Shepherds and Plowhands: Work and Leisure in the Nineteenth Century

January 18 – April 24, 2005

The collection-based exhibition gathered scenes of rural labor and leisure by various nineteenth-century French artists: Charles Daubigny, Charles Jacque, Jean-Fransçois Millet, Féix Buhot, Alphonse Legros, Camille Pissarro, Maximilien Luce and others. 

Paper Museums: The Reproductive Print in Europe, 1500-1800

February 3 – May 15, 2005

As relatively inexpensive, transportable, and storable objects, prints had an important place in the culture of Renaissance and Baroque Europe. 

Jacques Callot and the Etched Series

February 8 – April 3, 2005

The endlessly inventive etchings of Jacques Callot (1592–1635) make him one of the most important printmakers of the early seventeenth century, or indeed of any period. 

Objects of History: The Boone Collection of Japanese Art

April 9 – June 12, 2005

This intimate exhibition drew from more than 3,500 Japanese objects in the Boone Collection of the Field Museum in Chicago—traditionally a place for "material culture"—and brought scroll paintings, woodblock prints, and decorative arts objects from the later Edo to Taisho periods (18th–20th centuries) to an art museum context. 

Quiet Revolutions: Modernizing Traditional Art in East Asia

May 10 – November 6, 2005

The twentieth century was a period of extraordinary social and political transformation throughout East Asia. 

Centers and Edges: Modern Ceramic Design and Sculpture, 1880-1980

June 2 – September 18, 2005

This exhibition examined how American and European artists reimagined the potential of clay as an artistic medium.

Syncopation: André Lhote, Louis Marcoussis, and the Cubist Print

June 18 – September 11, 2005

This exhibition featured two cycles of Cubist prints by André Lhote, Louis Marcoussis in the Smart Museum collection. 

The Poetry of Shijo Surimono

September 17 – December 11, 2005

Celebrating the sophisticated literary and artistic culture of nineteenth-century Japan, the social elite of the day commissioned artists and publishers to create costly and intricate prints called surimono. 

Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art

October 6, 2005 – January 15, 2006

Whose Land?: European and American Landscapes, 1600-1900

November 22, 2005 – April 23, 2006

Featuring European and American masters from the Smart Museum collection, this exhibition focused on exchange among landscape traditions, while questioning the usefulness and limitations of conventional geographic classifications.