Our America: 250 Years of Independence, Innovation, and Creativity

Newfields is marking the United States' semiquincentennial with Our America: 250 Years of Independence, Innovation, and Creativity, an exhibition that runs from October 28, 2026, through January 3, 2027. It's a big one—the 250th anniversary of American independence—and Newfields is using it as a chance to look at the American imagination through art, architecture and nature. Rather than keeping everything in one room, they've spread the show across the campus, so you'll be following a tour of 16 stops that ranges from the IMA Galleries to the museum's historic homes and gardens.

Inside the galleries, you'll find works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Elizabeth Catlett, Edward Hopper, Horace Pippin and Thornton Dial. One of the pieces to look for is Dial's Don't Matter How Raggly the Flag, It Still Got to Tie Us Together (2003), and the exhibition also includes three newly acquired photographs by Sheila Pree Bright, on view here for the first time. The tour takes you beyond the art on the walls, too: the campus landmarks are part of the experience, including the Lilly House and Oldfields Gardens, designed by the Olmsted Brothers Firm, and the Miller House and Garden by Eero Saarinen and Dan Kiley.

Newfields frames the American story as a living, evolving landscape of creativity unfolding across the grounds, so the walk itself is part of the point. The wider 'America 250' initiative across Indiana describes the anniversary as a long time for a nation that started as a small group of rebels with a dream, and positions 2026 as the year to celebrate and acknowledge that dream across the Hoosier State.

Admission is included with General Admission and free for Members. You can find the exhibition at Newfields, 4000 N. Michigan Rd., Indianapolis, IN 46208, running through January 3, 2027.