JUNE 2025—The Taft Museum of Art has selected visual artist Ayana Ross as the 2026 Duncanson Artist-in-Residence. The award-winning residency is known for its competitive application and review process. The 40th anniversary celebrates the program’s long-standing cultural significance, elevating the profile of contemporary artists across a variety of disciplines. Ross’s residency will include an exhibition of her work at the Taft Museum of Art as well as engagement with the community, leading public programs, teaching workshops, and visiting schools across Greater Cincinnati in spring 2026.

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JUNE 2025—The Taft Museum of Art announces the new exhibition, A New Look at the Longworths, June 28–November 2, 2025. This show celebrates the generous gift of portraits of Nicholas and Susan Longworth and Nicholas’s sister, Catherine, to the museum by Emily Renshaw Pistilli, Nicholas and Susan’s direct descendent. Newly conserved, the paintings provide an opportunity to delve into the history of this influential Cincinnati family, whose patronage helped shape both the Taft’s and their city’s cultural and civic identity. 

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MAY 2025—The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick, the largest exhibition of works from the rarely-loaned collection of the Wharton Esherick Museum, concludes its nationwide tour at the Taft Museum of Art June 7–September 7, 2025. The exhibition—co-organized by the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and the Wharton Esherick Museum in Malvern, Pennsylvania—presents the innovative work of Wharton Esherick (1887–1970), the famed American artist best known as the father of the studio furniture movement.  

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MAY 2025—The Taft Museum of Art welcomed supporters on May 2, 2025 to experience Royal Palms at the Taft, a celebration and gala supporting the museum’s educational and outreach programs. Guests delighted in an elevated culinary experience with dinner by the bite, espresso martinis, and the rhythms of live music by the Naked Karate Girls. 

The tropical, 1960s-themed event grossed over $320,000 for another record-breaking year, raising funds to help support Taft’s many free educational programs such as Art for All, Artists Reaching Classrooms, and Family Fundays. 

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MARCH 2025—The City of Cincinnati, Jazz Alive, Learning Through Art, and the Taft Museum of Art’s Duncanson Program are proud to present a special tribute honoring the life and legacy of renowned poet, activist, and literary icon Nikki Giovanni. Hosted by Sly Little, the event will take place on Saturday, March 29, 2025 from 1-3:30 p.m. at Corinthian Baptist Church.

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FEBRUARY 2025—Celebrate the 250th anniversary of James Mallord William Turner’s birth by seeing twelve of his watercolors from the Taft Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Art Museum. On view at the Taft Museum of Art March 1–June 15, 2025, J. M. W. Turner: Watercolor Horizons is the first exhibition to bring together the entirety of the two museums’ luminous works by Turner in this medium.

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FEBRUARY 2025—The Taft Museum of Art is pleased to announce the 2025 Duncanson Artist-in-Residence, Rich Robbins, a Chicago-based rapper, songwriter, producer, educator, and television host known for critiquing societal issues while envisioning new possibilities for the future. Robbins will join the museum as the 39th artist-in-residence as part of the award-winning Duncanson Program focused on elevating the profile of Black and Brown contemporary artists. Robbins will lead public programs, teach workshops, and visit schools across Greater Cincinnati from April 10–26, 2025.

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JANUARY 2025—Mystical, evocative, and sometimes simply strange, the art of the Freemasons and Independent Order of the Odd Fellows is rich in symbols. Mystery & Benevolence: Masonic and Odd Fellows Folk Art brings the histories, codes, and beliefs of these groups to the Taft Museum of Art, February 1–May 11, 2025. Rarely traveled, the exhibition features more than 80 works of art including elaborately stitched costumes, gilded carvings and jewelry, and richly embellished ceremonial objects from the late 18th through mid-20th centuries that continue to retain their clandestine allure.

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