Museums Offer New Exhibits For All

Museums are changing what they display all the time, adding and removing items or even entire exhibits. This summer, if you’re looking for something fun and educational, visit these museums and witness some of the exciting new exhibits they have to offer.

Museum of Historic Annapolis

If you want to see Annapolis and how its growth over the years has mirrored America, check out “Annapolis: An American Story.” Opened earlier this year, this exhibit looks at how the city has changed throughout its centuries of existence. With the museum located near City Dock, you’re that much closer to all that Annapolis has to offer. Book tours at www.annapolis.org/historic/americanstory.

Annapolis Maritime Museum & Park

Just down the road from the Museum of Historic Annapolis is the city’s maritime museum where a photography exhibit by Jay Fleming is currently on display. It’s an ever-changing exhibit as Fleming provides new photos from his trips journeying around the Chesapeake Bay. To experience a fun time on the bay, you can purchase tickets for a ride on the Skipjack, the museum’s sailboat. You can even privately charter the boat for events. Buy tickets online at www.amaritime.org or at the door.

Maryland Center for History and Culture

The Maryland Center for History and Culture is immersing visitors in the ongoing fight for Black civil rights with “Passion and Purpose: Voices of Maryland’s Civil Rights Activists.” The installation highlights the voices of Maryland’s civil rights activists through oral histories and photojournalism.

Visitors can listen to and read excerpts from dozens of oral history conversations with notable civil rights leaders — many recorded more than 40 years ago — including Juanita Jackson Mitchell, Clarence Mitchell Jr., U.S. congressman Parren Mitchell, Gloria Richardson, the Rev. Marion Bascom, Esther McCready, Walter Sondheim Jr., Silas Craft Sr., Verda Freeman Welcome, and others.

The center has other events planned for the summer: “Contextualizing Juneteenth in Maryland: Emancipation or Freedom?” (a virtual event on June 16), “A Ride to Remember” (in-person on July 23) and “A Conversation about Oral History — the What and Why” (a virtual event on August 11).

Learn more about these free events at www.mdhistory.org/events.

The Walters Art Museum

The Walters Art Museum is transporting visitors back to the Victorian era now through August 7 with the exhibit “Majolica Mania.” Featuring immersive installations on each floor of Hackerman House, the exhibit includes a recreation of a Victorian parlor complete with faux plants and foods.

Featuring 350 works that highlight the vibrant color of the ceramic’s lead-based glazes and stunning inventiveness, “Majolica Mania” explores themes including the natural world, foods and fashions, class, labor, immigration, and the human cost of majolica’s production.

Learn more at www.thewalters.org/exhibitions/majolica.

The Smithsonian

Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian is home to over 150 million items across its 19 museums, 21 libraries and a zoo. With so many places to check out, here are some of the new exhibits on display:

National Museum of Natural History: If you want to see unusual and memorable pictures of animal behavior, observe the “Unforgettable Behavior: Wildlife Photographer of the Year” exhibit. From a monkey checking Facebook while in a hot spring to flies fighting, there are dozens of unique photographs on display. The exhibit lasts through summer of this year. Another notable exhibit is “Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World.” A fitting exhibit given current global events, this exhibit ends in October 2022.

Museum of American History: One of the newest exhibits in the entire Smithsonian, “Really BIG Money” showcases big money, whether in size, denomination or even quantity, such as an origami goose made out of Venezuelan banknotes. Opened in April of this year, the exhibit’s end date has not been determined.

Baltimore Museum of Art

Organized by both the BMA and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Joan Mitchell exhibit features more than 70 pieces of art, spanning from the 1950s to the late 1980s. This exhibit opened in March and will be on display until August 14.