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The Brooklyn Museum is celebrating a big birthday. As the museum turns 200, it’s marking the occasion with a sprawling exhibition that celebrates the museum's history, showcases artists from the borough and highlights new gifts in the collection. The massive show highlights hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and photographs pulled from the impressive museum’s full collection of 140,000 items.
“Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200” is now open through February 22, 2026. We got a first look at the expansive exhibition, which takes over much of the museum's fourth floor. Here’s what to expect.
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“Breaking the Mold” begins by highlighting new additions to the museum's collection from Brooklyn and beyond. Among them is Derrick Adams' 2022 painting called “If I Wasn't Saved ... ” The artwork features a church choir wearing boxing gloves as an allusion to the intensity of both sporting events and church revivals. You might know Adams’ work from his portraits of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz on view at Brooklyn Museum last year or from his artwork in Penn Station back in 2023. Another new piece features photographs from a single day on Coney Island—July 4, 1958. The images by Robert Frank emanate an unusual sense of melancholy compared to the typical images from the site.
A few other highlights include Joel Sternfeld’s photography series documenting the self immolation of environmental activist David Buckel in Prospect Park and the aftermath of that day. In a very different photo collection, German conceptual artists Bernd and Hilla Becher documented New York water towers in the late 1970s.
As the exhibition continues, there’s a turn toward abstraction. Lauren Halsey’s abstract L.A. cityscape in psychedelic colors emphasizes that need for community despite structural violence and displacement. It’s positioned across from Jenny Holzer’s HEAP, an array of seven LED signs that attract visitors like moths to a flame. The signs display a transfixing rotation of truisms and inflammatory messages.
Further sections dig into the history of the Brooklyn Museum. It was established in 1823, first as a library to educate local youth and tradesmen. In 1831, the library commissioned its first work of art—a portrait of its president Robert Snow. As the 1840s wore on, the museum showed its first gallery for art and then evolved into the museum we know today.
The show features artwork highlighting these early days of the museum, like a hand-colored engraving of Prospect Park from 1874, a gelatin silver print of Grand Army Plaza from 1890, and contemporary photographs with the 1783 Lefferts Historic House as the backdrop. Lenape heritage is also featured, including a pair of Delaware Lenape youth moccasins. Objects like an ornate Dutch tulip vase also explore the history of Dutch colonists, whose European ideas of land ownership were in direct opposition to Lenape values.
As the exhibition comes to a close, it focuses on building community in the borough. See photographs of the West Indian Day parade, expressions of religious faith, and documentation of the fight for civil rights. A few highlights include a 1953 image by N. Jay Jaffee of the Kishke King restaurant in Brownsville; a portrait of a Polar Bear Club swimmer by Fred McDarrah; and a print of Juneteenth celebrations in 2020.
“This exhibition is a celebration of everything the Brooklyn Museum represents,’ Catherine Futter, the museum's director of curatorial affairs said in a press release.
In its 200 years, Brooklyn Museum has certainly weathered a lot, but it's been a particularly tough few months for the museum, which currently faces a $10 million budget deficit. That shortfall temporarily cut programming such as First Saturdays during March and April; First Saturdays will resume in May. Additionally, layoffs were initially expected but now have been averted after weeks of protests, per PIX11.