Current Exhibits
On display now in the John L. Wehle Gallery!
Color Me Calico: A Taste for Prints & Parties
ON VIEW THROUGH OCTOBER 2026
This new exhibit invites visitors on a vibrant journey through the consumption of printed cotton textiles of 19th-century America. From the simplicity of plain muslins to the intricate patterns of chintz and calicos, this exhibit will explore America’s every-growing taste for colorful and affordable printed cottons. Garments and textiles exhibited will highlight the technological advances that facilitated the production of colorful designs on cotton by the mile, helping to establish cotton calico as the fabric of common people in the 19th-century.
The introduction of cotton calico fabrics to Hodinöhsö:ni’ communities forever altered their traditional regalia. Exhibited Hodinöhsö:ni’ garments will provide guests with the opportunity to explore how this community’s sartorial identity evolved across the 19th century, ushered on by the trade of calico cottons, and attempts to both assimilate into and resist Western influence in dress.
This exhibit will display garments of cotton calico worn by everyday Americans, providing visitors a tangible sense of 19th-century middleclass fashionable life. The economy of calico as affordable and accessible, along with its colorful appeal, will be highlighted using extant originals from the Bruce & Susan Greene Costume Collection, supplemented by lending institutions.
Stay tuned for more information about this exhibit and its exciting programming!
Everybody's Going to be There: The American Rural Cemetery Movement
ON VIEW THROUGH OCTOBER 2025
The concept of a rural cemetery challenges the notion of burial spaces as being gloomy or frightening places. Rather, the rural cemetery acts as a social center with a living ecosystem – a place for scenic respite.
This new exhibit explores how 19th-century Americans managed public health concerns, developed a new appreciation for green space and wildlife, and ensured their memorialization in a newly established public space: the rural cemetery. “Everybody’s Going to be There” presents a wide variety of fine wildlife art, maps, memorial art, natural animal and geological specimens, mourning jewelry and stationery, and cemetery tourism ephemera of the 19th-century.
Perceived Realities: Wildlife, Land, and Myth
ON VIEW NOW
New to the John L. Wehle Gallery as of February 2024 is a semi-permanent exhibit titled Perceived Realities: Wildlife, Land, and Myth. This new exhibit features some of the finest pieces of sporting and wildlife art collected by John L. Wehle himself.
Visitors will explore works by notable names such as John James Audubon, Bruno Liljefors, Carl Rungius, and Bob Kuhn and their elevation of animal art into the realm of wildlife fine art. The exhibit also delves into the changing landscape of 19th-century Rochester, NY, through oil painting, and invites visitors to reconsider the concept of the American cowboy.
Past Exhibits
Voices and Votes: Democracy in America
When American revolutionaries waged a war for independence they took a leap of faith that sent ripple effects across generations. They embraced a radical idea of establishing a government that entrusted the power of the nation not in a monarchy, but in its citizens. That great leap sparked questions that continue to impact Americans: who has the right to vote, what are the freedoms and responsibilities of citizens, and whose voices will be heard? Voices and Votes: Democracy in America will be a springboard for discussions about those very questions and how they are reflected in local stories.
Voices and Votes is based on a major exhibition currently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. This Museum on Main Street adaptation will have many of the same dynamic features: historical and contemporary photos; educational and archival video; engaging multimedia interactives with short games and additional footage, photos, and information; and historical objects like campaign souvenirs, voter memorabilia, and protest material.
Becoming Gendered: Garment as Gender Artifact
This exhibit explored how 19th-century Americans performed and navigated the changing landscape of gendered fashion. Becoming Gendered offered guests, a wide variety of historic gendered garments for men, women, and children spanning over a century. Hegemonic gendered clothing for adult men and women is compared to the development of recreational and leisurewear. Understructures for men, women and even children are exhibited as evolving tools worn to achieve gendered ideals. Becoming Gendered: Garment as Gender Artifact was on view May 2023 – November 2024.
Exhibit sponsor:
Duck, Duck, Shoot! The Story of American Waterbirds
This exhibit explored the hunting of waterbirds, moving from sustenance hunting to excessive hunting, from near destruction of waterbirds to an environmentally conscious and sustainable American pastime. Wildlife artists, public awareness of waterbirds, advancements in hunting technology, legislative efforts, and a taste (literal) for waterfowl underpin this evolution across the centuries. Duck, Duck, Shoot! was on view May 2022 – October 2023.
Exhibit sponsor:
Consuming Desires: The Great American Wedding
This exhibit examined the American wedding from parlor to industry giant. How did we move from intimate family gatherings to large, opulent public spectacles? Marriage was explored as a pathway to legal personhood for Americans of color. The property rights of married women begs the modern audience to ask exactly who owns all this finery once the walk down the aisle is completed. “Consuming Desires” was on view throughout the 2021 and 2022 seasons and closed to the public in October of 2022.
Nature's Chain: The Land and Our Place in It
The Genesee country has seen many changes over thousands of years of settlement. Native animal populations were replaced by new species. Canal and town building in the 19th century altered the contours of the landscape. Today, the land is shifting again due to invasive species of both plants and animals, the climate, and from human use.
Wildlife artists particularly felt the desire to both document the natural world and work toward habitat preservation and public education. This spirit of conservation continues today as artists use their medium to raise awareness of climate change, habitat preservation, and sustainable practices.
Fan Favorites
“Fan Favorites” featured fine art, housewares, historical clothing and textiles, 19th-century agricultural technologies, musical instruments, material culture, and ephemera chosen from across our collections as favorite pieces. This colorful exhibit opened to the public on Labor Day Weekend, 2020, and enjoyed a successful two-year run, closing in November 2021.
Looking West
This exhibit presented a stunning group of 14 paintings from the Taos Art Colony collected by Jack Wehle. In the late 19th century, as the Old West was slowly vanishing, a diverse group of American artists was drawn to the remote New Mexico village of Taos. There, the Old West lived on in the unspoiled landscapes and the native Pueblo peoples. The dramatic colors, mountains, and ancient Pueblo culture lured these artists from their New York studios to New Mexico’s villages where they produced a distinctly American style of art and one of the few regional schools that gained international recognition.