America at 250: Cleveland Museum of Art's Year of Exhibitions Celebrating American Artists

The Cleveland Museum of Art is marking the 250th anniversary of America’s founding through a dynamic year of exhibitions exploring the breadth, complexity, and ongoing evolution of American art. 

From Indigenous works on paper and Martin Puryear’s expressive abstract sculptures to Andrew Wyeth’s innovative watercolors and Emma Amos’s celebration of community, these programs draw on the museum’s collection, alongside key partnerships and loans, to foreground artists whose work reflects the diverse histories, cultural traditions, and creative networks that continue to shape the American experience. 

Visit the museum this year to engage with American art that deepens our understanding of this nation’s past, while simultaneously inviting us to consider how art continues to shape our future.

Featured Exhibitions

Spectacular Freedom: Andrew Wyeth and the Modern American Watercolor

Explore Andrew Wyeth’s innovative watercolor practice through more than 100 works from the artist’s estate—most never previously exhibited—alongside a selection of his tempera paintings. Spectacular Freedom: Andrew Wyeth and the Modern American Watercolor offers a fresh perspective on a celebrated American artist’s early decades, highlighting his engagement with watercolor at a time when it was seen as a national medium, distinctively suited to depicting American experiences. 

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Watercolor painting of a grassy hill

Untitled, 1962. Andrew Wyeth (American,1917–2009). Watercolor on paper;54 x 75.6 cm. Wyeth Foundation for American Art Collection, M0261.©Wyeth Foundation for American Art / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Martin Puryear: Nexus

Martin Puryear’s (American, born 1941) singular work across mediums illuminates the expressive potential for abstraction in our time. Martin Puryear: Nexus highlights the global histories that have inspired Puryear’s practice, offering a fresh and timely perspective on his impactful body of work. While accentuating the art’s visual allure, this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue shed light on the ways that the artist’s unique visual vocabulary has been shaped by his enduring interests in global traditions of material culture, African American history, and the natural world.   

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Sculpture of a red abstract shape

Big Phrygian, 2010–14. Martin Puryear (American, b. 1941). Painted red cedar; 147.3 x 101.6 x 193 cm. Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland. © Martin Puryear, courtesy of Matthew Marks Gallery  

still/emerging: Native American Works on Paper

still/emerging: Native American Works on Paper is the first exhibition to highlight the Cleveland Museum of Art’s rapidly expanding collection of prints and drawings by Native American artists. Around 30 works created from the 1950s through today highlight the unique histories and perspectives of Indigenous artists from a number of backgrounds and tribal affiliations. 

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Colorful print of a Native American man with a wolf headdress on

His Hair Flows like a River, c. 1978. T. C. Cannon (Kiowa-Caddo, 1946–1978), Maeda Kentaro (Japanese, c. 1891–1987), Matashiro Uchikawa (Japanese, active 1900s), Aberbach Fine Art (New York).

The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends

Emma Amos: Among Friends centers on Amos’s monumental portrait series The Gift (1990–94), which was recently acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art. This suite of 48 watercolor portraits, painted from life, depicts women artists, writers, and curators in Amos’s intergenerational community. Made as a birthday present for her daughter India, The Gift animates the importance of creative kinship as a source of strength, support, and inspiration, which Amos learned from her mother. Marking the first time The Gift has been displayed in nearly 20 years, this exhibition as well as its accompanying catalogue and digital resource illuminate the context for this work’s production and its legacies. 

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Watercolor portrait of a woman

The Gift: Lorna Simpson, 1990–94.Emma Amos (American, 1937–2020).Watercolor; sheet: 66.2 x 50.5 cm.The Cleveland Museum of Art, J.H. Wade Trust Fund, 2023.126.31.© Emma Amos; Courtesy of RYAN LEE Gallery, New York

American Printed Silks, 1927–1947

Between the late 1920s and late 1940s, the US was a leader in printed silks used in fashionable attire and interiors. This exhibition showcases printed silks in the CMA’s collection from four American companies—Stehli Silks Corporation, H. R. Mallinson and Company, Silks Beau Monde, and Onondaga Silk Company.   

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Red printed silk with a blue pattern

Americana Prints: Pegs (No. 668),c. 1927.Charles Buckles Falls (American,1874–1960). 1928.587

Community Voices

America250: Looking Back, Dreaming Forward

The national observance of America250 asks us to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. Our own lived experiences shape how we view the history of the United States, resulting in a range of stories, interpretations, and perspectives. 

The Cleveland Museum of Art is proud to share a variety of these perspectives, featuring the voices of 10 artists on staff as they explore connections to a shared history through art. Each staff partner selected an artwork from the museum’s American Collection and responded to this question, “When you look at this work, what connections do you see between its story and our shared American history?” 

Also on display are the voices of eight community members who took part in a Community Voice project. They were asked to share what the American Dream

Learn About Community Voices
Rural field of grain with a dark cloudy sky above

Gray and Gold, 1942. John Rogers Cox (American, 1915–1990).

Programming