The Dayton Art Institute has announced an extensive 2026 exhibition calendar anchored by three major traveling shows and a series of rotating focus exhibitions drawn from recent additions to the museum’s permanent collection. The year’s programming spans American watercolor and civil rights history, folk textile art, feminist art, and photography from multiple global traditions.

The centerpiece of the summer schedule is Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice, on view June 27 through Sept. 13. The exhibition reunites all 34 paintings from Johnson’s mid-1940s series for the first time since 1946, depicting Harriet Tubman, Mahatma Gandhi, Nannie Helen Burroughs, William Grant Still, and other figures in the history of civil rights and social justice. The fall season brings Wall Power! Spectacular Quilts from the American Folk Art Museum (Oct. 17-Jan. 10, 2027), showcasing approximately 20 quilts from the mid-19th to late 20th centuries, including works by Amish communities and African American makers. The year began with Tony Foster: Exploring Time, A Painter’s Perspective (Feb. 21-May 17), which organizes the British watercolorist’s field-based nature documentation into themes of geological, biological, and human time.

A yearlong rotating focus exhibition, Exploring Feminism (Feb. 7-Jan. 31, 2027), draws from the newly acquired Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Collection to trace the history and causes of the feminist movement. Additional focus exhibitions include Symbols of Hope: Eunshin Khang (March 14-June 7), All the World’s a Stage (May 16-Aug. 9), Getting Technical: Alternative Photographic Processes (July 18-Oct. 25), Looking for Japan: Early Japanese Photography (Sept. 5-Nov. 29), and Good Book: Bible Stories from the Collection (Nov. 14-Feb. 14, 2027). The Dayton Art Institute is located at 456 Belmonte Park North. Admission and hours information is available at daytonartinstitute.org.

Source: Ohio Magazine