pichincha (1867). Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Two venerable institutions, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, join forces on this show, which features pieces from the collection of Phillies owner John S. Middleton and his wife Leigh. Including over 1,000 works of fine and decorative arts, it will be the city’s most extensive show of American art ever. It will feature historic artists like Mary Cassatt, Frederic Edwin Church, and Horace Pippin as well as contemporary practitioners like Rina Banerjee, Mickalene Thomas, and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith among other indigenous, immigrant, and under-represented creators. On public view for the first time will be more than 120 works from the Middletons’ collection, including examples by Childe Hassam, Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, and John Singer Sargent.
“State Fairs: Growing American Craft” at the Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
August 22, 2025–September 7, 2026
Liz Schreiber, State Fairs: Growing American Craft (2024–2025). Courtesy of Liz Schreiber.
The Smithsonian Institution bills this show as the first ever to deal with artists’ contributions to the great American tradition of the state fair. Spanning more than 240 works from the mid-19th century to the present by artists and 4-H clubs from 43 states and tribal nations, the show takes in features like heritage villages, parades, dairy barns, and rodeos. There’s no shortage of novelties. Viewers will see the size-96 boots of Big Tex, from Texas’s state fair; a life-size cow made of butter by Iowa’s official butter sculptor, Sarah Pratt; and a pyramid of 700 glass jars holding preserved fruits and vegetables, by star canner Rod Zeitler, also from the Hawkeye State. What’s more, artist Justin Favela offers the site-specific installation Capilla de Maíz (Maize Chapel), exploring the significance of corn with shimmering gold-fringed walls that combine two Mexican art practices, cartonería and the lavish Churrigueresque ornamentation of 18th-century Mexican Catholic churches.
“Fighting for Freedom: Black Craftspeople and the Pursuit of Independence” at DAR Museum, Washington, D.C.
Through December 31, 2025
Unidentified photographer, Pennsylvania, Craftsperson with a Hammer (ca. 1863).
How can crafts give voice to a righteous cry for freedom? That’s the question posed by this show, co-curated by the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive and spanning more than 50 objects, including furniture, metals, ceramics, textiles, art, tools, and personal accessories. It features items created by free and enslaved craftspeople and artisans, men and women, some named, some not, from the 18th through the 21st centuries, starting in the Revolutionary War years, when Black people were already calling for liberation. Among them is a table made for Thomas Jefferson’s use by John Hemmings (half-brother to Sally) and a gorgeous silver coffeepot from Charleston, South Carolina, likely created by a Black silversmith named Abraham. Following its DAR outing, the show will travel to the Gibbes Museum of Art, Historic New Orleans Collection, the Tennessee State Museum, and the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.
A Fresh Historical View
“The Declaration’s Journey“ at the American Revolution Museum, Philadelphia
October 18, 2025–January 3, 2027
A Pennsylvania Evening Post printing of the Declaration of Independence on July 6, 1776 from the Museum’s collection, and a commemorative printing of the Indian declaration, on loan from the Swarthmore College Peace Collection. Courtesy of Museum of the American Revolution.
In 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was ratified, Philadelphia printer John Dunlap set to work producing the first poster-sized editions of the proclamation to be dispatched to the states. Today, only 25 of Dunlap’s printings survive—one of which anchors the American Revolution Museum’s forthcoming show that traces the Declaration’s impact. At the exhibition, the Dunlap broadside joins other rare iterations of the historical text—a German-language copy, the first newspaper printing—as well as documents of the independence movements in some 100 other nations. Similar charters from India, Ireland, Haiti, and Mexico, among others, are going on view to explore how the principles—and contradictions—of the American Declaration of Independence resonated across the globe.
“Transformed by Revolution” at Concord Museum, Concord
October 3, 2025–February 22, 2026
Joseph Siffred Duplessis, (1778). Courtesy of Concord Museum.
What did the American Revolution mean for communities across a young nation? Concord Museum, in one of its three exhibitions commemorating America’s 250th year of independence, will unpack how the idea of belonging took shape around and after the 1775 war. Furniture and domestic objects will shed light on the efforts of postwar mutual aid organizations, while textiles capture intimate narratives of childhood and family. Harvard College’s temporary relocation to Concord in 1775 (its so-called year of exile) is also explored here through 18th-century scientific equipment loaned from Harvard University, as well as a rarely seen portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis. The spotlight, however, belongs to the show’s gathering of maps, land records, and other archival materials that chart the networks of care established by Black and indigenous groups in the face of postwar precarity.
“Facing Freedom in America” at Chicago History Museum, Chicago
Spring 2026
A copy of the Declaration of Independence in the collection of the Chicago History Museum. Courtesy of Chicago History Museum.
Festivities at the Chicago History Museum kick off with a refresh of its long-running exhibition “Facing Freedom in America,” which explores the many ways Americans have sought to define freedom—whether through the struggle for citizenship or public protest. Throughout 2026, the institution will also unveil new works created by four artists in response to the nation’s founding documents. Local artist Vida Sačić has created a type-based piece that engages with the Declaration of Independence; Barrett Keithley, founder of arts organization Paint the City, will reflect on the U.S. Constitution; painter Dorian Sylvain will contemplate the Thirteenth Amendment; and multidisciplinary artist Carlos Flores’s portable monument will tackle the Northwest Ordinance.
“In Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness” at the National Museum of American History, Washington D.C.
Spring 2026
Thomas Jefferson’s portable desk. Courtesy of Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
The Smithsonian institution is going all out for America’s 250th with a major show spanning its three floors, bringing together 250 objects that represent key chapters in the nation’s history. The star-spangled banner that U.S. soldiers raised at Fort Henry after a decisive victory over British forces in 1812? Check. The desk on which Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence? Check. And the U.S. Navy gunboat that was part of the fleet that held off British forces in 1776? It’ll be here, too, undergoing an ongoing, onsite conservation. Other rarely exhibited artifacts will be on view as well.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
