The Oklahoma City Museum of Art presents three to four Museum-organized exhibitions and national/international traveling exhibitions in its first floor gallery annually. These exhibitions feature a wide variety of subjects, styles, and media, ranging from the art of ancient Egypt to French impressionism to emerging contemporary artists. Additionally, rotating exhibitions of the Museum’s permanent collection are regularly presented throughout the second and third floors, which are segmented into twelve galleries and feature both temporary and permanent displays, such as Illuminations: Rediscovering the Art of Dale Chihuly.
In January 2009, the Museum launched the NEW FRONTIERS Series for Contemporary Art, which presents the work of individual artists and current perspectives in the field. Exhibited on the Museum’s third floor, the series was created to provide a framework for the exchange of ideas between the Museum, artists, and the community and to advance the visual arts. NEW FRONTIERS connects the Museum to the international dialogue on contemporary art and emphasizes the importance of the art-of-our-time as a critical and dynamic part of our daily lives.
Since moving to the Donald W. Reynolds Visual Arts Center in 2002, the Museum has presented nearly 80 exhibitions. Highlights include Americans in Paris: 1850-1910; George Washington: A National Treasure; Millet to Matisse: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century French Painting from Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow; Tempests and Romantic Visionaries: Images of Storms in European and American Art; and Temples and Tombs: Treasures of Egyptian Art from The British Museum; The Baroque World of Fernando Botero; Paris 1900; Roman Art from the Louvre; Harlem Renaissance; Jason Peters: Anti.Gravity.Material.Light; Sketch to Screen: The Art of Hollywood Costume Design; and La Serenissima: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Art from North American Collections.
