Sackler Gallery To Temporarily Close for Updates and Revitalization July 10

Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Reopen Oct. 14 With Weekend Celebration
March 6, 2017
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Museum exterior

The Freer Gallery of Art is undergoing renovations and upgrades to its galleries and infrastructure and has been closed for the past year. The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will also temporarily close its doors starting Monday, July 10, to allow for reinstallation of the exhibition galleries and to refresh elements of the facility in order to improve the museumgoer’s experience.

The exhibition “Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan” will remain open to the public through Oct. 29 in the International Gallery. It is accessible through the S. Dillion Ripley Center, located on Jefferson Drive.

The Freer and Sackler galleries will reopen Saturday, Oct. 14, with a weekend of events and activities for all ages.

Details on renovations and updates on the Freer|Sackler reopening can be found at atasia.si.edu/future/.  

Administrative offices will remain open while the museums are closed to the public and the library and archives will remain open for research. Although the library will continue standard operating hours, scheduled appointments are recommended. The archives will maintain existing operating hours and will be accessible by appointment only.

About the Freer and Sackler Galleries

The Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and the adjacent Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., together comprise the nation’s museum of Asian art. It contains one of the most important collections of Asian art in the world, featuring more than 40,000 objects ranging in time from the Neolithic to the present day, with especially fine groupings of Islamic art, Chinese jades, bronzes and paintings and the art of the ancient Near East. The galleries also contain important masterworks from Japan, ancient Egypt, South and Southeast Asia and Korea, as well as the Freer’s noted collection of works by American artist James McNeill Whistler.

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Jennifer Mitchell

202-251-4892
mitchellja@si.edu