Lesley Vance in Revolutions: Art from the Hirshhorn Collection, 1860-1960
17 January—29 November 2026
Group exhibition at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., USA
Revolutions is a major collection exhibition marking the Hirshhorn Museum’s 50th anniversary; it traces the radical changes in art-making that took place during the turbulent first half of the 20th century through the highlights of the Hirshhorn’s collection. Given the size of the collection and the necessity of limiting display time for light-sensitive works, the show, which opened in 2024, has rotated more than a hundred new works over the course of the exhibition.
Revolutions follows a roughly chronological approach, with sections devoted to Impressionism and Realism, early abstraction, Dada and Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and other artistic movements. It delves into the Museum’s in-depth holdings of work by landmark painters such as Willem De Kooning, Joaquín Torres-García, and Georgia O’Keeffe, and sculptors such as Alberto Giacometti, David Smith, and Dorothy Dehner.
Throughout the exhibition, the chronological flow is periodically interrupted by contemporary artworks installed on brightly colored, floating walls to open dialogues across history, showing how the ideas and approaches employed by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artists still resonate today.