Past Exhibitions


Past Exhibitions


1  2   3   4   5   6   NEXT
  • Richmond Barthé

    October 7, 2011 thru January 15, 2012

    An active member of Harlem’s artistic renaissance, Richmond Barthé created compelling works that emphasize the expressive potential of the body’s movement and physiognomy.

  • Viet Nam, Nebraska

    September 23, 2011 thru January 8, 2012

    California artist Binh Danh is interested in the history of the land, especially to those who have been uprooted from their first homes. As a Vietnamese refugee who arrived in the US in 1979 at the age of 2, Danh believes resettling means carrying one’s cultural tools with them in order to “remake a new land in our image.” Through this exhibition he hopes explore the history of the Vietnamese community in Lancaster county. From the first to the last settler, this history project will take us to contemporary times.

  • Trenton Doyle Hancock: Fix

    August 12, 2011 thru October 23, 2011

    The Sheldon will show all eighteen prints from Doyle’s Fix portfolio—a collaboration with the Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions at New Jersey’s Rutgers University and a recent acquisition for the museum—as part of its focus on African American artists.

  • Grant Wood in Focus in the Sheldon Focus Gallery

    August 2, 2011 thru October 2, 2011

    Recently, scholars have reevaluated Grant Wood’s art and life in light of his sexual orientation: a closeted gay man, the painter shaped his identity as a folksy regionalist in an effort to deflect any questions about his homosexuality, positioning himself as a manly antidote to the effete big city artist. Grant Wood in Focus—opening August 2 and running through October 2—reveals tantalizing clues about the artist’s sexual orientation.


  • John Marin: Playing on Paper in the Sheldon Focus Gallery

    June 3, 2011 thru July 24, 2011

    John Marin, unquestionably the greatest American watercolorist of the 20th century, was also an accomplished pianist who thought of music and visual art as deeply connected ways of responding to human experience. This exhibition showcases a little-seen group of objects from the Sheldon’s permanent collection, offering a concise introduction to Marin's long career and a rich sense of how he worked to translate his playful joy in the visual world onto paper.

  • The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art: Works on Paper

    May 20, 2011 thru September 25, 2011

    The 55 works on paper in this exhibition date from the late 1800s to 2002 and represent just a fraction of what is contained in the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of San Antonio, Texas, one of the country's major repositories of African American art.

    The Kelley Collection is accompanied by a selection of works in a variety of media from the Sheldon Museum of Art's collection of African American masters, which is itself indebted to the imagination and resolve of collectors like the Kelleys.

  • Of Heads and Hands: Aaron Holz

    March 22, 2011 thru May 15, 2011

    Of Heads and Hands is built around a series of paintings in the circular tondo format by University of Nebraska professor Aaron Holz.

  • Transforming Vision: Photographic Abstraction in Sheldon's Collection

    February 4, 2011 thru May 29, 2011

    Transforming Vision: Photographic Abstraction in Sheldon’s Collection opens February 4, 2011 and is part of Photofest, Lincoln’s biennial, citywide celebration of the medium. Transforming Vision emphasizes the camera's ability to alter our view of reality, not just capture it. Featuring approximately 40 works from the Sheldon Museum of Art’s permanent collection by major artists such as Harry Callahan, Barbara Crane, Arthur Siegel, Henry Holmes Smith, and Edward Weston, the exhibition examines photography’s reputation as a reproductive or straightforward medium, questioning the validity of photographic objectivity itself.

  • An American Taste: The Rohman Collection

    January 21, 2011 thru May 1, 2011

    The Rohman name has been synonymous with the artistic and cultural life of Lincoln and greater Nebraska for decades. As benefactors, donors, and patrons, the family has been recognized on buildings and walls throughout the city and state, but they have enriched the region’s cultural heritage in less visible ways too numerous to count. An American Taste: The Rohman Collection pays tribute to the family’s generosity to, and legacy at, the Sheldon Museum of Art through their special and unparalleled contribution to the institution: their art collection.

  • Poetical Fire: Three Centuries of Still Lifes

    January 21, 2011 thru May 7, 2011

    Opening January 21, Poetical Fire: Three Centuries of Still Lifes features approximately 60 examples of the genre from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including ceramics, paintings, photography, prints, and sculpture.

  • Sheldon: A Winter Gem

    December 1, 2010 thru December 31, 2010

    Escape the cold with the Sheldon

  • Recent Acquisitions: Exhibition Highlights from the Sheldon Permanent Collection

    November 19, 2010 thru January 2, 2011

    Recent Acquisitions features highlights from the past two years of collecting at Sheldon and gives both our new and regular visitors an opportunity to review-in miniature- the scope of our holdings and direction of our collecting activities.

  • Day of the Dead

    October 26, 2010 thru November 14, 2010

    Day of the Dead Festival at the Sheldon

  • New Material World: Rethreading Technology

    October 8, 2010 thru January 2, 2011

    This survey exhibition highlights ten contemporary artists from Canada, Denmark, Japan and the US, who are using new material and manipulating old material in new ways through the use or rejection of modern technology.

  • ORLAN: The Harlequin Coat

    September 17, 2010 thru January 30, 2011

    Multilayered French Artist ORLAN presents her collaborative installation at Sheldon.

  • Jeffrey Randall: Outsider

    August 6, 2010 thru October 17, 2010

    Work from Lincoln Artist Jeffrey Randall.

  • Parallel Starts: Outsider Art Inside Collections

    August 6, 2010 thru October 17, 2010

    Parallel Starts: Outsider Art Inside Collections looks at the challenge of defining outsider art and how the inclusion of outsider art in museum collections blurs the boundaries between the two worlds. The exhibition is drawn mainly from the Sheldon Museum of Art’s permanent collection and a selection of works by Jeffrey Randall, a Lincoln, Nebraska, artist.

  • Seductive Subversion:
    Women Pop Artists, 1958-1968

    July 30, 2010 thru September 24, 2010

    Organized by the University of Arts in Philadelphia, this is the first exhibition of female Pop artists.

  • Flowers, Lies and Revolution: Contemporary Cuban Art

    May 21, 2010 thru July 18, 2010

    This exhibition examines the intersection between personal and national histories in post-revolutionary Cuba.

  • Voyage to Italia: Americans in Italy in the 19th Century

    May 7, 2010 thru September 5, 2010

    Voyage to Italia: Americans in Italy in the 19th Century explores the journeys taken by American travelers in through artworks inspired by Italy’s tradition of art and beautiful landscapes.