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Current Exhibitions

Saint Jerome and the Lion (detail), c. 1495. CMA, 1946.82
Sunday, March 26, 2023 to Sunday, July 23, 2023

The core of this exhibition is the Cleveland Museum of Art’s masterpiece by Tilman Riemenschneider, Saint Jerome and the Lion, produced for the Benedictine abbey church of Saint Peter in Erfurt, Germany, depicting a legend in which Jerome kindly removes a thorn from a lion’s paw. Our exhibition reunites Saint Jerome with another Riemenschneider work from the same church in Erfurt, the alabaster statuette The Virgin Mary of the Annunciation in the collection of the Louvre. These works are exceptionally rare, as they are two of only a few extant alabaster sculptures produced by Riemenschneider, with Saint Jerome being the only example in an American collection. The majority of the objects in the exhibition come from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art and allow insight into the production of alabaster sculptures in this period. A few loans from North American museums complement the exhibition.

An image of a man sitting in a nature setting with an attendant and standing bird
Friday, May 12, 2023 to Sunday, November 5, 2023

When Salt Was Gold: Yangzhou, City of Riches and Art features more than a dozen paintings, from monumental wall hangings to intimate album leaves, from the museum and private collections that illustrate the artistic production of Yangzhou, the most flourishing city of 18th-century China.

A detail image of an abstract painting of four thick black vertical lines on a tan background
Friday, April 28, 2023 to Sunday, October 22, 2023

This thematic display, including works by Lee Bul, Yun Hyong Keun, and Lee Ufan, explores how artists have manipulated materials and techniques as affective modes of communication to voice their thoughts, beliefs, and emotions.

His Highness Maharaja of Rewa, c. 1885–87. Albumen print. CMA, 2016.266.17
Sunday, April 23, 2023 to Sunday, August 13, 2023

In 2016, the museum acquired 37 photographs made by Raja Deen Dayal (1844–1905), hailed as the first great Indian photographer. This exhibition marks the Cleveland debut of these rare images, all of which come from a single album and were shot in 1886 and 1887, an important juncture in the artist’s life. On display alongside Dayal’s photographs are historical Indian paintings, textiles, clothing, and jewelry from the museum’s collection. These objects provide viewers with insight into the cultural context and help translate the objects in the photographs from monochrome into color.

A detail still image of a smiling girl in front of a painting in a gallery
Tuesday, April 11, 2023 to Sunday, July 30, 2023

Girls / Museum explores the collection of the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig in Germany from the perspective of a group of girls aged 7 to 19. Shelly Silver’s video converges contemporary and historical frameworks, encouraging the viewer to investigate the lens through which we examine art today.

Cyra, c. 2000–2022. Yasmine Yeya (Egyptian, b. 1981). © Maison Yeya. Photo: Ziga Mihelcic
Saturday, April 1, 2023 to Sunday, January 28, 2024

Egyptian art has long served, and continues to serve, as a primary inspiration for fashion designers, solidifying the legacy of Egyptomania—the influence of the art of ancient Egypt. This exhibition, on view in the CMA’s textile and Egyptian galleries, brings together around 50 objects that explore the influence of Egyptomania in fashion by juxtaposing contemporary fashion and jewelry loaned from around the world with fine and decorative artworks from the CMA collection. Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession examines designers’ interpretations of themes such as Egyptian dress, funerary process, and religion that shape our contemporary perceptions of ancient Egyptian culture.

Friday, March 10, 2023 to Sunday, September 17, 2023

The Hindu epic Ramayana, or “Rama’s Journey,” was a source of inspiration for artists throughout India. Working in different contexts, they continually reimagined the way scenes and characters should be depicted.

Sheet of Studies and Sketches, 1858. Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917). Graphite, pen and dark brown ink, and watercolor on thick ivory wove paper
Friday, January 20, 2023 to Sunday, June 11, 2023

Drawing transformed radically in 19th-century France, expanding from a means of artistic training to an independent medium with rich potential for exploration and experimentation.

Fourth-Phase Chief’s-Blanket Style Rug, c. 1900. Diné (Navajo) female artist. CMA,1937.903
Friday, December 9, 2022 to Sunday, December 3, 2023

Newly on display from the permanent collection are two Diné (Navajo) garments from the late 1800s—a woman’s dress and a rug woven for the collector’s market, modeled on the Diné shoulder blanket. Also new on view is a watercolor from the 1920s by the Pueblo artist Ma Pe Wi (Velino Shije Herrera), who was key to a major development in Southwest Indigenous arts as Natives took control of representing their own cultures after centuries of marginalization.

Mantle or Hanging, 1480–1635. Central Andes, Chimú or Chimú-Inka. Cotton. CMA, 2005.5.1
Friday, December 9, 2022 to Sunday, December 3, 2023

The six textiles in the current installation from the permanent collection were made by weavers of the ancient Chimú civilization, which took root on Peru’s north coast in the year 1000. The garments—fabricated from undyed, white cotton and surely worn by Chimú nobility—represent the major articles of ancient Andean men’s wear. They embody important principles of the Chimú textile aesthetic, one being a love of combining different textures, some dense and sculptural and others so open and airy they are nearly invisible.

White Sake, c. 1934. Tateishi Harumi. Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on paper. CMA, 2022.44
Friday, October 14, 2022 to Sunday, June 18, 2023

Japanese art underwent major changes with the opening of Japan to international trade in the mid-1800s. Aside from a small number of Chinese residents and a limited trade relationship with the Dutch, Japan had been closed off to interaction with people from other nations since 1639. As a result, its 1854 trade agreement with the United States, rapidly followed by treaties with European nations, generated a seismic shift in Japanese culture. Japan went from being an isolated country operating under a military regime to a country with imperialist ambitions and a representative government almost overnight. Artists who had worked within traditional patronage and workshop systems found themselves competing in a global arena and redefining what it meant to create “Japanese art” in the modern world.

2011.65
Friday, August 26, 2022 to Sunday, July 30, 2023

Books of hours were immensely popular devotional books in the later Middle Ages. Meant for laypeople or those not in the clergy, books of hours were at-home companions containing daily prayers as well as prayers for specific occasions, such as death, plague, warfare, travel, or bad weather.

CMA, 2020.220 (detail)
Friday, December 10, 2021 to Sunday, July 2, 2023

Seventeen rarely seen or newly acquired works have been installed in the African arts galleries. These 19th- to 21st-century works from northern, central, western, and southern Africa support continuing efforts to broaden the scope of African arts on view at the CMA.