A Museum in the Making

Art collector and American industrialist Charles Lang Freer founded the country’s first national art museum (that’s us!). Long before that, however, he worked with artists, architects, and designers to transform his Detroit home into a place for displaying art in new ways. To celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, we partnered with the Freer House to tell the story of this bold experiment in art and design, which continues to shape our galleries today.

Delve into artworks by American painters James McNeill Whistler, Dwight William Tryon, and Thomas Wilmer Dewing. Explore Michigan’s Pewabic pottery and ceramics from China, Japan, and Syria. And throughout, learn about American icons who helped create unique objects and spaces to display these works, such as architect Stanford White and Mary Chase Perry Stratton, a key figure in the U.S. Arts and Crafts Movement.

Freer used his home to test ideas about exhibition and design. Discover how his collaborators harmonized frames, lighting, walls, windows, and even furniture with the artworks on display. Travel virtually to Detroit with a video walk-through of the present-day Freer House. Then find the echoes of those choices in our museum, from the skylights to the courtyard. This group of artists worked together to try out something different—their work has shaped the National Museum of Asian Art into a place for everyone to learn about, explore, and experience art.