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Louisville's Black Avant-Garde: William M. Duffy
June 28 – September 29, 2024
William M. Duffy’s upcoming solo exhibition is the second installment of the Louisville Black Avant-Garde series, highlighting local, historically significant Black visual artists active from 1950–1980. This retrospective exhibition spans over 4 decades of creativity and presents not only the sculpture that Duffy is known for, but also his drawings, paintings, and digital art.
Capturing the West: Timothy O'Sullivan, Pioneer Photographer
May 5 – August 25, 2024
This exhibition highlights photographs from Timothy O’Sullivan’s landmark series, U.S. Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian. Hailed by Ansel Adams as one of the most important photographers of the nineteenth century and touted as a precursor to Modernist photographers, O’Sullivan was one of the first to document the western landscape.
Contemporary Art from the South Asian Diaspora
February 28 - May 19, 2024
Presented in tandem with the major historical exhibitions The Throne, The Chase, and The Heart and Elephant in the Room, the Speed Art Museum is proud to mount a special installation of contemporary artworks that explore the vital, wide-ranging, and dynamic perspectives of the South Asian diaspora.
India: South Asian Paintings from the San Diego Museum of Art
February 16 – May 12, 2024
India: South Asian Paintings from the San Diego Museum of Art is the first exhibition of South Asian art to be hosted by the Speed in its nearly 100-year institutional history. Replete with colorful and exquisitely painted portraits and manuscript illuminations reflecting the rich and diverse artistic traditions of South Asia over four centuries, the two exhibitions promise to dazzle visitors of all ages and backgrounds.
Current Speed: Angel Otero/Leslie Martinez
November 17, 2023 – April 14, 2024
The Speed Art Museum is pleased to present a new installation of two recent monumental works by leading contemporary artists Angel Otero (b. 1981, Santurce, Puerto Rico) and Leslie Martinez (b. 1985, McAllen, Texas). Through combinatory practices of material exploration, painterly gesture, and technicolor mark-making, Otero and Martinez both depict broad ideas of our shared humanity, memory, and personal identity. For these artists, abstraction is the kaleidoscopic means of communicating complex, deeply personal narratives and concepts informed by their own lives and familial histories.
The Bitter and the Sweet: Kentucky Sugar Chests, Enslavement, and the Transatlantic World 1790-1865
November 15, 2023 – April 7, 2024
The human desire for sweetness is centuries old. The Kentucky sugar chest—and iterations such as desks, presses, bureaus, and boxes—is an idiosyncratic furniture form made from about 1790 to 1850, specifically for the storage of sugar.
The Bitter and the Sweet: Kentucky Sugar Chests, Enslavement, and the Transatlantic World 1790-1865 will reexamine the objects within the broader, intertwined contexts of the Atlantic economy, the vicious human toll of enslavement, and the complex transportation and merchant systems that brought sugar to Kentucky from the West Indies and sugar-growing regions of the Americas.
Sam Gilliam (1933-2022)
September 16, 2022 - February 18, 2024
The installation, Sam Gilliam (1933-2022) is a celebration of his life and legacy as a Louisville-bred, world-renowned figure in modern and contemporary art.
Stories Retold: American Art from the Princeton University Art Museum
September 29, 2023 – January 7, 2024
This prestigious loan exhibition is an opportunity to present the best of the celebrated collections of American art from the Princeton University Art Museum. Nearly one hundred works spanning four centuries of American art history will be showcased in a wide-ranging exhibition that examines how the meanings of objects change over time, and in different contexts.
Amy Sherald’s Portrait of Breonna Taylor: In the Garden
June 7 - November 26, 2023
The Speed Art Museum is honored to present In the Garden, a special installation centered around Amy Sherald’s portrait of the late Breonna Taylor. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was murdered by Louisville Metro Police officers who illegally entered her apartment in March 2020. In the wake of this event and other violent instances like the Minneapolis murder of George Floyd, massive protests demanding justice and renewed social equality for Black and brown bodies commenced across the world.
¡Afloramos!
September 24, 2023 – November 2, 2023
¡Afloramos! Una exhibictión de artistas latinx | An exhibit of Latinx artists. Curated by Ada Asenjo
Kentucky Women: Alma Wallace Lesch
May 19 – October 29, 2023
Kentucky Women: Alma Wallace Lesch explores the wide-ranging, fiber-based artistic practice of Alma Wallace Lesch (1917-1999) through the themes that defined her work: ruminations on place, memory, nature, faith, female identity, and creative experimentation. The exhibition features significant works by the artist from the Speed’s collection, including a massive nine-foot-tall by fifteen-foot-wide wall hanging, Full Bloom (1966), originally created as commission for Louisville’s former First Lincoln National Bank. Other exceptional pieces come from the holdings of the University of Louisville and from a private collection.
Louisville’s Black Avant-Garde: Robert L. Douglas
June 30 – October 1, 2023
Featuring more than 30 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, Louisville’s Black Avant-Garde: Professor Robert L. Douglas presents rarely seen work from throughout the artist’s career, demonstrating the breadth of his practices and the continued relevance of his work in examining and reflecting the Black community in Louisville.
Rounding the Circle: The Mary and Al Shands Collection
March 24 - August 6, 2023
The Speed Art Museum presents Rounding the Circle: The Mary and Alfred Shands Collection, a major exhibition celebrating the extensive and significant collection of contemporary artworks assembled by the late Alfred R. Shands III (1928-2021) and Mary Norton Shands (1930-2009). This presentation also commemorates the transformative gift of art made to the Speed Art Museum, numbering over 100 artworks.
Space for Belonging: I Am Here
April 30 - June 4, 2023
Space for Belonging: I Am Here is an exhibition that explores the power of sharing your personal story. ‘I Am Here,’ is a bold declaration that demands a claim to the space in which an individual stands.
Kentucky Women: Helen LaFrance
August 26, 2022 – April 30, 2023
Gathering together works drawn from the Speed’s collection and private loans, this exhibition explores the art and life of Helen LaFrance, who documented her western Kentucky rural and small-town experiences with vibrancy and tireless care.
Current Speed: Sky Hopinka
November 16, 2022 – February 19, 2023
The Speed Art Museum is proud to present a new exhibition of work by artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, WA) as the inaugural iteration of the museum’s Current Speed exhibition series.
Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau Visionary
October 21, 2022 - January 22, 2023
Czech-born Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939) was one of the most celebrated artists in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. As an influential force behind the art nouveau movement, he created sumptuous posters and advertising—promoting such everyday products as cigarette papers and tea biscuits—that transformed the streets of Paris into open-air art exhibitions.
Community Connections: The Promise
August 19 – October 23, 2022
Showcases the results of a research and artmaking program which began in March 2022, facilitating collective healing, reflection, and creative expression for members of the Black community in Louisville who have been affected by gun violence.
Pictures from Pieces – Quilts from the Eleanor Bingham Miller Collection
March 18 – August 21, 2022
This installation celebrates the recent, generous gifts of ten American quilts from Louisville’s Eleanor Bingham Miller, an ardent collector of quilts made by Kentucky women.
Can I Grow? The Metamorphosis of the Black Woman By Community Connections Artist-in-Residence Ashlee Phillips
June 24 - August 21, 2022
An immersive experience that invites the community to travel back in time through a range of emotions while being fully immersed in the nostalgia of life.
Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch
March 18 – June 26, 2022
The first survey of quilt-based works—inspired, in part, by the rich creative legacies of African American quilters—produced by the American interdisciplinary artist Sanford Biggers.
Something in the Water by Community Connections Artist-in-Residence Shauntrice Martin
December 5, 2021 – February 20, 2022
Shauntrice's work is a post-modern expression of her journey to reach the other side of the barrier that keeps Black artists trapped by and connected to white supremacy. Her residency focused on children and caregivers in Louisville's Russell neighborhood.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard's The Unforeseen Wilderness
August 6, 2021 – February 13, 2022
This exhibition celebrates the recent acquisition of a remarkable portfolio of 56 photographs depicting Kentucky’s own Red River Gorge by one of the defining photographers of the 20th century.
Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art
October 8, 2021 – January 2, 2022
This exhibition examines the artwork that has shaped our collective imagination of the supernatural and paranormal and asks why America is haunted.
Collecting – A Love Story: Glass from the Adele and Leonard Leight Collection
February 6 – November 7, 2021
The exhibition draws together over 60 works by over 50 artists to illustrate both the Leights’ shared lives as collectors and the stories of international contemporary glass embedded within their collection.
Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art from Paper
February 19 – August 22, 2021
This show-stopping exhibition features life-size, trompe l’œil paper costumes spanning nearly 500 years of fashion, replicating historical garments found in European masterworks and in collections from around the world.
Exploding Surfaces: 1954–1984
Closed August 8, 2021
Features paintings, sculpture, photographs, and ceramics in which artists manipulated media for expressive means and to investigate the physicality and process of making.
Promise, Witness, Remembrance
April 7 – June 13, 2021
This exhibition will reflect on the life of Breonna Taylor, her killing in 2020, and the year of protests that followed, in Louisville and around the world, exploring the dualities between a personal, local story and the nation’s reflection on the promise, witness, and remembrance of too many Black lives lost to gun violence.
Mariam Ghani + Erin Ellen Kelly: When the Spirits Moved Them, They Moved
August 21, 2020 – April 4, 2021
A video meditation on Shaker landscaping, architecture, song, and dance featuring dancers from the Louisville Ballet and Moving Collective. Part of Shaker Commonwealth, a celebration of Kentucky Shaker arts and culture at the Speed Art Museum.
Careful, Neat & Decent: Arts of the Kentucky Shakers
August 21, 2020 – April 4, 2021
Draws together over 50 objects produced during the 1800s at Kentucky’s South Union and Pleasant Hill Shaker communities. These objects explore the wide creative output of Kentucky Shakers, from furniture to fruit preserves. Part of Shaker Commonwealth, a celebration of Kentucky Shaker arts at the Speed Art Museum.
The World Turned Upside Down
July 5, 2020 – March 2021
A re-framing of 18th and 19th century European and American artworks in the Speed’s permanent collection through the lens of social, cultural, economic, and political upheaval and change.
What's New at the Speed?
October 12, 2019 – March 2021
Explore works from the Speed's permanent collection that have recently gone through restoration or are on view for the first time in decades in Gallery One. Displays in the gallery will alternate approximately every six months.
Andy Warhol: Revelation
July 5 – November 29, 2020
A comprehensive examination of the Pop artist’s complex Catholic faith in relation to his artistic production and the largest presentation of the artist's work ever in the region.
Loose Nuts: Bert Hurley's West End Story
December 13, 2019 – November 1, 2020
This exhibition features Loose Nuts: A Rapsody in Brown, a richly illustrated and handwritten 125-page novella set in Louisville’s West End during the 1930s by Bert Hurley, a virtually unknown African American artist from Kentucky.
Tales from the Turf: The Kentucky Horse, 1825 – 1950
November 15, 2019 – March 1, 2020
The first exhibition to examine Kentucky’s relationship to the horse through art, featuring paintings, sculpture, photographs, drawings, prints, and manuscripts to tell the story of the horse in the Bluegrass State.
Kentucky Women: Enid Yandell
July 17, 2019 - August 19, 2022
To celebrate her 150th birthday, the Speed is presenting a fresh look at Enid Yandell’s career, contextualizing the world in which she lived, as a young woman living and working in turn-of-the-century Louisville, Paris, and New York City.
Ebony G. Patterson...while the dew is still on the roses...
June 21, 2019 – January 5, 2020
Organized by the Perez Art Museum in Miami, this exhibition is the single largest solo exhibition in the Speed Art Museum's history and the most significant presentation of Ebony G. Patterson’s work to date, including work produced over the last five years embedded within an immersive environment that references a night garden.
Gonzo! The Illustrated Guide to Hunter S. Thompson
July 12 – November 10, 2019
An exhibition highlighting the professional collaborations (and personal relationships) that Thompson enjoyed with the artists and photographers tasked with illustrating his work, and even more importantly, articulating his vision through visual means.
Yinka Shonibare CBE: The American Library
March 29 – September 15, 2019
Comprised of over six thousand books wrapped in the artist's signature Dutch wax fabric and bearing the names of Americans with significant ties to immigration, this exhibition is a celebration of the diversity of the American population and acts as an instigator of discovery and debate.
Making Time: The Art of the Kentucky Tall Case Clock, 1790 – 1850
February 2 – June 16, 2019
Making Time: The Art of the Kentucky Tall Case Clock, 1790 – 1850 is a first-of-its-kind exhibition devoted to early Kentucky tall case, “grandfather” clocks.
Keltie Ferris: *O*P*E*N*
October 6, 2018 – February 3, 2019
Born in Louisville in 1977, Ferris offers a fresh approach to abstract painting and the exploration of the artist’s identity through the body. Featuring artworks from the last eight years, Keltie Ferris: *O*P*E*N* celebrates an artist who thoughtfully examines the language and history of painting and the meaning of being an artist today.
Picasso to Pollock: Modern Masterworks from the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University
June 16, 2018 – January 20, 2019
Picasso to Pollock: Modern Masterworks from the Eskenazi Museum of Art showcases the impressive early 20th-century art collection owned by the Eskenazi Museum of Art and covers the breadth of nearly every major artistic movement that occurred between the years 1900 and 1950 in Europe and America.
American Storybook: The Imaginary Travelogue of Thomas Chambers
July 21 – January 6, 2019
Thomas Chambers was the first artist working in America to make landscape painting accessible to a wider audience and broader socioeconomic class, tapping into the fascination and interest in travel and exploration.
Norman Rockwell: Process to the Post
August 8 – November 11, 2018
This installation highlights Norman Rockwell’s Study for Breaking Home Ties, a charcoal drawing that served as a preparatory study for the cover of the September 25, 1954, issue of the Saturday Evening Post.
Breaking the Mold: Investigating Gender at the Speed Art Museum
April 7 – September 9, 2018
How can contemporary art facilitate discussions about gender and power? Drawing chiefly from the permanent collection, Breaking the Mold explores depictions of gender identity through the body, dress, objects, and history.
Thoroughly Modern: Women in 20th Century Art and Design
December 16, 2017 – July 1, 2018
The exhibition presents the work of several women artists and designers active in the early and mid-twentieth century (1900–60).
Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism
February 17 – May 13, 2018
The groundbreaking exhibition Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism broadly surveys a key chapter in art history in which an international group of female artists overcame gender-based restrictions to make remarkable creative strides.
BRUCE CONNER: FOREVER AND EVER
November 11, 2017 – March 4, 2018
BRUCE CONNER: FOREVER AND EVER featured video projections and works on paper by the multidisciplinary American artist and experimental film pioneer Bruce Conner (1933–2008).
The Wonderland Museum: Hidden Marvels from the Speed's Collection
December 10, 2016 – November 26, 2017
To mark the Speed’s 90th anniversary in 2017, The Wonderland Museum plumbs the Museum’s collection to reveal curious treasures of art and history, many of which have rarely been on view.
Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art
April 30 – October 14, 2017
Southern Accent is the first contemporary art exhibition to question and explore in-depth the complex and contested space of the American South.
Southern Elegy: Photography from the Stephen Reily Collection
March 17 – October 14, 2017
Reflecting the complex history of the American South, the images in this exhibition address the themes of loss, ruins, beauty, and violence, through evocative images of the South’s natural landscape, architecture, and residents.
Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals Zodiac Heads
October 15, 2016 – September 24, 2017
Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads is comprised of twelve animals derived from the Chinese astrological calendar of years, weeks, and hours.
Picturing American Indian Cultures: The Art of Kentucky's Frederick Weygold
January 7 – March 26, 2017
This comprehensive exhibition features highlights from the Speed’s American Indian collection, along with paintings, drawings and photographs by Louisville artist and ethnographer Frederick Weygold.
A New World in My View: Gifts from Gordon W. Bailey
November 5, 2016 - March 19, 2017
The Speed Art Museum has received a major gift of 35 contemporary artworks from the Los Angeles-based scholar, advocate, and collector Gordon W. Bailey. All 21 artists, most African-American artists from the southern United States, featured in this gift are making their debuts in the Speed Art Museum’s permanent collection.
Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture
September 10 – November 27, 2016
A comprehensive exploration of the sneaker, from its origins in recreational pastimes to its emergence as a symbol of celebrity status and urban masculinity.
Gaela Erwin: Reframing the Past
July 30 – November 27, 2016
A new collection of pastels commissioned by the Speed and inspired by eighteenth- and twentieth-century pastels from the Speed’s permanent collection.
Kentucky Captured: Photographs Inspired by the Bluegrass State
March 12 – July 17, 2016
Kentucky Captured surveyed the many ways in which the Bluegrass State has inspired photographers in the twentieth century.
From City to Country: Nineteenth-Century French Prints
Dates: August 6 – January 2, 2016
This exhibition features the works of two artists, Maxime Lalanne and Adolphe Appian, whose urban and rural views reflect a taste for landscape etching popular in France during the later 1800s. Not only do their landscapes exhibit a renewed interest in naturalism, but they also document changes to the urban landscape and shifting attitudes toward the native French countryside.
Teatime Chic: Ceramics 1900-1960
March 6 – July 25, 2015
From bold and colorful to white and austere, the tea and coffee services displayed in Teatime Chic illustrate changing definitions of "modern" over the course of sixty years. The pieces proclaimed their owners' modern sensibilities to those who joined them at the table.
Discovering the Earth
August 1 – October 25, 2014
With seventeen examples of traditional African pottery spanning from Nigeria to South Africa, Discovering the Earth explored the techniques used to produce these timeless forms, how the objects were used and the significance they held in society. This exhibition marked the first time that many of these objects, all from the Speed’s collection, will be on view to the public.
Art of the Streets: The French Poster, 1880-1930
April 4 – July 19, 2014
This exhibit featured intimate versions of well-known prints by master printmakers such as Jules Chéret, Henrí Toulouse-Lautrec, and others, displaying the dazzling heights of the French poster. Rarely shown, the prints were donated to the Speed in 1949 as a gift from the French Gratitude Train — 49 boxcars filled with gifts sent to Americans in appreciation for supplies given to France and Italy following World War II.