Interior installation photograph inside a room with intricate carved molding. Objects displayed behind a series of tall folding screens.
Duro Olowu Selects: Works from the Permanent Collection
Previously On View: Friday, March 18, 2022 to Sunday, August 28, 2022

Duro Olowu Selects is the twentieth installment in Cooper Hewitt’s Selects series, which invites designers, writers, and cultural figures to explore and interpret objects in the museum’s collection. This exhibition is curated by Nigerian-British designer Duro Olowu who has received international recognition for his eponymous fashion label, textile designs, and curatorial work, which take inspiration...

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Close-up photograph of a section of objects displayed behind plexiglass in a white gallery. In the center of the glass display case is a long, horizontal-rectangular cream canvas mounted on the wall with an intricate olive-green repeating design of leaves and flowers with accents of orange and light green. Underneath is a row of silver objects placed on a clear glass shelf, including two shallow silver baskets with their handles up on the left, a silver tea urn in the shape of Atlas supporting the world in the center, and two elaborately-decorated cylindrical tea caddies on the right. On either side, also behind glass, are two recessed windows with cream blinds drawn down, in front of them are two white platforms, on each stands a golden three pronged candelabra.
Foreign Exchange: 18th-Century Design on the Move
Previously On View: Friday, January 28, 2022 to Sunday, September 25, 2022

Drawing from Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection, this exhibition explores the unprecedented circulation of labor, skills, aesthetics, and luxury goods across international borders in the 18th century. It traces the movement of people, ideas, and objects across borders, challenging notions of foreign and domestic, community member and outcast, and national style. The desire for luxury goods...

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Black and white photograph of a group of students in a room studying different styles of textiles.
Sarah & Eleanor Hewitt: Designing a Modern Museum
Previously On View: Friday, February 4, 2022 to Sunday, October 23, 2022

Sarah & Eleanor Hewitt: Designing a Modern Museum chronicles the colorful lives and contributions of the dynamic sisters and explores how they created The Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration. Through archival photography and documents, personal drawings and correspondence, news clippings and ephemera, the exhibition introduces the sisters as educators, collectors, and philanthropists....

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Watercolor study of yellow squash or pumpkin blossoms, with green vines, on white paper
Sophia Crownfield: Drawn from Nature
Previously On View: Friday, February 4, 2022 to Sunday, July 31, 2022

From the 1890s to the 1920s, Sophia Crownfield (American, 1862–1929) designed prints for some of the most prominent silk and wallpaper manufacturers in the United States. Her drawings of flowers range from delicate graphite sketches to vivid color studies, revealing her obvious ease with different types of specimens. Through progressive stages of rework, she developed...

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View exhibitions prior to 2015 on the collection site