BMA Opens Engaging the Elements: Poetry in Nature in September

The exhibition features nearly 20 artworks that explore humanity’s evolving relationship with nature through depictions of the elements

BALTIMORE, MD (August 6, 2025)—On September 17, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will open Engaging the Elements: Poetry in Nature, a focus exhibition that highlights the powerful role nature plays in our lives and imaginations. Nearly 20 photographs, prints, drawings, and textiles from the BMA’s collection illustrate how artists have captured the beauty and force of the natural world through images of air, water, earth, and fire. Engaging the Elements: Poetry in Nature explores the ways art connects us to nature and can spark meaningful conversations about preservation and ecological awareness. The exhibition will be on view through February 8, 2026.

Depictions of the elements have long served as a way to communicate humanity’s appreciation for both the beauty of and threat within nature. Against this overarching backdrop, Engaging the Elements demonstrates how attitudes toward the environment have shifted and continue to evolve through time, from the rise of widespread industrialization in the 19th century to the current climate challenges. Through works like William Morris’ handmade floral textile Rose (1883); Larry Schwarm’s dramatic Wheat Stubble Fire, Eastern Colorado (1992, printed 2004); Yao Lu’s deceptive View of Waterfall with Rocks and Pines (2007); and Jowita Wyszomirska’s dazzling Nothing Gold Can Stay 2 (2023), nature is presented as a creative catalyst worth celebrating and protecting.

Other highlights include rarely shown works on paper such as Winslow Homer’s Coconut Palms (1893), Thomas Moran’s The Gathering Storm Cloud (1893), and Kiki Smith’s Tidal (1998) portfolio of photogravures and photolithographs. In these artworks and others, the elements both mirror our relationship with the Earth and become meaningful communicators for shaping a more sustainable future.

“Engaging the Elements features a beautiful and poignant array of works that inspire us to reflect on the natural world’s enduring potency to compel us, to connect us, and to fill us with a sense of awe,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “These intrinsic aspects of nature, captured so powerfully in art, also create meaningful opportunities for conversations about our role in preserving and sustaining the environment that gives us so much.”

The exhibition is co-curated by Leslie Cozzi, BMA Curator and Department Head of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, and Andaleeb Badiee Banta, former BMA Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.

Engaging the Elements: Poetry in Nature is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.

 

Turn Again to the Earth

About the Baltimore Museum of Art

Founded in 1914, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) inspires people of all ages and backgrounds through exhibitions, programs, and collections that tell an expansive story of art—challenging long-held narratives and embracing new voices. Our outstanding collection of more than 97,000 objects spans many eras and cultures and includes the world’s largest public holding of works by Henri Matisse; one of the nation’s finest collections of prints, drawings, and photographs; and a rapidly growing number of works by contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds. The museum is also distinguished by a neoclassical building designed by American architect John Russell Pope and two beautifully landscaped gardens featuring an array of modern and contemporary sculpture. The BMA is located three miles north of the Inner Harbor, adjacent to the main campus of Johns Hopkins University, and has a community branch at Lexington Market. General admission is free so that everyone can enjoy the power of art.