Current Exhibitions
A Perfect Power: Motherhood and African Art
Through March 7, 2021
Across central Africa’s matrilineal belt, the most important artworks were those that depicted the female body. In these 19th and early 20th century communities, group identity and familial responsibility flowed through the maternal line. Artists responded to this reality by sculpting visual markers of motherhood onto a range of objects associated with status and authority. In these societies, mothers not only created life and nurtured families, but also stood at the center of the moral order, ensuring the continuity of entire communities. From monumental headdresses of elderly mothers to sculptures that represent mythic female ancestors, this exhibition brings together nearly 40 objects from public and private collections to demonstrate how artists have represented the power of African mothers and used maternal imagery to signal moral, cultural, and spiritual authority.
Stripes and Stars: Reclaiming Lakota Independence
Through March 28, 2021
By the late 1800s, the United States government had confined the Lakota people of North and South Dakota to reservations and had taken away their freedom to roam the plains, hunt buffalo, and practice their religion. Surprisingly, during this same period Lakota women began incorporating the American flag and patriotic iconography into traditional beadwork designs.
Katharina Grosse: Is It You?
Through September 19, 2021
German artist Katharina Grosse’s exuberant large-scale, in-situ paintings explore how and where a painted image can appear in our lives. Often painted directly onto and across architectural structures and objects or into landscapes, her extraordinary, colorful works invite visitors to engage with painting on both a visual and a physical level.
For this exhibition at the BMA, the internationally acclaimed artist has created a new site-related environment, Is It You? The expansive installation has transformed the central gallery in the Contemporary Wing by partially suspending cloth from the ceiling, creating an enveloping “room” with undulating walls. Grosse then spray painted the fabric, allowing the paint colors and the shape of the fabric to combine to form a vibrant and immersive experience for visitors.
Adelyn Breeskin: Curating a Legacy
Through October 2021
Adelyn Breeskin: Curating a Legacy explores Adelyn Breeskin and her extraordinary career as BMA Director from 1942-1962 through archival materials and examples of the beloved works the Museum acquired under her curatorial vision and leadership. Throughout her 32-year career at the Museum, beginning with her tenure as the BMA’s first curator of prints in 1930 and, later, the museum director, Breeskin secured the renowned Cone Collection for the BMA and accomplished countless other achievements, including commissioning the U.S. Pavilion for the 1960 Venice Biennale.
Mickalene Thomas: A Moment's Pleasure
Through Fall 2021
Mickalene Thomas’ immersive two-story installation transforms the BMA’s East Lobby into a living room for Baltimore. The experience extends onto an enclosed terrace where the BMA hosts a series of events, such as film screenings, artist talks, performances, workshops, book clubs, and self-care seminars. Influenced by the 1970s and 1980s, Thomas’ signature aesthetic incorporates geometric patterns, prints, textures, wood paneling, and shag carpeting, among other nostalgic motifs.
Henry Moore and The Pre-Columbian Past
Through February 21, 2021
In 1921, a young Henry Moore (British, 1898-1986) walked through the doors of the British Museum and encountered the stone carvings of ancient America for the first time. Moore was attracted to what he called the “stoniness” of the artworks, their “truth to material,” and sought to emulate this in his own work. As an art student in the early 1920s, he obsessively sketched hundreds of these works to learn how to approach three-dimensional form.
Installation View, Henry Moore and the Pre-Columbian Past. Henry Moore. _The Three Rings_. 1966. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Ryda and Robert H. Levi, Baltimore, BMA 1987.225. © The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved, DACS /www.henry-moore.org
Spencer Finch: Moon Dust
Through October 14, 2024
Spencer Finch’s impressive light installation Moon Dust (Apollo 17), first presented at the 2009 Venice Biennale, will illuminate the BMA’s majestic Fox Court for the next seven years.
Moon Dust (Apollo 17) is on extended loan from the collection of Joanne Gold and Andrew Stern, who are generously sponsoring its presentation at the BMA.
Collection Galleries

American Art
The American Wing includes more than 800 paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts that explore the international character of American art and Baltimore's position as a major center for art production and foreign trade from the late 18th century forward.

Cone Collection
The Cone Collection of modern art is the crown jewel of the BMA, featuring works by Matisse, Picasso, Pissarro, Courbet, and Degas.
Collected by Baltimore sisters Claribel and Etta Cone from the early-mid 20th century, the Cone Collection is one of the world’s most important art collections.

Asian Art
Discover 2,000 years of innovation by Chinese artists from 2nd century BCE to today in this presentation of the Asian art collection. Two galleries feature ceramics, furniture, and painting, as well as bronze, jade, and lacquer objects that showcase the beauty and strength of Chinese art.

European Art
This installation features the monumental Rinaldo and Armida, one of the world's finest paintings by Sir Anthony van Dyck, as well as masterpieces by Frans Hals, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin.

African Art
The BMA's presentation of its renowned African art collection emphasizes the relationships between 85 incredible works, many large-scale, and the lives of the people by and for whom the objects were made. Artists and diverse traditions from more than 40 African empires, kingdoms, and regions are represented.