Past Exhibitions

November 23rd

The Human Zoo by Kent Monkman

Experience the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art’s latest acquisition: The Human Zoo (2015) by Cree artist Kent Monkman (b. 1965).

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Kent Monkman, The Human Zoo, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Museum Purchase. 2022.7a-e

Opening May 20

In the Moment: Art from the 1950s to Now

Contemporary art can capture the political and cultural essence of our time while contemplating and transcending our everyday realities. As time passes, this art connects us with the defining spirit of an era, becoming a visual record of a moment.

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Rashid Johnson, 'Seascape "Milestones"', 2022 Oil on linen; 95 × 122 in. From the collection of Pitt and Barbara Hyde

May 12th - July/August 2023

Sense-ational!: The Art of the Five Senses

Explore how artists convey sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch in their masterpieces. This interactive exhibit will highlight art from Memphis’s art collection ranging from floral watercolor to Cubist prints.

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Walter I. Anderson (American (active in Mississippi), 1903 - 1965), Floral Decorative, 1951, Watercolor, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery purchase, funds provided by the Memphis Park Commission, the Brooks Fine Arts Foundation and Mrs. Walter I. Anderson, 69.7.2

February 15th - April 30th

Art Builds Creativity

This dynamic exhibition features artwork created by the Memphis-area students who participated in the 2022-23 Art Builds Creativity (ABC) program.

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January 27 - October 29, 2023

Tommy Kha: Eye is Another

This site-specific, photography-based installation by artist Tommy Kha explores themes of identity, (in)visibility, and sense of place and is presented as part of the inaugural, state-wide Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art organized by Tristar Arts.

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Tommy Kha, 'Eye is Another', 2022-23, Inkjet prints on Photo Tex, dimensions variable

March 10 - June 25, 2023

Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative

Through her visceral paintings that weave the tales of West African Yorùbà religion, Greco-Roman mythology, and Christianity with artistic techniques of European Old Masters, Harmonia Rosales rewrites the narrative from her perspective in a way that bridges the vastest of oceans and collapses the passing of millennia.

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Harmonia Rosales, 'Migration of the Gods', 2021 Oil with iron oxide and 24 karat gold leaf on Belgian linen mounted on wood panel 36 × 72 in. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Museum purchase, 2022.2

New Acquisition

Memphis on the Mississippi (Ode to Tom Lee)

To further build Memphis' Art Collection, the Brooks has commissioned the Memphis-based artist Carl E. Moore to create a work inspired by our soon-to-be new location Downtown on the banks of the Mississippi River.

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Carl E. Moore, 'Memphis on the Mississippi (Ode to Tom Lee)', 2022. Acrylic on canvas.

January 4 - August 29

Art of the African Diaspora

As conversations around the African Diaspora shift and evolve, so too will this display, aided by the museum actively acquiring works that reflect these varied, global experiences.

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June 10 - January 9, 2023

Monika Grzymala

Grzymala’s work challenges the very definition of drawing and the nature of categorizing artworks - where does drawing end and sculpture begin? What are drawings made from, and how do we experience them?

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Monika Grzymala, Line, London, 2016

Through February, 2023

Henry Ossawa Tanner: The Thankful Poor

This work is one of the artist's last known “genre” paintings—images that depict everyday or ordinary domestic scenes—before he transitioned almost exclusively to religious scenes.

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Henry Ossawa Tanner, American, 1859 - 1937, 'The Thankful Poor', 1894, oil on canvas

March 15 - June 5

Paradise Lost: Albrecht Dürer's Stolen Eden

In the 1970s, a woodcut by one of the world's greatest printmakers, the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, was stolen from the Brooks. This print, the Expulsion of Adam and Eve, was part of a complete set of thirty-six illustrations and a title page known as the Small Passion.

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Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471 - 1528 'The Expulsion From Paradise' (detail), from the Small Passion (1511), ca. 1510, Woodcut, Museum purchase with funds provided by the Estate of W. H. Foote

February 14 - Fall 2022

Faig Ahmed: Secret Garden

Faig Ahmed, the internationally celebrated artist from Azerbaijan, is known for transforming the visual language of traditional eastern carpets into contemporary, sculptural works of art.

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February 4 - May 15

Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds

Created in 1966, Warhol’s Silver Clouds consists of a room full of floating metallic balloons. The balloons are inflated with a proprietary mixture of air and pure helium, enabling them to float mesmerizingly in the space between the floor and the ceiling.

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Silver Clouds, 1966. Andy Warhol, Mixed Media Installation.

February 4 - May 15, 2022

Andy Warhol: Little Red Book

The decidedly unglamorous snapshots of everyday life contained in the Little Red Books demonstrate Warhol’s compulsive desire to capture, collect, and organize his world.

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(L) Andy Warhol, American, 1928 – 1987, Carroll Mallory, August 1972, Dye diffusion transfer print (Polaroid) 4 1/4 × 3 5/16 in. (10.8 × 8.4 cm), Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., 2014.4s (R) Andy Warhol, American, 1928 – 1987, Claude Picasso, August, 1972, Dye diffusion transfer print (Polaroid) 4 1/4 × 3 5/16 in. (10.8 × 8.4 cm), Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., 2014.4q

January 29 - April 17 | April 23 - July 3, 2022

Due South: Ke Francis and Hoopsnake Press

Due South: Ke Francis and Hoopsnake Press is built around seven of Ke Francis’ books that exemplify his work as a narrative artist living and working in the South.

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January 22 - February 20, 2022

Mid-South Scholastic

Since 1989, the Brooks has been proud to partner with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the national non-profit organization which organizes the nation’s oldest and largest student art competition, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, to host the regional competition and exhibition for Memphis and Mid-South area.

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Adele Ferguson, 'Pax'

August 17, 2023 - January 7, 2024

Black American Portraits

Black American Portraits reframes the history of portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters, and spaces. The exhibition chronicles the many ways in which Black Americans have used portraiture to envision themselves in their own eyes.

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Ming Smith, Grace Jones, Studio 54 II, 1979, gelatin silver print, 12 × 18 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, promised gift of Janine Sherman Barrois and Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr. © Ming Smith, digital image courtesy of the artist

November 2023 - October 2024

Rotunda Project: Thomas Jackson

Pennsylvania-based artist Thomas Jackson (b. 1971; Philadelphia) harnesses the wind and lightweight nylon tullein pastel shades to create ethereal works of art that blur the boundaries between landscape photography, sculpture, and kinetic art.

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Thomas Jackson, Tulle no. 34_v2, Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, 2021.

April 2024 - August 2024

Christian Siriano: People Are People

'People Are People' honors famed American designer Christian Siriano’s electrifying contributions to fashion. Drawn from his extensive archive, the exhibition features bold creations from Siriano’s decade-plus career that celebrate self-expression for every body at every age.

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Portrait of the artist, SCAD FASH, Museum of Fashion and Film

May 2024 - October 2024

Hand-made Paper Works from Dieu Donné

Comprised of an eclectic selection of works on paper, this exhibition highlights recent gifts of works produced at Dieu Donné, a leading non-profit cultural institution dedicated to serving established and emerging artists through the collaborative creation of contemporary art using the process of hand papermaking.

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John Shorb, Song of Eve, 2021. Linen pulp paint on a cotton base sheet. 25.5 x 18.75”.

September 2024 - January 2025

Brooks Outside: Jeffrey Gibson

Internationally acclaimed artist Jeffrey Gibson’s (b. 1972; Colorado Springs) outdoor sculptural installation Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House serves as an homage to the ingenuity of Indigenous North American peoples and cultures, to pre-Columbian Mississippian architecture, and to queer camp aesthetics.

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Jeffrey Gibson, Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House

September 2024 - January 2025

Andrea Morales: Run Down Like Water

Memphis-based Peruvian-American photographer Andrea Morales’s (b. 1984; Lima, Peru) portrayal of the Delta South is deeply rooted in the communities she engages with, and because of this, a truer account of this region that is often portrayed through stereotypes, misperceptions, nostalgia, and storytelling.

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Andrea Morales, Kaylin McCain and Jakayla Davis wait for their grandmother to sign up for the Affordable Care Act at Impact Baptist Church in Frayser, a Memphis, Tennessee, neighborhood, in February 2015.

October 2024 - June 2025

Rotunda Project: Rebecca Louise Law

Rebecca Louise Law (b.1980; London, UK) is known for creating immersive installations with natural materials, particularly preserved flowers. Individually sewn and suspended, viewers are invited to navigate through them, discovering the diverse forms, colors and textures of each specimen.

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Rebecca Louise Law, The Womb, 2019-2020. Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Michigan.