America at 250

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the Cleveland Museum of Art is marking this milestone with a year of exhibitions showcasing the breadth of voices, practices, identities, and traditions that have shaped American art and culture. Through wide-ranging programming that underscores the ongoing evolution of American art, the museum invites audiences to reflect on how artists across American history have shaped this nation.

That reflection begins with still/emerging: Native American Works on Paper, which presents the museum’s expanding collection of prints and drawings by Indigenous artists from the 1950s to today. These works highlight the distinct histories and perspectives of artists from numerous tribal affiliations, underscoring that Indigenous voices are foundational to American art.

Martin Puryear: Nexus brings a sweeping view of the artist’s sculpture to Cleveland. The exhibition highlights the global histories that have shaped Martin Puryear’s (American, born 1941) practice, offering a timely perspective on his work. Both the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue draw on traditions of craftsmanship, African American history, and the natural world. The sculptures of Puryear—one of America’s most significant contemporary artists—demonstrate how abstraction carries cultural memory, reminding us that American art has long been shaped by global exchange and influence.

The fall season reexamines one of the country’s most recognized artists. Spectacular Freedom: Andrew Wyeth and the Modern American Watercolor presents nearly 75 works, many of which have never before been exhibited. The exhibition offers new insights into the artist’s early decades, emphasizing his engagement with watercolor at a time when it was seen as a distinctly national medium suited to depicting the American experience.

Later that season, The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends centers on Amos’s suite of 48 watercolor portraits depicting female artists and writers within her community. Painted from life and conceived as a gift for her daughter, the series offers a powerful reminder that American art is sustained not only by individual vision but by communities of support and shared purpose.

The Cleveland Museum of Art honors the richness and complexity of our shared past by foregrounding the artists and works that have shaped it, while creating space for dialogue about the future. At this milestone moment for our country, the museum reaffirms its role as a place where access to extraordinary works of art and rigorous new scholarship deepen understanding of the nation’s legacy and invite fresh perspectives on how that legacy continues to evolve.