“A Museum in the Making” Is a Window Into the Design and Collaboration Behind First National Art Museum in the US
“A Museum in the Making” highlights the ideas and relationships that allowed art collector Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919) to use his Detroit home as a “living laboratory” for museum design before founding America’s first national art museum in Washington, D.C., the Freer Gallery of Art, through a bequest to the Smithsonian. Running from Saturday, June 27, 2026, to Saturday, Aug. 8, 2027, at the museum he founded, now part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, the exhibition was designed in close collaboration with the Freer House in Detroit, and is an integral part of the museum’s celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary. It is also part of the Smithsonian-wide celebration of the anniversary: Smithsonian’s 250th: Our Shared Future.
“Freer was fiercely dedicated to sharing his Asian and American art collection to foster intercultural exchange and understanding when few other American museums had such a goal,” said Chase F. Robinson, director of the museum. “This vision made the museum what it is today. Now, on our country’s 250th, visitors can get a glimpse of the imagination, innovation and collaboration that turned this vision into a reality.”
Born in Kingston, New York, Freer built a successful career in the railroad car manufacturing industry in Detroit, which was then a rich industrial and cultural hub. Freer settled in the city’s architecturally renowned Ferry Avenue in a custom-designed house, in which he incorporated unique design features unlike the opulent characteristics of his neighbors’ Gilded Age homes. He favored harmony, simplicity and repose, and he prioritized the display of his extensive Asian and American art collection.
Collaborating with artists and architects in his network, Freer used his house as a blank canvas to experiment with designs purposefully intended for integrating art within their setting. He applied what he learned to the museum’s design, creating intimately scaled galleries connected with arched doorways and lit with leaded-glass skylights. The exhibition highlights these elements of the Freer House, including a video walkthrough of the home, which still stands in Detroit.
The variety of American paintings and Asian ceramics housed in Freer’s domestic quarters and their gallery spaces will also be showcased in the exhibition, paired with the stories behind their acquisition and display. Artists highlighted in the exhibition include James McNeill Whistler, celebrated American painter and one of Freer’s closest friends; famed architect and frame-maker Stanford White; and Mary Chase Perry Stratton, the founder of the Detroit landmark, Pewabic Pottery, and a friend of great artistic influence to Freer.
“Because of our partnership with Freer House and their careful preservation of this distinctive space, we are able to share the story of this house as an icon of Detroit and key piece of our history,” said Diana Greenwold, the museum’s associate director for curatorial affairs, Lunder curator of American art and the exhibition’s lead curator. “This exhibition will show that the collaborations and ideas behind the Freer House were unique in the early 20th century and formed the blueprint for America’s first art museum on the National Mall.”
Continued Connection With Freer House in Detroit
As part of its collaboration with the Freer House, the museum will lend an interactive 3D scan of one of Freer’s most famous possessions, the Peacock Room by Whistler. Later in the year, the house will project the scan for public viewing, expanding its access digitally to those who may not be able to visit the room in person in Washington, D.C. The 3D scan will also be an early glimpse into the museum’s Peacock Room virtual reality project, which is expected to be released in 2027, in celebration of the room’s 150th birthday.
Leading up to the exhibition’s opening, Robinson will deliver a special lecture Sunday, June 7, on Freer’s ties to Detroit. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters will introduce the lecture. Robinson will be available for interviews Monday, June 8.
These events are part of the museum’s commitment to honor the nation’s 250th anniversary on-site, online and on the road.
About the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art opened in 1923 as America’s first national art museum and the first Asian art museum in the United States. It now stewards one of the world’s most important collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present. The museum also hosts an important collection of 19th- and early 20th-century American art.
Through an ambitious program of collection, conservation, exhibitions, programming and research, the museum serves as a global and national resource for understanding the arts and cultures of Asia and their interaction with America, past and present. By presenting the arts and cultures of Asia in their extraordinary diversity, the museum aims to exemplify foundational ideals of curiosity, creativity and respect. In a world growing ever more interdependent, the museum values cross-cultural understanding as a crucial element of personal and collective well-being.
Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the museum is free and open 364 days a year (closed Dec. 25). The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum, education and research complex and welcomes millions of visitors yearly. For more information about the National Museum of Asian Art, visit asia.si.edu.