New Exhibitions Open at the Addison Gallery

This fall, the Addison Gallery, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, presents the vibrant and expressive work of the Florida Highwaymen painters as well as photographs and installations by Tommy Kha, the second recipient of the Addison's Hayes Prize.

Also on view will be three exhibitions highlighting different aspects the Addison’s own collection. Comprised of works of various time periods, artists, and subject matter, these exhibitions explore the American experience—past, present, and future.

Join us in celebrating the new exhibitions at an Opening Reception on Saturday, September 20, 4:00-6:00 pm. Free and open to the public!

Making Their Way: The Florida Highwaymen Painters (through January 4, 2025)
This exhibition presents the work of the so-called Florida Highwaymen, a loosely affiliated group of 26 African American landscape painters who sold their vivid and expressive tropical scenes door-to-door and out of the trunks of their cars along the coastal roads of Eastern Florida from the 1950s through the 1980s. Working with a palette of deeply saturated color gesturally applied to inexpensive Upson boards nailed directly to trees, the Highwaymen saw their paintings as an economic lifeline and a tool of resistance and resilience. This exhibition will be one of the first of its kind in the Northeast and will introduce new audiences to this underrecognized chapter of American art history.

Hayes Prize 2025: Tommy Kha, Other Things Uttered (through January 25, 2026)
The second iteration of the Addison’s biannual Bartlett H. Hayes Jr. Prize exhibition, Tommy Kha, Other Things Uttered is the first museum solo show of photographer Tommy Kha (b. 1988). With a humorous and poignant touch, Kha examines how we construct belonging and otherness through photography. Often incorporating masks and cardboard cutouts as stand-ins for his own body, Kha’s work invents new models for self-portraiture with a critical eye toward the medium’s long history of absences and erasure. Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, as queer, Asian American, and the child of immigrants, Kha had often been made to feel he was different. Now the artist locates a place for himself, both within the American South and the tradition of photography.

Captive Lands (through January 18, 2026)
Organized in dialogue with Making Their Way: The Florida Highwaymen Painters and consisting of works drawn from the Addison’s permanent collection, this exhibition unfolds over five distinct sections, exploring the myriad ways in which the American landscape has been romanticized, exploited, celebrated, commercialized, and conquered.

Family Portrait (through January 4, 2026)
Bringing together photographs from the Addison’s collection, this exhibition reveals how artists have engaged the theme of family over a span of nearly two centuries. Depicting grief and joy, solemnity and humor, intimate tenderness and boisterous energy, these works demonstrate photography’s capacity to capture both the particular and the universal aspects of family experience.

Playing to Our Strengths: Highlights from the Permanent Collection (through July 31, 2026)
This presentation explores American art in two sections: the “ideal,” bringing together American Impressionist paintings with Pictorialist photography, and the “real,” featuring works by the Ashcan School and social realist photographs. Together, these works reveal how American artists of the era grappled with questions of beauty, truth, and the rapidly transforming character of modern life.

An exciting array of public programs related to these exhibitions and the museum’s collection are planned for the season—please visit the Addison’s Calendar of Events for details.

The Addison Gallery is free and open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am– 5:00 pm, and Sunday, 1:00–5:00 pm (closed on Mondays and national holidays). addisongallery.org