Hirshhorn Museum Launches Nationwide Loan Program for 200 Works
As the United States prepares to mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, is sending a large part of its collection far beyond the National Mall. The Smithsonian Institution museum has announced “50 for 50,” a partnership with the Arkansas-based Art Bridges Foundation that will place more than 200 works in museums across all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
The loans, which will run for three to five years each, are expected to begin appearing in galleries by the end of 2026. Every work selected for the initiative has been held in the Hirshhorn’s storage, and each was chosen by a receiving institution to address a gap in its collection or to strengthen an existing connection. The program is free for the museums that receive the loans.
Melissa Chiu, the Hirshhorn’s outgoing director, framed the effort as a way to widen access to the museum’s holdings. “We wish everyone could visit us so sharing our collection is a must,” she said in a statement. “50 for 50” places important American masterworks from the national collection of modern and contemporary art — which might otherwise sit in storage — into American communities far beyond the National Mall.
The participating museums range from major urban institutions to small-town venues. Among them are the Oakland Museum of California, the Queens Museum in New York, and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico in San Juan. Other recipients include the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art in Owensboro, Kentucky; the Westerly Museum of American Impressionism in Westerly, Rhode Island; and the Brinton Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming.
Roughly 20% of the museums involved are affiliated with higher education, including the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas in Austin and the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University in Bloomington. That mix suggests the program is designed not only for broad geographic reach, but also for local educational use and audience-building.
The eligible works span a wide range of postwar and contemporary practice. Artists whose work may travel through the program include Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Alex Katz, Childe Hassam, Georgia O’Keeffe, Alma Thomas, Yoko Ono, Lawrence Weiner, and Christian Marclay. Which specific works will go to which institutions will be announced later this year.
For the Hirshhorn, the initiative turns storage into circulation. For museums outside the country’s largest art hubs, it offers access to works that can reshape how modern and contemporary art is seen, taught, and understood in local communities.
