Events &amp; Exhibits

Lasting Impressions: People, Power, Piety

This exhibition explores individual stories and family histories, the concept of status, developments in popular piety, and the inner workings of the state as shown through the intricate impressions on lead seals.

Garden Centennial

The Garden Centennial recognizes a century of stewardship and preservation of the Dumbarton Oaks Gardens through celebrations and exhibits.

Ancient Art at Dumbarton Oaks

In this online exhibit, explore a selection of ancient Mediterranean art in the collection, which offer an opportunity to consider the continuities and changes in artistic production from the classical to the medieval period.

Enjoy Dumbarton Oaks Safely

Learn more about Dumbarton Oaks’ response to COVID-19, virtual opportunities, and plans to reopen the museum and gardens to visitors.

Upcoming Events

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Jun 02, 2022 - Jun 03, 2022

Cultural Capital: Philanthropy in the Arts and Humanities Today

A conference that brings together thought leaders who share their insights about the role, impact, and critique of philanthropy in the cultural sphere.

Jun 08, 2022

The Cathedral of St. Sophia, Kyiv

Roundtable discussion with Thomas Dale, Ioli Kalavrezou, and Sofia Korol’

Jun 09, 2022

Martha Schwartz: “My Brilliant Career & Long and Winding Road”

Garden and Landscape Studies Public Lecture

Recorded Events

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Apr 22, 2022

Lacunae of Art History and Kyiv’s Visual Culture

A Lecture by Olenka Z. Pevny

Nov 04, 2021

Water, Copper, Wak’as, and Empire: Late Prehispanic Political Ecology in the High-Altitude Atacama Desert

Frances Hayashida discusses how access to water and copper helps us understand local organization in the Atacama Desert under Inka rule and requires us to rethink purely economic explanations for imperial incorporation and actions.

Special Exhibitions

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A Century in the Gardens Exhibit

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Beatrix Farrand’s design of the Dumbarton Oaks landscape, the exhibit includes archival images, as well as newly commissioned photographs, selections from the Rare Book Collection, and a design timeline.

A Beautiful Dichotomy: Contrasting Pre-Columbian Peruvian Ceramics

This exhibition brings together 8 pairs of ceramic works, providing an opportunity to appreciate the extraordinary dichotomy of stylistic traditions across ancient cultures and geographies.

Lasting Impressions: People, Power, Piety

November 23, 2021–November 2022 | This exhibition explores individual stories and family histories, the concept of status, developments in popular piety, and the inner workings of the state as shown through the intricate impressions on lead seals.

Music at Dumbarton Oaks

Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss designed Dumbarton Oaks to be beautiful without and within, filling the gardens with flowers, the library with rare volumes, and the house itself with fine art and music. Music at Dumbarton Oaks, founded in 1946 as the Friends of Music, continues this tradition with classical concerts from established and rising musicians.

The 2020–2021 Music at Dumbarton Oaks concert series has been postponed to 2021–2022. Please read this message for more information.

Learn More Early-Career Musician Residency

Online Exhibits

Explore curated selections from across our collections in a series of online exhibits. Select recent exhibits below, or view them all.

Lasting Impressions: People, Power, Piety

Each lead seal is a small witness to an individual Byzantine and how they chose to present themselves. In exploring what seal owners said about themselves and how designs changed over a millennium, this exhibition evokes the world in which Byzantines, from empresses to bathhouse attendants, lived.

Colonial Epidemics and Mesoamerican Medicine in Sixteenth-Century Mexico

This exhibition explores epidemics and medicine through documents penned by Indigenous scholars and artists during the sixteenth century, at the height of societal collapse, and reflects on the colonial origins of health inequality in the Americas.

Margaret Mee: Portraits of Plants

Centered on the paintings of botanical artist Margaret Mee, this exhibit explores the traditions of women botanical artists and illustrators primarily using materials from the Rare Book Collection.