NEW EXHIBITION
A nayika tricked by her lover’s friend, Vidushaka Nayaka; folio from the “Third” Rasamanjari. India; Himachal Pradesh, Nurpur, circa 1710–1715. Opaque watercolor, ink, and gold on paper. National Museum of Asian Art, Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection—funds provided by the Friends of the National Museum of Asian Art, S2018.1.14
Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas
February 6 – June 7, 2026
Featuring more than 40 works of art, Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas displays colorful court paintings from present-day India dating between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. These small, portable paintings were produced for royal and noble patronage by artists practicing unique artistic techniques. Influenced by the region’s culture and politics, they portray moments of leisure, religious devotion, and political positioning, and were given as gifts between regional nobility, families, and political allies. Many paintings portray devotional acts meant to connect with the divine; others depict individuals and couples who yearn for romantic dalliance; still others portray rulers and noblemen who longed to be at the center of political control. Organized around the theme of “longing,” the exhibition encourages visitors to experience art as multisensorial. Select paintings are paired with olfactory stations, touch opportunities, and musical soundscapes to heighten the work’s bhava (emotion or mood) and to encourage multiple ways to physically, intellectually, and emotionally connect with art.
RELATED PROGRAMS
CAM Presents: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms
Lecture by Curator Dr. Ainsley M. Cameron
Thursday, February 5, 2026 from 6-7pm
Free with museum membership
Explore the colorful court paintings displayed in Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas in a lecture that pairs painting with a live musical performance encouraging audiences to experience art as multisensorial.
Sunday Sounds: In-gallery musical performance
Sunday, February 8, 2026 from 1-2pm
Free
Original musical performance inspired by the exhibition Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas.
CAM Kids Day
Saturday, March 7, 2026 from 10am-3pm
Free
PAST EXHIBITION
Zhang Jin 張錦 (Chinese, ca. 1450s–1520s), Daoist Immortal Han Xiangzi, late 15th century, hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, Museum Purchase: Gift of the Duke and Duchess of Talleyrand-Perigord, by exchange, 2011.70
Rediscovered Treasures
September 19, 2025 – January 18, 2026
Free Exhibition Tours Every Thursdays, 6:30–7:30pm
Evenings for Educators: Rediscovered Treasures, Thursday, January 15, 2026, 4-7pm
The Thomas R. Schiff Gallery (Gallery 234 & 235)
Rediscovered Treasures features nearly 60 artworks selected from the Cincinnati Art Museum’s East Asian Art collection. Each tells a fascinating story of its rediscovery through scholarship or conservation, fulfilling two key goals of the museum’s mission: interpreting and preserving the cultural objects in our care.
The museum acquired the core of its East Asian collection in the late nineteenth century when Cincinnati became a flourishing cultural center in the Midwest. These early acquisitions were often left unidentified, misidentified, or sometimes not accessioned at all due to a lack of information at the time. However, over the past two decades, new research on these works and others in the East Asian collection has led to many exciting discoveries, providing not only new information about the objects themselves, but also their histories and provenances.
Be sure to join all the related programs!
To learn more, click here.
SPECIAL FEATURE EXHIBITION
Ritual Form of Inspiration, 2016, Tomita Mikiko (Japanese, b. 1972), glazed porcelain, Lent by the Carol and Jeffrey Horvitz Collection, L11.2024, © Tomita Mikiko, Photography by Makoto Omotaka
Influence(d): Female Innovators in Contemporary Japanese Design
January 14, 2025 –January 11, 2026
Gallery 136
Highlighting the work of 10 contemporary Japanese female artists who are challenging the boundaries of design in ceramics and fashion, this multimedia special feature explores their exceptional achievements through the lens of influence. Each artist simultaneously has influence—through their cultivation of distinctive practices, techniques, and philosophies—and is influenced, drawing inspiration from their teachers and peers, their surroundings and the natural world, and even their own rich interior lives.
Equally celebrating these contemporary artists for their roles as vital innovators in their respective fields and as female creatives in historically male-saturated spaces, this new display encourages us to consider their multifaceted experiences and even reflect on our own creative pursuits in a new way.
To learn more, click here.
PERMANENT COLLECTIONS
South Asian Art, Islamic Art and Antiquities Collections
The Cincinnati Art Museum’s department of South Asian Art, Islamic Art, and Antiquities is honored to steward distinguished collections that include over five thousand works of art. Tracing a trajectory that begins with neolithic period objects from the ancient Middle East, the collection promotes the arts and cultures of a vast geographic region over centuries. Recently, the collection has expanded to include contemporary works from artists based in greater South Asia and the Middle East, as well as diasporic artists in the US and Europe.
The arts of historic South Asia (often defined as modern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) are represented through architectural fragments, decorative arts, and paintings. The arts of the Islamic World (defined as countries where Islam was/is widespread, and here concentrates on the Middle East and Central Asia) includes strengths in ceramics, metalwork, and the calligraphic arts.
At the center of the ancient collections are the architectural fragments from Khirbet et-Tannur. As the most significant collection of Nabataean material outside of Jordan, CAM is committed to the research, conservation, and display of these works for visitors and scholars alike. The ancient Mediterranean collection features notable examples of sculpture and ceramic vessels from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.
The department generates new scholarship through collection-based research, presented to our audiences through exhibitions, publications, and digital projects.
To learn more, click here.
East Asian Art Collection
The East Asian Department of Cincinnati Art Museum covers the arts of China, Japan, and Korea. The Museum acquired its first East Asian art works in 1881, making it one of the oldest museum collections of East Asian art in the United States.
The Chinese art collection spans nearly five thousand years, from the Neolithic to the present. Major strengths of the current holdings are ancient ritual bronzes of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, Buddhist sculptures from the sixth to the nineteenth centuries, ceramics from the Neolithic period to the Qing dynasties, and paintings from the thirteenth to the twentieth century.
The Japanese art collection of nearly 5,000 works is the largest of the East Asian collection, which includes: ceramics, paintings, prints, metalwork, sculptures, objects in lacquer and ivory, and other forms. The collection is especially rich in the arts of the Edo period. The Korean art collection includes ceramics, metal and lacquer works, paintings, prints, and textiles.
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