Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery

07/24/2024

Artist Glenn Kaino’s powerful sculpture “Bridge” (2013-2014) is comprised of 200 golden arms hanging from the ceiling of SAAM’s Luce Foundation Center. Each is a casting of the outstretched right arm of Tommie Smith, the Team USA winner of the men’s 200-meter race at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

During the medal ceremony, Smith bowed his head and raised his fist as an assertion of Black solidarity in the fight for human rights. Decades later, Kaino collaborated with Smith to create this monumental sculpture.

Learn more about “Bridge” and the moment that inspired it: https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/glenn-kaino-bridge


Installation images of Glenn Kaino, “Bridge,” 2013-2014, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2024; photos by Albert Ting

07/23/2024

“What is important to me is not geometrical shape per se, or color per se, but to make a relationship between shape and color which feels to me like my experience. To make what feels to me like reality.”
— Anne Truitt, 1965

“17th Summer” (1974) captures the youthful freedom artist Anne Truitt felt the seventeenth summer of her life. The graceful column of new-leaf green is raised slightly off the floor, giving the impression of weightlessness.

Truitt made geometric wooden structures that merge the concerns of painting and sculpture. She carefully sanded their surfaces between each application of paint to create seductively smooth planes of luminous color.

Learn more about Truitt:
https://americanart.si.edu/artist/anne-truitt-4866

Image:
Installation view of Anne Truitt, “17th Summer,” 1974, acrylic on wood, 95 5⁄8 x 15 5⁄8 x 8 1⁄8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum; photo by Albert Ting

07/17/2024

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is open today, July 17, from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Cool off in the galleries and spend your day exploring SAAM’s current exhibitions.

Wrap yourself in the creative practice of Amish quilters in the United States with a meander through “Pattern and Paradox: The Quilts of Amish Women.”

Spend some time exploring “Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice,” a tribute to African American activists, scientists, teachers, and performers as well as international leaders working to bring peace to the world.

Consider the luminous artworks in “Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas,” an exhibition that offers an intimate view of Thomas’s evolving practice during her most prolific period.

Plan your visit: https://americanart.si.edu/visit/saam

07/16/2024

The National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and and the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art’s Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery at 8th and G streets NW are closed today, July 16, due to a power outage. In-person programs at this location have been canceled. We apologize for the inconvenience. SAAM’s Renwick Gallery remains open. Please check back tomorrow for updates.

07/15/2024

“Art is long. Life is short. You can't live without art.”

Go into the studio of renowned artist Audrey Flack (1931-2024) for an engaging personal interview. Flack discusses the quest for truth in her artwork and the significance behind her iconic work “Queen,” part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's permanent collection. Explore how she created her last body of work, which she has labeled “religio superpop,” to foster peace and understanding.

07/06/2024

Joyce J. Scott often employs humor and irony to address cultural stereotypes and issues of racism and sexism.

This artwork, currently on view at SAAM’s Renwick Gallery in “Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women,” is one of Scott’s abstract, spontaneous improvisations on an idea derived from nature. Although it does not offer the frank social comment found in much of her work, “Necklace” reflects Scott’s commitment to her heritage as an African American and to her family’s traditions in craft.

Image:
Joyce Scott, “Necklace,” 1994, beads, fabric, and thread, SmithsonianAmericanArtMuseum



https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/fiber-art-by-women

07/05/2024

For this Zanfirico fruit, thin canes of glass were fused onto the surface of blown glass to create delicate spirals of pattern that stand out against the clear form. Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora Mace hope their fruit sculptures inspire people to appreciate everyday objects. Mace and Kirkpatrick were the first woman to teach glassblowing at Pilchuk Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. They met in 1979 at Pilchuk, where they began their decades-long collaboration.

Image:
Flora C. Mace, Joey Kirkpatrick, “Zanfirico Apple,” 1994, glass

https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/zanfirico-apple-34488

07/04/2024

Pour yourself a lemonade, find a spot in the shade, and enjoy your holiday with a dash of American art.

Whatever your plans for America's birthday, we have an artwork to fit. Pour yourself a lemonade, find a spot in the shade, and enjoy your holiday with a dash of American art.

07/03/2024

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875 – 1955) was one of the most important educators and Civil Rights activists of the twentieth century. She opened a school for African American girls in Daytona Beach, Florida, that merged with the Cookman Institute to form the coeducational Bethune-Cookman College in 1931.

In this painting, William H. Johnson shows students studying anatomy, biology, and dance on the right; his portrait of Bethune anchors the left. In the lower left, she passes the presidency of the college to her successor, James Colston. The two men embracing at the center remain unidentified. They may have been involved with Bethune-Cookman College or part of a coalition of Black leaders Bethune worked with who also served as an informal advisory board to President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration (the so-called Black Cabinet). The latter group fought for the inclusion of African Americans in New Deal programs during the Great Depression and was a precursor to the 1960s civil rights movement.

William H. Johnson (1901 – 1970) painted his “Fighters for Freedom” series in the mid-1940s as a tribute to African American activists, scientists, teachers, and performers as well as international leaders working to bring peace to the world. See this painting and the others in his series in the exhibition, “Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice,” now through September 8.

Image:
William H. Johnson, “Historical Scene with Mary McLeod Bethune,” ca. 1945, oil on paperboard

https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/fighters-for-freedom

07/01/2024

“Art breaks through the centuries. There is no time in art. It is timeless.” — Audrey Flack (1931-2024)

Today we remember Audrey Flack, an artist who drew on personal, feminist, social, and historical subject matter across various mediums and styles, including abstract and figurative painting, photorealism, sculpture, and what she termed “Post Pop Baroque.”

Flack said that she made the painting, “Queen” (1976) “for all women, particularly women gamblers”— a reference to her mother, whose portrait appears, alongside the artist’s, in the open locket just below the queen of hearts playing card. To the left, Flack depicted another queen — a chess piece, the most powerful in the game and therefore an emblem of female power and importance.

Audrey Flack lives on in her work, leaving a legacy of seven decades of powerful, feminist art.

Images:
[1] Installation view of Audrey Flack, “Queen,” 1976, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2023; photo by Ron Blunt

[2] Audrey Flack, “Queen,” 1976, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/audrey-flack-1570

06/28/2024

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1975 to Indian immigrant parents, Chitra Ganesh is a visual artist who draws from Indian mythology, literature, and popular culture to reveal feminist and q***r narratives from the past and to imagine new visions of the future. In addition to her paintings, drawings, video and installation works, she has created comics and “Queer Power: A Time Traveling Coloring Book,” honoring those who fought, or continue to fight for gay rights and gender equality.

The artist’s story is told in the comic “Chitra Ganesh: Brooklyn, Bollywood, and the Rainbow Path,” rendered beautifully in all the colors of the rainbow thanks to the incredible talents of Ati Gor, a student-illustrator at the Ringling College of Art and Design.

Celebrating the renowned artist with a comic about her life and art.

06/25/2024

“Through the act of performance … we are allowed to experience and connect the historical past to the present — to the now, to the moment. By inhabiting the moment, we live the experience … and come to know firsthand what is often only imagined, lost, forgotten.” —Carrie Mae Weems

Legendary artist Carrie Mae Weems has been described as an icon, national treasure, and genius. She is a moral compass in the field, entwining art and activism to address racism, sexism, classism, colonialism, and xenophobia using photography, text, textile, video, film, installation, public art, and performance.

“Carrie Mae Weems: Looking Forward, Looking Back,” is now on view at SAAM through July 7. This focused exhibition pairs two projects by Carrie Mae Weems—a major multimedia installation, “Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me – A Story in 5 Parts”, and eight photographs from the series “Constructing History”—that explore the relationship of memory to history and of memory as it is mediated through performance, photography, or video.

Plan your visit:
https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/carrie-mae-weems-looking-forward-looking-back

Images:
[1-2] Installation views of “Carrie Mae Weems: Looking Forward, Looking Back” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2023; photos by Albert Ting
[3] Carrie Mae Weems, “Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me - A Story in 5 Parts,” 2012, video installation and mixed media, color, sound; 18:29 minutes, dimensions variable, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the American Women’s History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, 2023.9A-G, © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum

06/21/2024

On the longest day of the year, here’s to a summer full of glowing sunsets.

In the mid-1960s, Alma Thomas created a painting style distinctly her own, characterized by the dazzling interplay of pattern and vibrant color. She often assigned titles to her own paintings that connect natural phenomena, like flowers or a sunset, with song. In her art, nature and music are treated as twin expressions of a fundamental life force or spirit.

“Red Sunset, Old Pond Concerto” is currently on view at SAAM as part of “Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas.” https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/alma-thomas

Images:
[1] Alma Thomas, “Red Sunset, Old Pond Concerto,” 1972, acrylic on canvas
[2-3] Installation view of “Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; photos by Albert Ting

06/19/2024

When painting his “Fighters for Freedom” series in the mid-1940s, artist William H. Johnson bridged the past and the present, looking back on three centuries of history to depict freedom fighters from the American Revolution up to his contemporaries in the 20th century. By linking generations of activists, educators, politicians, and entertainers advocating for racial and social equality, Johnson invited viewers to consider both the progress society has made towards those ideals and the work still left to be done. Eighty years after he created these paintings, the struggle for justice continues.

As part of our education plan for SAAM’s exhibition “Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice”, we wanted visitors of all ages to feel welcome and included in the gallery experience, and to represent a diverse range of voices. A key aspect of our interpretive approach was to offer multiple entry points for visitors in gallery—including videos, kiosks, tactile reproductions of paintings, and children’s books—as well as online resources.

We also wanted to continue Johnson’s work linking history to the present. How could the exhibition invite visitors to make connections to our world today? One way we did this was through the voices of students. Visitors to the exhibition will encounter a mural and book in the last gallery, featuring the writing and drawing of young people ages 8 to 18 in response to the question: “Who inspires you by fighting for justice today?”

SAAM's educators invite students and visitors to reflect on William H. Johnson's portraits and make connections to our world today.

06/16/2024

“My father was typical of many men; friendly but not intimate, familiar but not known. I loved him but struggle still to understand the distance he kept. That said, my father did not let a week pass without sending me a hand written, newsy and advice-laden letter. Even with the emphasis on advice, I loved getting these missives and in 1980 I began saving them.”

David Chatt has specialized in labor intensive beadwork for more than thirty years. His father, Orville, was also an accomplished modernist jeweler and introduced Chatt to beadwork. Chatt developed his own technique for beading, a modified right-angle weave that uses a single needle and allows him to build in three dimensions. Following the death of his father, Chatt meticulously encased, with white beads, thirty years of their correspondence.

Chatt’s reflection on his father and “Love, Dad”:

“When he passed, I found myself with a collection, now complete, which spanned thirty years. I had imagined myself going back and re-reading them after his death. When the anticipated time arrived, the box that housed them loomed large in its place in my home. I thought of delving into its contents but could not bring myself to do it. I have known grief and do not fear it, but I am also my father’s son. While I am willing to engage, I do not invite sadness, and reading about a world where a father and mother shared a home and offered updates and council to a young son as he experienced the first throws of independence seemed impossibly sad. Instead, I spent a year laboring to create a place for these letters. I recognize the importance of what they represent but I am making the choice to contain them and to place them in an environment where they can be seen but not shared. As I began this work, I thought of this image as a metaphor for my father and his illusive nature. As I completed it, I understood that this effort is as much a symbol of how I deal with my feelings as for how my father dealt with his. “Love, Dad” is about a father and son who loved each other, each in their own sincere and flawed way.”

Image:
David Chatt, “Love, Dad,” 2012-2013, glass beads, thread, wooden table, letters

https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/love-dad-117944

06/14/2024

Influential textile artists L’Merchie Frazier, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Lia Cook, Ed Johnetta Miller, and Susan Iverson gathered at SAAM’s Renwick Gallery for a bustling open house to mark the opening of “Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women,” where their selected works were on display. What was truly special in this open house was not just the celebratory atmosphere or the opportunity to talk one-on-one with these distinguished women, but the sense of comradery between the honored guests.

Artists and visitors mingled at the Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art Open House

06/11/2024

Taking a moment for magnolias.

Images:
Charles Walter Stetson, “Magnolia,” 1895, oil on canvas mounted on fiberglass
Mary Vaux Walcott, “Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora),” 1918, watercolor on paper
Grace M. Ballentine, “Velvet Petals,” ca. 1946, gelatin silver print
Josephine Joy, “Magnolia Blossoms,” ca. 1935-1941, oil on canvas
Bertha E. Jaques, “Spring Blossoms (Tree Magnolia),” n.d., hand-colored drypoint on paper

06/07/2024

Take a contemplative look into artist Carrie Mae Weems’s upstate New York studio as she discusses the ideas we carry throughout our lives, how she grapples with injustice, and the resolve and compassion she is bringing to her next phase in life and as an artist. Her immersive multimedia installation “Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me—A Story in 5 Parts” and photographs from her series “Constructing History” are part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection.

06/06/2024

Laura Aguilar challenged accepted standards of beauty and documented her intersecting Latinx and LGBTQ+ communities, becoming one of the most influential Chicana photographers of her generation.

In the comic "Laura Aguilar: Body of Work," Tyler Tjaden, a student-illustrator at the Ringling College of Art and Design, tells the story of how Aguilar first discovered photography, embraced the medium, and subsequently turned the camera on herself to create powerful self-portraits.

Laura Aguilar challenged accept standards of beauty and represented the LGBTQ+ community, becoming one of the most influential Chicana photographers of her generation.

06/03/2024

Martine Gutierrez’s “Clubbing” (2012) is an ode to the importance of dance floors as places for self-discovery and community building.

In her own words, Gutierrez is “driven to question how identity is formed, expressed, valued, and weighed as a woman, as a transwoman, as a Latinx woman, as a woman of Indigenous descent, as a femme artist and maker.”

Martine Gutierrez’s work is an ode to the importance of dance floors as places for self-discovery and community building

05/31/2024

Cotton, wool, polyester, silk — fiber is felt in nearly every aspect of our lives.

The artists in “Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women” mastered and subverted the everyday material throughout the twentieth century. Now open at the Renwick Gallery, each artwork carries the story of its maker, manifesting—stitch by stitch—the profound and personal politics of the hand.

Accessible and familiar, fiber handicrafts have long provided a source of inspiration for women. Their ingenuity with cloth, threads, and yarn was dismissed by many art critics as menial labor. The artists in this exhibition took up fiber to complicate this historic marginalization and to revolutionize its import to contemporary art. Drawing on personal experiences and their perspectives as women, along with intergenerational skills, they transformed simple threads into intricate and impactful artworks.

Featured artists in this exhibition include Adela Akers, Neda Al-Hilali, Emma Amos, Lia Cook, Olga de Amaral, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Sheila Hicks, Agueda Martínez, Faith Ringgold, Miriam Schapiro, Joyce Scott, Judith Scott, Kay Sekimachi, Lenore Tawney, Katherine Westphal, Claire Zeisler, and Marguerite Zorach.

Image credits:
[1] Emma Amos, “Winning,” 1982, acrylic on linen with hand-woven fabric, Smithsonian American Art Museum
[2-4] Installation photography of “Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women,” Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2024; Photos by Albert Ting

https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/fiber-art-by-women

05/30/2024

For a new series that connects SAAM’s collections and staff, we asked our colleagues to tell us about an artwork that makes them feel something.

“These artworks makes me feel resilient because it reminds me that even when we feel alone and defeated, we are a part of something—our families, friends, and communities—that was here before us and will remain after we are gone.”
—G.W. Cohrs, Education Department

Jeffrey Gibson is a citizen of the Mississippi band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent. But apart from attending community gatherings and powwows, he wasn’t raised within a Native community. As such, he would ask himself, “‘Am I a participant?’ ‘Am I an observer?’ ‘Where do I stand in there?’” He describes feeling like an outsider. He has said that “this kind of movement through different forms of identity has made me grow and see the world in a very broad way.”

Your turn: How does this artwork make you feel?

See (and feel) for yourself: these artworks are currently on view

Images 1-3:
Jeffrey Gibson, “A Little Bit Louder,” 2018
Jeffrey Gibson, “Watchtower,“ 2018
Jeffrey Gibson, “WITHOUT YOU I'M NOTHING,” 2018
Installation photos at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2023; Photos by Albert Ting

05/24/2024

The word “rouse” means to awaken and animate, and this sculpture by artist Alison Saar evokes the self-awakening and personal transformation we often experience when encountering a turning point in life.

Saar made Rouse when her daughter left for college. The artist began thinking about “being menopausal . . . moving into new territory in my work . . . ready to let this other part of me mature and come out and be realized.”

Exploring the personal transformation reflected in her artwork Rouse.

05/21/2024

SAAM’s Luce Foundation Center and the Lunder Conservation Center are closed to the public temporarily beginning Tuesday, May 21. Both spaces will reopen on Friday, June 28.

05/21/2024

Today we remember Paul Parkman, whose contributions to the first successful vaccine against rubella, or German measles, inspired this glass vase by artist Dan Dailey.

As Dr. Parkman described it, "The vase is mostly red, like the German measles rash." Dailey captured what Parkman referred to as "the ah-ha moment" of discovering the serum.

“The coupe that was made by Dan for us has imagery on it, a representation of me holding a flask full of the vaccine, you know. Dan called it the “Aha!” moment, and it has a picture of me earlier writing in my notebook. It has a picture of Dr. Harry Meyer. He’s immunizing a child. Around the top of the vase is a quotation from Lyndon Johnson. At the base are some animals.”

The quotation that circles the coupe’s rim is taken from a letter written by President Lyndon B. Johnson to Dr. Parkman in 1966: “Few men . . . directly . . . advance human welfare, save precious lives, and offer new hope to the world.”

05/18/2024

Often that certain something that stops us our tracks in a museum is also what makes us slow our scroll on a phone. Color. Composition. Connection. For a new series that connects SAAM’s collections and staff, we asked our colleagues to tell us about an artwork that makes them feel something.

“This artwork makes me feel like I am breaking free from a suppressed past because of the touches of crimson in a neutral palette, those steady watchful eyes, and the open cage door that suggests not just opportunity but also choice.” Riche Sorensen, registrar, on Romaine Brooks, “La Baronne Emile D'Erlanger,” ca. 1924.

In this portrait, artist Romaine Brooks pairs the baroness Marie Rose Antoinette Catherine Robert d’Aqueria de Rochegude with an ocelot, whose spotted coat and direct gaze echo the sitter’s own.

Your turn: How does this artwork make you feel?

Image credit:
Romaine Brooks, “La Baronne Emile D'Erlanger,” ca. 1924, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum

05/15/2024

SAAM’s Luce Foundation Center and the Lunder Conservation Center are closed to the public temporarily beginning Tuesday, May 21. Both are expected to reopen in June.

Glenn Kaino: “Bridge” opens in the Luce Foundation Center Friday, June 28. “Bridge” (2013-2014) is an aerial sculpture comprised of two hundred golden arms hanging from the ceiling. Each is a casting of the outstretched right arm of Tommie Smith (b. 1944), the American winner of the men's 200-meter race at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

Thursday, May 16 is the last day to experience the Temple of Invention Augmented Reality Experience in SAAM’s Luce Foundation Center. Registration encouraged; walk-ins welcome on a limited basis. Learn more: https://americanart.si.edu/visit/saam/luce/temple-of-invention

Photo by Albert Ting

05/15/2024

Continuing this series with a look at Miguel Luciano’s “Pa-lan-te” and “Double Phantom/EntroP.R.”

05/12/2024

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers and mother figures 💐

Image:
Margaret Jordan Patterson, “Garden Flowers,” ca. 1920, color woodcut on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum

05/06/2024

"What you see is what you see."