Whitney Museum of American Art
Mar. 2-May 28, 2006
106 artists (plus more in the shows within the show), living and dead, whose work explores the dark side of the American psyche
Curators: Chrissie Iles, Philippe Vergne
Catalogue: 832 pp., $50
Funding: Altria, others

Nasher Museum of Art
Mar. 4-July 16, 2006
58 works by Romare Bearden (1912-1988), focusing on the role of the African-American "conjurer" figure in his work
Curators: Richard J. Powell, Margaret Di Giulio, Alicia Garcia, Victoria Trout, Christine Wang
Funding: Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Duke's President's Fund and the Provost's Common Fund, Duke Semans Fine Arts Foundation, North Carolina Arts Council, Primus First Realty and Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, PLLC

Corcoran Gallery of Art
Mar. 4-June 4, 2006
90 paintings, watercolors and drawings tracing the career of the San Francisco-based artist, from his early photo-based pieces of the 1960s to his most current works, in the most comprehensive presentation of the artist’s work to date
Curator: Janet Bishop
Catalogue: 207 pp., $35
Funding: Evelyn D. Haas Exhibition Fund, Bernard Osher Foundation, Estates of Emily and Lewis S. Callaghan, Kadima Foundation and the Richard Florsheim Art Fund
Tour: This show has already appeared at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Also on view: "Reflections from the Heart: Photographs by David Seymour," Mar. 18-June 4, 2006

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Mar. 4-May 14, 2006
500+ works by the most famous Japanese ukiyo-e master, from large, colorful folding screens and scrolls and fans to small drawings and sketches, prints and printed books
Curator: Ann Yonemura
Funding: Fidelity Investments through the Fidelity Foundation, Anne van Biema Endowment Fund, All Nippon Airways, Asahi Glass Co. Ltd., Astellas Pharma Inc., Canon U.S.A., Inc., Mitsubishi Corporation, NEC America, Inc., Panasonic Corporation of North America, Toyota Motor Corporation, Robert and Betsy Feinberg, others
Tour: This show previously appeared at the Tokyo National Museum

Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center
Mar. 5-June 4, 2006
115+ vintage prints documenting the late Los Angeles photographer’s 1945 journey through post-war Japan
Curator: Carolyn Peter
Catalogue: 256 pp.
Funding: Gail and Jerry Oppenheimer, others

J. Paul Getty Museum
Mar. 7-June 11, 2006
14 works from the museum’s permanent collection, spanning Degas’ career, from his early Self-portrait to the late painting After the Bath, and including the Getty’s recently acquired Miss Lala at the Fernando Circus and The Milliners

UBS Art Gallery
Mar. 8-May 10, 2006
A comprehensive survey of modern and contemporary ceramics featuring 164 works form Hans Coper, Shoji Hamada, Maria Martinez, Magdalene Odundoand, Grayson Perry, Adrian Saxe, Peter Voulkos, Beatrice Wood, Paul Wyland, others, in a show organized by the Newark Museum

Neue Galerie
Mar. 10-May 21, 2006
60+ paintings and drawings by the Swiss modernist, focusing on the enthusiastic reception of his work in the U.S. in the 1920s and beyond
Curator: Josef Helfenstein
Catalogue: 320 pp., $55
Tour: Phillips Collection, June 16–Sept. 10, 2006; Menil Collection, Houston, Oct. 6, 2006-Jan. 14, 2007

Jewish Museum
Mar. 10-June 29, 2006
Ca. 45 paintings charting the career of the Impressionist-era German artist Max Liebermann (1847-1935), including his 1879 The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple, which caused a sensation in Germany when it was first shown
Curator: Mason Klein
Catalogue: 232 pp., $29.95
Funding: Shapell/Guerin Foundation, Susanne and Paul Kester, Lee and Lawrence Ramer, The Skirball Foundation, others
Tour: This show has already appeared at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles

International Center of Photography
Mar. 10-May 28, 2006
200+ works by 35 artists from across Africa, in an exhibition that seeks nothing less than to define contemporary African art
Curator: Okwui Enwezor
Funding: Altria Group, ICP Exhibitions Committee, others

Brooklyn Museum
Mar. 10-May 28, 2006
200+ works, including Wegman’s signature 20 x 24 in. Polaroids, early black-and-white and altered photographs, paintings, drawings, collages, books, videos and film, mostly featuring the artist’s famous Weimeraner dogs
Curator: Trevor Fairbrother
Catalogue: 304 pp., $45
Funding: Henry Luce Foundation
Tour: Smithsonian American Art Museum, July 4-Sept. 24, 2006; Norton Museum of Art, Nov. 4, 2006-Jan. 28, 2007; Addison Gallery of American Art, Apr. 7-July 31, 2007
Also on view: "Picturing Place: Francis Guy’s Brooklyn, 1920"

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Mar. 12-June 11, 2006
Close to 100 objects in an installation conceptualized by 88-year-old Sottsass himself, a pioneer of postmodern design
Curator: Ronald T. Labaco
Funding: Max Palevsky

Textile Museum, Washington, D.C.
Mar. 17-Sept. 3, 2006
65+ colorfully embroidered bed tents, bed curtains, large covers and pillows, as well as handkerchiefs and embroidered panels from women’s clothing from the 17th and 19th centuries, demonstrating the complex interactions between the Latin West and Ottoman East
Curator: Sumru Belger Krody
Catalogue: 160 pp., $29.95

Newark Museum
Mar. 18-June 18, 2006
Ca. 100 portraits of recently emancipated women from Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent, Thomas Eakins, Charles Dana Gibson, others
Curators: Dolly Pyne Connor, Mary Kate O’Hare
Catalogue: 158 pp., $65
Funding: Henry Luce Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, others

Art Institute of Chicago
Mar. 18-June 11, 2006
Work by Margaret Bourke-White, Bruce Davidson, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, Susan Meiselas and Sebastião Salgado that confronts a variety of social issues
Curator: Kate Bussard
Also on view: "Connoisseurship of Japanese Prints, Part II," Mar. 4-May 7, 2006

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Mar. 21-July 30, 2006
A juxtaposition of American paintings from the museum’s collection -- including The Gulf Stream by Winslow Homer and The Deluge towards Its Close by Joshua Shaw -- with Walker’s own work, exploring the "transformative effect and psychological meaning of the sea"
Curator: Gary Tinterow
Also on view: "Samuel Palmer (1805–1881): Vision and Landscape," Mar. 7, 2006–May 29, 2006

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Mar. 29, 2006-July 16, 2006
Ca. 100 tempura paintings, watercolors and drawings from the 1930s to the present, focusing on domestic interiors, portraits, still lifes and architecture
Curators: Anne Classon Knutson, Kathleen A. Foster, Michael Taylor
Catalogue: 223 pp., $49.95 cloth, $35 paper
Funding: Ford Motor Company, others
Tour: This show has already appeared at the High Museum of Art
Also on view: "Ellsworth Kelly: Paris/New York, 1949–1959," Mar. 11- Aug. 13, 2006; "Recent Acquisitions: Prints and Drawings from Dürer to Doig," Mar. 11-May 21, 2006

Walker Art Center
Mar. 25-June 18, 2006
Exploring open-ended, audience-interactive work via Ralph Lemon’s recreation of a stage set for a 2005 performance, filmmaker Spencer Nakasako’s digital media station for creating videos and Rirkrit Tiravanija’s combination stage and lounge
Curator: Doryun Chong
Funding: Bush Foundation

Carnegie Museum of Art
Mar. 26-Aug. 27, 2006
95 paintings, sculptures and decorative arts objects focusing on animal images of the Industrial Age, with work from Jean-Baptiste Oudry, George Stubbs, Sir Edwin Landseer, Edward Hicks, Eugéne Delacroix, Vincent van Gogh, Jean-Siméon Chardin, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Charles Wilson Peale, George Catlin, Rosa Bonheur and Jean-Leon Gérôme
Curators: Andreas Blühm, Lulu Lippincott
Catalogue: 160 pp., $29.95
Funding: Heinz Endowments, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Allegheny Regional Asset District, Richard King Mellon Foundation
Tour: This show has already appeared at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Mar. 26-June 8, 2006
35 sculptures by the artist and professor at the MFAH’s Glassell School of Art, including the site-specific Fallen Reich, created specifically for the retrospective
Curator: Peter Doroshenko
Catalogue: $35 softcover, $49.95 hard
Funding: Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, others

Metropolitan Museum of Art
Mar. 28-July 9, 2006
Ca. 300 objects telling the story of the reign of the Egyptian queen, including royal statuary and reliefs, monumental sculptures representing members of the royal court, a wide variety of ceremonial and decorative objects, gold jewelry and other personal items
Curator: Renée Dreyfus, Catharine H. Roehrig, Cathleen A. Keller
Catalogue: 356 pp., $65 hard, $45 soft
Funding: Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman
Tour: This show has already appeared at the de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; it continues to the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Aug. 24-Dec. 31, 2006