Art Museum of the Americas

Art Museum of the Americas AMA | Art Museum of the Americas. We promote social change by providing a lively space for educational exchange, new ideas, and creative expression.
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Located just steps from the Washington Monument and the White House, AMA | Art Museum of the Americas of the OAS is a hub for contemporary art produced in and about the Western Hemisphere. Within and beyond our gallery walls, we enrich our local and international communities by interconnecting artists, museums, and audiences across the Americas. Twitter:
Blog: AMAmuseum.org/blog.html

Please note that the museum will be closed through Sunday, June 15 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen fo...
06/14/2025

Please note that the museum will be closed through Sunday, June 15 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen for normal hours starting on Tuesday, June 17.

Image:
Rafa Cruz
Exteriors 17, 2023
From the series Secrets of AMA

Please note that the museum will be closed through Sunday, June 15 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen fo...
06/13/2025

Please note that the museum will be closed through Sunday, June 15 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen for normal hours starting on Tuesday, June 17.

Image:
Rafa Cruz
Loggia 3, 2023
From the series Secrets of AMA

Please note that the museum will be closed through Sunday, June 15 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen fo...
06/12/2025

Please note that the museum will be closed through Sunday, June 15 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen for normal hours starting on Tuesday, June 17.

Image:
Rafa Cruz
Exteriors 16, 2023
From the series Secrets of AMA

Update: please note that the museum will be closed from Thursday, June 12 through Sunday, June 15 due to street closures...
06/11/2025

Update: please note that the museum will be closed from Thursday, June 12 through Sunday, June 15 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen for normal hours starting on Tuesday, June 17.

Image:
Rafa Cruz
Exteriors 4, 2023
From the series Secrets of AMA

Marcelo Brodsky (Argentina, b.1954)La Clase, from the series Buen MemoriaPhotograph and mixed media, 45 3/4 x 68"OAS AMA...
06/10/2025

Marcelo Brodsky (Argentina, b.1954)
La Clase, from the series Buen Memoria
Photograph and mixed media, 45 3/4 x 68"
OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas Collection
Gift of the Friends of the Art Museum of the Americas

"When I came back to Argentina after living in Spain for many years, I had just turned forty, and felt the need to work on my identity. Photography, with its precise ability to freeze a point in time, was the tool I used for this purpose. I began going through my family photographs, the ones from my youth, the ones from school. I found our class portrait from first year [eighth grade], taken in 1967, and felt the need to know what had become of each one of my classmates. I decided to hold a 25th reunion of my classmates from the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires so that we could see each other again. I invited those I was able to find to my house, and proposed doing a portrait of each of them. I made a huge enlargement of the '67 picture, the first one in which we were all together, to serve as a backdrop for the portraits, and asked each classmate to include an element of his or her current life in their portrait. I continued to do portraits of those classmates who did not come to the reunion, but the large photograph could not be moved. I took small copies of it along to include in the portraits I did of those I was able to find. The portraits were done in Buenos Aires, Madrid, Robledo de Chavela (Spain), and New York. Later, a ceremony was organized, in memory of the students of the school who had disappeared or were murdered by state terrorism in the black years of the dictatorship. After twenty years, the school authorities accepted, for the first time, that the missing be officially recognized in the school's main hall. It was a historic occasion. I decided to work on the surface of the large photograph that had served as a backdrop for the portraits of my classmates, and to write a few thoughts about each of their lives on the image." (Marcelo Brodsky)

Thanks to all who joined in on the fun at the Amigos of the World family workshop with artist Carolina Mayorga! Made pos...
06/09/2025

Thanks to all who joined in on the fun at the Amigos of the World family workshop with artist Carolina Mayorga! Made possible by the Friends of the Art Museum of the Americas.



Photos by Rafael Cruz Art

Please note that the museum will be closed this Saturday, June 14 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen for...
06/09/2025

Please note that the museum will be closed this Saturday, June 14 due to street closures in the area. We will reopen for normal hours starting on Sunday, June 15.

Image:
Rafa Cruz
Exteriors 4, 2023
From the series Secrets of AMA

Cândido Portinari (Brazil, b. 1903, d. 1962)Return from the Fair, 1940Oil on canvas, 40 x 32"OAS AMA CollectionGift of J...
06/09/2025

Cândido Portinari (Brazil, b. 1903, d. 1962)
Return from the Fair, 1940
Oil on canvas, 40 x 32"
OAS AMA Collection
Gift of José Gómez Sicre

In June of 1947, the exhibition Portinari of Brazil opened at the Pan American Union Building Gallery, now the Organization of American States (OAS), precursor to the present-day AMA. The exhibition featured the first public showing of Return from the Fair, which soon after became the first artwork accessioned into the present-day AMA art collection.

Cândido Portinari painted Return from the Fair in 1940, the year of the retrospective exhibition Portinari of Brazil at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Museum of Modern Art in New York which garnered great attention and further ushered his international fame. In the painting, an Afro-Brazilian woman and five daughters are depicted in a nocturnal scene of lively revelry set against the vast arid and barren reddish-brown or terra roxa northeastern landscape of his hometown of Brodowski. The monumental yet individualized figures with distorted modeling fill most of the foreground and are shown in various stages of dancing and rhythmic body movements. Elements such as the mast pole scarecrow in the background, a red umbrella, the white dresses with billowing blue sashes, hair flowers and ribbon ornamentation, and the lit lanterns doting the deep dark blue sky suggest the annual popular Festa de São João marking the end of the rainy season and the start of planting and harvest. His characteristic draftsmanship and special emphasis on muscular arms, hands, and expressive gestures point to a cultural celebration of the common people—blacks and mulatos dedicated to toiling the land and fields or engaging in popular feasts—as a quest for a personal vision of a modernist national identity spirit or Brasilidade. Although criticized for these thematic choices in Brazil, Portinari nevertheless established a large international following. A gift to José Gómez Sicre from the artist and his wife, Return from the Fair was presented to the PAU in 1949 marking the first artwork to enter the future permanent collection of the Visual Arts Section and the now AMA.

Today / Sunday at 11am!RSVP at the link:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amigos-of-the-world-family-day-workshop-with-caroli...
06/08/2025

Today / Sunday at 11am!

RSVP at the link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amigos-of-the-world-family-day-workshop-with-carolina-mayorga-tickets-1367315570679

Amigos of the World
Family Day Workshop
with Carolina Mayorga
RSVP at the link in the comments.

Where: OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas
201 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20006

When: Sunday, June 8 from 11am-1pm

Cost: Free.

The OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas and the FAMA | Friends of the Art Museum of the Americas invite you to a family workshop. Participants will explore portraiture through a series of fun, hands-on activities inspired by multimedia artist Carolina Mayorga’s latest coloring book Amigos of the World. Join Carolina for a fun and interactive drawing workshop exploring portraiture and the human figure. Come ready to draw, color, and connect

Tomorrow / Sunday!RSVP at the link:https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amigos-of-the-world-family-day-workshop-with-carolina-ma...
06/07/2025

Tomorrow / Sunday!

RSVP at the link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amigos-of-the-world-family-day-workshop-with-carolina-mayorga-tickets-1367315570679

Amigos of the World
Family Day Workshop
with Carolina Mayorga
RSVP at the link in the comments.

Where: OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas
201 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20006

When: Sunday, June 8 from 11am-1pm

Cost: Free.

The OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas and the FAMA | Friends of the Art Museum of the Americas invite you to a family workshop. Participants will explore portraiture through a series of fun, hands-on activities inspired by multimedia artist Carolina Mayorga’s latest coloring book Amigos of the World. Join Carolina for a fun and interactive drawing workshop exploring portraiture and the human figure. Come ready to draw, color, and connect

The Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) of the Organization of American States (OAS) received a donation of the mixed-media...
06/06/2025

The Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) of the Organization of American States (OAS) received a donation of the mixed-media work Soeki by acclaimed Surinamese artist Sri Irodikromo. The gift, presented by Monique W. NouhChaia SookdewSing and the Readytex Art Gallery of Suriname, becomes a part of the OAS permanent art collection and furthers its mission of celebrating the arts of OAS member states.

The acquisition was made possible thanks to the support of OAS Secretary General Albert Ramdin, former Foreign Minister of Suriname, and his adviser Xaviera Jesserun.

Sri Irodikromo (Suriname, b. 1972)
Soeki, 2022
Coffee, bluing, wood glue, beeswax, embroidery thread, unbleached cotton, bamboo rods
180 x 120 cm OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas Collection
 Gift of Readytex Art Gallery

Soeki (2022) stands as an evocative tribute to the artist’s father, Soekidjan Irodikromo, himself a renowned Surinamese painter and batik artist. The work is haunting and reverent, with ethereal figures and ghost-like impressions appearing amidst streaks of blue and earthy brown. The vertical strips and stitched elements introduce a fragmented yet rhythmic structure, echoing the layered history of family, tradition, and personal transformation. As a portrait of legacy, Soeki reflects Sri’s deeply rooted identity as both a cultural bearer and innovator, intertwining memory with material in a tactile language all her own.

“Sri Irodikromo’s work is a powerful representation of cultural heritage and artistic innovation,” said AMA Director Adriana Ospina. “We are honored to steward this unique piece.”

Oswaldo Guayasamín (Ecuador, b. 1919, d. 1999)Mother and Child, 1955Pen and ink on paper, 29 x 21"OAS AMA | Art Museum o...
06/06/2025

Oswaldo Guayasamín (Ecuador, b. 1919, d. 1999)
Mother and Child, 1955
Pen and ink on paper, 29 x 21"
OAS AMA | Art Museum of the Americas Collection
Gift of José Gómez Sicre

On this day in 1955, the exhibition Oswaldo Guayasamín of Ecuador opened at the OAS Main Building Gallery, precursor to the present-day AMA, running from June 6-July 5 of that year. Acquired by José Gómez Sicre for the OAS collection on the occasion of Oswaldo Guayasamín’s individual exhibition in 1955, Mother and Child is a stark depiction of poverty and suffering. Executed in black ink on white paper, the figures fill the vertical length of the composition, with the mother’s upturned face pressed against the upper limits of the frame. The mother’s crescent shaped head is echoed below by that of the tiny infant cradled in her arms, who tilts back its head in an attempt to nurse from its mother’s emaciated breasts. The baby’s protruding rib cage exacerbates this sense of near starvation. The mother’s arm curves around the child, but her outstretched palm is that of a beggar pleading for alms, indicating the desperation of her situation rather than providing comfort. Guayasamín’s use of spare outlines and sharp triangular forms, reminiscent of Picasso’s Guernica, stems from the stylistic language he deployed in the Indian theme in his series Huacayñan (Trail of Tears), a group of 103 paintings divided into three thematic categories: the Indian, the Mestizo, and the Black. While the figures in this image cannot be specifically identified as indigenous, they clearly relate to the emphasis on denouncing human suffering characteristic of indigenism. Here, Guayasamín co-opts the Christian iconography of the Madonna and Child to highlight the suffering of innocents. He eliminates all narrative and avoids elaborating on the social context or historical moment. These are timeless symbolic figures that represent the perpetual suffering of the poor. Oswaldo Guayasamín, one of the most renowned twentieth-century Ecuadoran artists, was born in Quito to an indigenous father and a Mestizo mother. He was the eldest of ten children raised in extreme poverty. As did most artists of his generation, Guayasamín studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes. In 1942 Nelson A. Rockefeller invited Guayasamín to the United States on a State Department grant, altering the course of his career. Guayasamín’s series Huacayñan (Trail of Tears), created between 1946 and 1951 and first exhibited in 1952, deploys the formal innovations he had been exposed to while abroad to depict Ecuador’s ethnic heritage. As a result, in 1955 he won first prize at the Third Hispano-American Biennial of Art in Spain and two years later he was named Best American Painter at the Bienal de São Paulo. After Huacayñan, Guayasamín began work on La edad de la ira (Age of Wrath), a series of more than 250 paintings addressing crimes against humanity. The artist donated the Age of Wrath series to the city of Quito after exhibiting the works in Rome in 1966; Mexico in 1968; Santiago, Chile in 1969; Madrid in 1972; Barcelona, Prague, Bratislava, and Brno in 1973; and Paris in 1974. His final series was La edad de la ternura (The Age of Tenderness). In addition to oil paintings, Guayasamín created numerous murals and sculptures and even worked in balsa wood and designed jewelry. His art reflects his leftist political leanings and continual involvement with human rights organizations. The Fundación Guayasamín in Quito continues his legacy, housing numerous original paintings as well as his extensive collection of pre-Columbian and colonial art. Guayasamín died in 1999 and three years later, on a site in the north of Quito, his Capilla del Hombre (Chapel of Man) opened to commemorate the tragic history of Latin America.

Address

201 18th Street NW
Washington D.C., DC
20006

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 5pm
Wednesday 10am - 5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 10am - 5pm

Telephone

+12023700147

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