SAAM and its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, celebrate the extraordinary creativity of artists w Welcome to our page!
The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation's first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience from the colonial period to today. The Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, features one of the finest collections of American craft in the United States. Please feel free to share thoughts about our posts, ask us questions, or tell u
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“We would not have an American Studio Glass movement without Dale Chihuly.” Read more about the artist's legacy and impact, including insights from SAAM director Stephanie Stebich and curator Nora Atkinson.
Save the date! “Master of Glass: The Art of Dale Chihuly” premieres Sunday, December 11 at 9 p.m. ET on the Smithsonian Channel.
The pioneering glassmaker and octogenarian is the subject of a new Smithsonian Channel documentary
In 2017, Katie Hudnall began to fill her home with acorns collected on long walks. Dealing with difficult life circumstances, Hudnall found, “The walks became a way to find myself back to my mind and body again and to be really present.” Hudnall created a special shelter for the acorns: a curvilinear suitcase featuring a square — a home — for each one.
On Thursday, December 8, 7 p.m. ET, join artist Katie Hudnall as she provides an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at her woodworking studio and a peek at some of her latest works-in-progress. Participants will see the tools Hudnall regularly uses in her art, learn about her creative process, and ask her questions in a live chat.
Hudnall’s artwork “Nut Case” is currently on view in the exhibition “This Present Moment: Crafting A Better World” at SAAM’s .
“I look to their example to see for myself that the triumphs we experience today will outlast tyrants and that nothing can ever erase them—not time, not death. These protectors of our nation fought and put their very bodies and their lives on the line. My work is to continue to lift them up in history so they can be seen in public spaces, where their heroic sacrifices become part of the American quest to fight against oppression and for freedom.‘’ — Bisa Butler
The latest from SAAM’s video series, American Art Moments, takes a closer look at Bisa Butler’s monumental quilt, now on view at the Renwick Gallery.
SAAM’s video series, American Art Moments, takes a closer look at the monumental quilt The Harlem Hellfighters by Bisa Butler
On , your gift shines a light on art conservation.
When conservators at SAAM set out to preserve Judy Baca’s portable mural “Uprising of the Mujeres,” they faced many unique challenges. The mural, created by one of the most accomplished muralists and narrative artists of our time, is made up of six 4-foot by 8-foot panels.
To gather the information needed to create a treatment plan for such a large object, SAAM’s conservators used a technique called photogrammetry to document the panels. Overlapping digital images were captured to generate a photorealistic 3D model of the entire artwork. This critical information ensured the painting was cleaned safely.
Thanks to hard work and the generous support of caring people like you, our conservation team was able to carry out a technologically advanced treatment plan to preserve “Uprising of the Mujeres” for years to come.
Your gift to SAAM will help support more important work like Baca’s mural. https://americanart.si.edu/donate
“Dining is a multisensory process that engages us beyond the level of physical nourishment, to ignite our senses of selfhood, relationship, ancestry, and culture.” — gwendolyn yoppolo
Artist gwendolyn yoppolo focuses on creating meaningful relationships through a shared dining experience.
Artist gwendolyn yoppolo focuses on creating meaningful relationships through a shared dining experience
So many wonderful museums on this list—SAAM and the Renwick Gallery are in excellent company! What are some of your favorite art museums to wander when you're in search of inspiration?
From institutions overlooking Central Park to the largest art museum on the West Coast, here are some of America's best art museums.
Travelers driving through California’s Mojave Desert from the early 1950s through the 1970s may have been lucky to take a break at a unique roadside attraction created and run by Calvin and Ruby Black. This roadside attraction and art environment featured a village of handmade dolls lovingly dressed and accessorized (some even scented) to create a character and identity for each one.
In preparing two of these dolls for “We Are Made of Stories: Self-Taught Artists in the Robson Family Collection,” SAAM’s conservators found a delicate balance between original work and restoration.
SAAM’s conservators find the delicate balance between original work and restoration through two dolls
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation) was born on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana in 1940. As a child, she escaped hardships through books and the drawings her father made for her. The comic, “Jaune Quick-To-Smith: Becoming an Artist” explores how throughout her long and distinguished career she has used her art to powerfully express her support for Native American communities.
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation) was born on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana in 1940. Throughout her long and distinguished career she has used her art to powerfully express her support for Native American communities
“I’m compelled how an object that is in some ways so humble and simple can have so much meaning and power.”
Explore Marie Watt’s (Seneca Nation of Indians) artistic journey through unconventional materials and textiles. In this video she discusses how her work Edson’s Flag honors veterans, her family, and her Native culture. Learn how her artistic focus turned to blankets, which she sees as humble and simple objects that are imprinted with the powerful stories of our lives.
“As an artist, you need to have a relationship with and knowledge of your materials, an understanding of how they can be used.”
Artist Kelly Church (Ottawa/Pottawatomi) is a celebrated basket maker known for creating elaborately woven vessels from ash trees. Church’s beautiful egg-shaped woven vessel “Sustaining Traditions–Digital Memories” reflects deep ties not only to Church’s community and ancestral legacy, but also to the natural environment where for centuries, the Anishinaabe have cultivated ash and other local materials for their basketry.
Church uses the natural beauty of the basket to draw the viewer’s attention. However, “Sustaining Traditions—Digital Memories” is more than a basket inspired by the Fabergé eggs of nineteenth-century imperial Russia. It serves as a time capsule for future generations of basket makers. It represents the past, present, and future of Anishinaabe communities and the holistic relationship they have with their material.
Discover how artist Kelly Church is ensuring that centuries of Indigenous traditions are preserved for future generations with her beautifully woven basketry.
Filled with food, music, and dancing, Day of the Dead is a rich celebration of the lives of those who have passed before us. While Mexican American communities have celebrated the Day of the Dead for hundreds of years in the United States with personal, often religious, ceremonies, there has been an evolution in how the holiday is celebrated today. This change, in addition to a steady rise in awareness of the of the Day of the Dead in the United States, can be traced back to Chicano artists and activists who launched large scale, public events during the holiday seeking to create a new political and cultural consciousness among people of Mexican descent in the United States.
Chicano artists and activists blended cultural and visual traditions to create modern Day of the Dead celebrations in the U.S.
“As early as I can remember, I wanted to be an artist.”
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was born on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana in 1940. As a child, she escaped her world through books and the drawings her father made for her.
Read more about Smith’s childhood and her path to “Becoming an Artist” in this online comic: https://americanart.si.edu/art/art-comics/jaune-quick-to-see-smith-comic
Artwork:
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, “Untitled, from the portfolio Indian Self-Rule,” 1983, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/untitled-portfolio-indian-self-rule-22560
“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape—the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show.” —Andrew Wyeth
Today, let us take a moment with Andrew Wyeth’s painting, “November First,” which captures the cold damp of late autumn. The harvested field of corn stalks swaying in the wind portrays the inevitable cycles of decay and renewal.
November... mood.
Image:
Andrew Wyeth, “November First,” 1950, watercolor on paper mounted on paperboard.
Who else is hanging on like this vampire bat at the tail end of ?
We’ve been streaming so many episodes of the hilarious vampire mockumentary series “What We Do In the Shadows” that the characters now appear to be haunting the museum halls. We’re even starting to see the faces of Laszlo, Nadja, Nandor, Colin, and Guillermo peering out from artworks .
Anna May Wong began gracing the silver screen during the Roaring Twenties amid the early years of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
A third generation Chinese American, Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles, California, in 1905. As a young girl, she became fascinated by the film and acting industry. Frequently, she would visit Hollywood sets during filming, squeezing through crowds to get the best view. “I’d stare at these glamorous individuals,” she remembered, “and then I would rush home and do the scenes I had witnessed before a mirror.”
This week, the U.S. Mint released a quarter featuring Hollywood star Anna May Wong as a part of the American Women Quarter Program. Read more about her life and career and see portraits of Wong from around the Smithsonian.
Actress Anna May Wong is now the first Asian American on U.S. currency.
Let’s give them pumpkin to talk about.
“… my ideas are influenced by environment and come from memory and imagination… An idea may begin on the beach or in my garden, seeing the profile and volume of a pod or pumpkin. Using bark from the forest as fabric, the image is then altered to suit the materials.” —Dona Look
Dona Look, “Birch Bark Basket #2001-2,” 2001, sewn and wrapped white birch bark and waxed silk thread
On Saturday, October 29, join SAAM in celebrating Día de los Mu***os! Enjoy live music, face painting, and crafts for all ages.
Need some ideas to celebrate at home? Visit our Family Zone for more crafts, coloring pages, and performance videos.
Celebrate Día de los Mu***os with SAAM!
When 8-year-old Mary Vaux Walcott received a set of watercolor paints, that gift helped set in motion a life spent studying and documenting wildflowers. For many years she explored difficult terrain, looking for important flowering species to paint.
After marrying Smithsonian Secretary Charles Walcott in 1914, she painted hundreds of watercolor studies of plants while he did geological and paleontological research.
At the urging of botanists and wildflower enthusiasts, a selection of four hundred of her illustrations was published in 1925 by the Smithsonian in a five-volume edition.
On October 28th, to celebrate the release of the new “Wild Flowers of North America: Botanical Illustrations By Mary Vaux Walcott,” Smithsonian experts from SAAM, Smithsonian Institution Archives, and Smithsonian Gardens will explore Walcott’s life, her work, and her deep Smithsonian ties. Register now for this free virtual panel discussion: https://library.si.edu/event/mary-vaux-walcott-life-bloom
One glance at this portrait and it’s clear that this was was not just any horse. Born in Kentucky in 1850, for twenty years, Lexington held the record for the fastest horse in the world, winning six of his seven races despite becoming partially blind. Thomas J. Scott painted this image while living in Kentucky in the 1850s, when Lexington was at his peak. SAAM curator Eleanor Harvey reflects on the portrait: “It is painted with a kind of empathy that makes you want to stand in front of the canvas and know more about the horse.”
For her latest novel “Horse,” the Pulitzer-prize winning author Geraldine Brooks found inspiration in the Smithsonian collections
“To me, Johnson’s ‘Fighters for Freedom’ paintings feel as timely now as they must have in 1945, offering compelling entry points to histories that are too often underrepresented in classrooms and on museum walls. Reflecting both hard truths and triumphant achievements of the past, I hope they’ll inspire students to become the next generation of change makers.”
SAAM educator Phoebe Hillemann reflects on creating resources to spark curiosity for learners of all ages.
SAAM educator Phoebe Hillemann reflects on creating resources to spark curiosity for learners of all ages who view William H. Johnson’s Fighters for Freedom series
Go behind the scenes with a mural conservator as they share the fascinating process of preserving Judy Baca's “Uprising of the Mujeres.”
A behind-the-scenes look at how 3D imaging helps a mural conservator preserve Judy Baca's Uprising of the Mujeres.
Artist Ana Mendieta’s innovative site-specific sculpture, earth art, drawing, films, and performance art shocked and challenged audiences.
How Groundbreaking Artist Ana Mendieta Remembered her Homeland September 30, 2022 Click to expand social media share options Image Still image from Ana Mendieta’s Sweating Blood, 1973, single channel, super-8mm film transferred to high-definition digital media, color, silent; 03:18 min., Smithsoni...
Meet artist Rupert García, who discusses the rise of the Chicano movement and the political icons who became the inspiration behind his posters. By highlighting individuals engaged in the fight for social justice, García challenges who gets to be represented and examines the relationship he creates between aesthetics and politics.
What do 19th-century landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church and 20th-century abstract artist Thomas Nozkowski have in common?
Both artists spent significant time in the Catskills, drawing inspiration for their respective artworks from their awe-inspiring surroundings.
Explore art and nature with poet, art critic, and curator John Yau as he draws parallels between Church and Nozkowski and considers how each artist’s vision of nature could provide lessons for us today.
Free lecture online or in person on Wednesday, October 12. Register now: https://americanart.si.edu/events/john-yau-frederic-church-and-thomas-nozkowski-and-their-views-catskills-october-12-2022
Judith Baca is a painter, muralist, and scholar who works collaboratively within communities to create sites of public memory.
The artist reflects on her work, her inspirations and the process of creating a portable mural.
SAAM talks with the artist about her inspirations and the process of creating a portable mural
On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was. (It’s October 3rd.)
May we all find an an excuse to talk to the Aaron Samuels in our lives today.
William Clarke Rice, “October (cover illustration for Harper’s Magazine),” 1903
Collector Douglas O. Robson offers insights into his mother’s collecting habits, her dedication to self-taught artists, and his own collecting journey.
What draws artists like Judy Baca, Tiffany Chung, Sonya Clark, Sarah Goodridge, Ester Hernandez, Loïs Mailou Jones, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Nellie Mae Rowe, Augusta Savage, or Kay WalkingStick to create? Find out in a new set of “Drawn to Art” comics that are sure to inspire middle school-age readers and art lovers of any age.
Read ten more inspiring stories about trailblazing women artists in the 2022 edition of SAAM's online comic series “Drawn to Art: Ten Tales of Inspiring Women Artists.”
Drawn to Art illuminates the stories of women artists, some of whom may not have received the attention they deserved in their lifetimes, whose artwork is represented in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Inspired by graphic novels, these short takes on artists’ lives were draw...
Read ten new stories about remarkable women artists in the 2022 edition of SAAM’s online comic series. “Drawn to Art” returns with more inspiring tales for middle school-age readers and art lovers of any age.
The comic series Drawn to Art, published online by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, features tales of inspiring women artists.
Curling up with this comic about Mickalene Thomas for a mid-week reading break.
When contemporary artist Mickalene Thomas was in art school, she couldn’t afford traditional materials and gravitated towards craft stores and the glitter and rhinestones within. Her paintings speak to female empowerment and of women of color owning and defining their own spaces.
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When contemporary artist Mickalene Thomas was in art school, she couldn’t afford traditional materials and gravitated towards craft stores and the glitter and rhinestones within. Her paintings speak to female empowerment and of women of color owning and defining their own spaces.
Artist Chawne Kimber stitches her experiences and activism in vibrant, improvisational-style quilts.
Artist Chawne Kimber stitches her experiences and activism in vibrant, improvisational-style quilts
Reflecting on artworks that remind us of the moments of tragedy, the enduring spirit of a nation, and the lasting impact of the events of 9/11.
Artworks in SAAM’s collection and the stories they tell us about 9/11
“I put these stories on pottery because pottery lasts forever. It is how we know about cultures past, and I refuse to have our stories forgotten. We are here and demand to be seen as sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, and not dispensable beings.”
Artist Roberto Lugo is remixing classical ceramics and underrepresented figures with a hip-hop style.
Remixing classical ceramics and underrepresented figures with a hip-hop style
Ester Hernandez’s “Homenaje a Cesar Chavez (Homage to Cesar Chavez),” is a tribute to the noted civil rights and labor movement activist who, alongside celebrated activist Dolores Huerta, founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962.
Go in-depth into the artwork and learn more about Chavez and Hernandez:
Exploring the life of a celebrated labor rights activist through his portrait
In “Glazescape (Green Shade),” artist Lauren Mabry constructed a bold and dynamic sculpture from slabs of earthenware. To create the juicy characteristics of the surface, she piped a selection of glazes into the top cavity, then relinquished all control.
The decadent inspiration behind Lauren Mabry's ceramics
2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the as we know it, but the building began its life during the Civil War and was almost demolished in the 1960s… so, how did this space evolve over time? Today, we’re exploring the history of this special space with Smithsonian Institution Archives.
In 1874, the Renwick Gallery opened its doors, the first building in the United States specifically designed to display works of art to the public. More than a century later, in 1972, the Smithsonian American Art Museum began to host programs of traditional and modern crafts, decorative arts and architectural design. Fifty years later, the building is filled with artworks from SAAM’s collection of modern and contemporary craft.
Did you know that the Renwick Gallery was inspired by the Louvre? When the building first opened a decade after the Civil War to display William Wilson Corcoran’s art collection, it was hailed as the “American Louvre.” After the building fell into disrepair, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy successfully led the campaign in 1962 to save the Renwick Gallery. In one of her letters on the subject of the Renwick building she wrote, “It may look like a Victorian horror, but it is really quite a lovely and precious example of the period of architecture which is fast disappearing.”
Marking 50 years of American craft at the Renwick Gallery, “This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World” showcases the dynamic landscape of American craft today. The exhibition highlights the role that artists play in our world to spark essential conversations, stories of resilience, and methods of activism.
Specially-designed posters for the Renwick Gallery highlight exhibitions and the building’s memorable architecture.
The Little Friends of Printmaking—husband and wife team JW and Melissa Buchanan—have created three posters for the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The third print was designed in honor of the 50th anniversary of SAAM’s Renwick Gallery and current exhibition, “This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World.”
The Little Friends of Printmaking have created posters for the Renwick Gallery including for the current exhibition, This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World
Visual descriptions convey what the writer sees through two separate acts of translation: transforming a visual experience into a verbal one, and turning a private experience into one that can be communicated to someone else. In an art museum setting, visual descriptions help blind or low vision visitors experience and appreciate works of art.
Creating visual descriptions to help blind or low vision visitors experience and appreciate works of art
This cat is an entire mood.
Paul Wayland Bartlett created many sculptures of animals during his early career often—focusing on facial expressions to capture the animal’s emotion.
Paul Wayland Bartlett, “Head of a Cat,” modeled ca. 1877-1880, bronze, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Coloring books can offer space for creativity or release for children and adults. Inspired by artwork in SAAM’s collection, while away a quiet afternoon with some art supplies and our coloring sheets. https://americanart.si.edu/blog//coloring-books-adults
Coloring books can offer space for creativity or release for children and adults. Inspired by artwork in SAAM’s collection, while away a quiet afternoon with some art supplies and our coloring sheets.
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“Father of Video Art” Nam June Paik was born on this day in 1932. Take a journey into Paik’s life and work, including his monumental “Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii” (1995) in this American Art Moment with SAAM curator Saisha Grayson. Learn more about this iconic artwork that was a gift from the artist to the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). Saisha Grayson, SAAM’s curator of time-based media, shares insights about Paik’s life and the personal associations that, along with popular culture references, inform the media clips the artist included within this monumental map of the United States. Grayson also discusses the installation’s complexity and continued relevance today. This video is part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum‘s ongoing series “American Art Moments.” Join a SAAM expert and go beyond the artwork label to discover the untold stories and rich connections represented in some of the museum's most iconic artworks.
Go behind the scenes to see how illustrator Madeline Kneubheul brought Berenice Abbott’s story to life for our new series, ”Drawn to Art: Ten Tales of Inspiring Women Artists."
National Portrait Gallery w Waszyngtonie
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