American Art Here
Still Life with Fruit and Champagne
May 9, 2008
Still Life with Fruit and Champagne by Helen Searle In my house there's the five-second rule: if some edible falls on the floor and you snatch it back in the alloted amount of time, it's still good enough to eat....
Philadelphia Story: Gary Wills on Thomas Eakins
May 5, 2008
Thomas Eakins's study for a second round of images of the Rush workshop from the SAAM collection: William Rush's Model What would you choose if someone were to ask you to pick an iconic work of art that spoke to...
The Art of Contemporary Jewelry:
Symposium on April 12
April 10, 2008
Claus Bury, German, born 1946, Ring, 1970, Gold and perspex acrylic, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase with funds provided by the Mary Kathryn Lynch Kurtz Charitable Lead Trust, 2002.3661, © Claus Bury "Don't call...
Merce C
April 4, 2008
Merce C by Franz Kline Merce Cunningham, at 87, is still going strong. The esteemed choreographer, who has collaborated with John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and many others, is one of the pioneers of contemporary dance. He was also...
Sam Francis
March 25, 2008
Sam Francis' Blue Balls With the Color as Field exhibition in full swing, I went back to take another look, and found myself returning to Sam Francis's painting, Blue Balls from 1960. It is a mostly empty canvas but for...
The President
March 12, 2008
Nancy Burson's The President (second version) In an election year I thought it might be good to take another look (or two) at photographer Nancy Burson's image The President (second version), in which the likenesses of five of our most...
Different Strokes: Hans Hofmann
February 29, 2008
Hans Hofmann's Fermented Soil Fermented Soil (1965) by Hans Hofmann contains such fresh joy and vigor it is hard to believe it was painted by a man in his mid-eighties. It swings like a jazz sextet. Hofmann was right in...
Framework: Artistic Collaborations Over Time
February 21, 2008
Elihu Vedder's The Sun God In the Washington Post, Style Section Editor John Pancake discusses Elihu Vedder's The Sun God in an interview with SAAM framer Martin Kotler, who faced a challenge in building a frame for the piece. Originally,...
John Alexander in Conversation
February 12, 2008
John Alexander, La Casa de los Locos, 1991, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Larson. © John Alexander Texas-born John Alexander, whose thirty-year retrospective fills the main galleries at SAAM, lived up to his introduction by...
The Ryder Moon
February 11, 2008
Albert Pinkham Ryder's Moonlight It must be a dozen or more years since the night I took a ferry ride with a friend across Long Island Sound. Hilda Morley, a poet from the influential Black Mountain School, and I were...
Family Ties at the Renwick Gallery
January 11, 2008
Top: Detail, The Holen Boys Ties Quilt, about 1935, silk, Lent by The Nebraska Prairie Museum of the Phelps County Historical Society, Holdrege, NE, with permission of the Holen Family. Bottom: The Holen family in front of the Renwick Gallery...
Picture This: Bottle Caps at SAAM
December 26, 2007
A collection of post-holiday bottle caps? Not on your life! From our Flickr photo pool comes this photograph by Justin Hoffmann: a closeup of Bottlecap Giraffe, part of SAAM's folk art collection. The piece can be found "in captivity" in...
Transcending Time
December 20, 2007
Frank O’Hara was a poet near and dear to my heart. Born in Baltimore in 1926, he died tragically forty years later in an accident on Fire Island. The death of a poet is never a pretty thing, and this...
Ann Truitt: Poetry in Stillness
December 13, 2007
Ann Truitt's 17th Summer The other day I went searching for a painting on the third floor of the museum—nothing in particular, but something to quench my visual thirst, as it were. I walked into a room with a Helen...
Applying Comics
November 27, 2007
Bernice Ellis Lunder; The Comics Quilt; probably Omaha, Nebraska; 1935; cotton; appliquéd, embroidered, and quilted; Lent by the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer, Grand Island. Explore this quilt in detail. Detail of Comic Quilt: Clarabella A few weeks ago...
Different Strokes: Helen Frankenthaler
November 26, 2007
Helen Frankenthaler's Small's Paradise I plan to make this post the first in a series on technique and medium. Paint. The stuff that gets under the artist’s fingernails, and can barely be scrubbed away. I love paint. I love color....
Jenny Holzer: Word on the Street
November 9, 2007
When I think of the work of contemporary artist Jenny Holzer I think of words--xenon text projected onto the facades of buildings, such as the recent installations at the New York Public Library, Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, and the...
Happy Halloween!
October 31, 2007
John Quidor, The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane, 1858, oil, 26 7/8 x 33 7/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible in part by the Catherine Walden Myer Endowment, the Julia D. Strong Endowment, and the Director's...
Designing an Exhibition Gallery
October 17, 2007
Jeremiah Gallay, one of SAAM’s exhibition designers, recently installed the show Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape in one of our galleries. He writes on how he chose to design the space. Scale Model of the Gallery...
From A to Z with Andrea Zittel
October 9, 2007
Six of the seven winners of the Lucelia Artist Award have work on view in a special exhibition, Celebrating the Lucelia Artist Award, 2001–2006, on display now. Eye Level caught up with 2005 winner Andrea Zittel while she was at...
Two New Podcasts
September 28, 2007
We have launched two new podcasts this week: an audio podcast, The Prints of Sean Scully, (whose exhibition is on display at the museum until October 8) and our first video podcast on our Lunder Conservation Center. Take a look...
Lucelia Artist Award Winner, Jessica Stockholder
September 17, 2007
Jessica Stockholder, 2006; Fluorescent light, bicycle rack, plastic waste basket, plastic thermos, red light bulb and fixture with plastic pitcher shade, yellow plastic crates, electric wires, wooden stool and bench, plywood, rubber mat, metal flashing, plastic ties, acrylic and oil...
Night Baseball
September 13, 2007
Top: Morris Kantor, Baseball at Night from SAAM's collection. Middle: my photograph of an Oriole’s game. Bottom: Phillips, Marjorie, Night Baseball, 1951, Oil on canvas, 24 1/4 x 36 in.; 61.595 x 91.44 cm., Gift of the artist 1951 or...
Veteran Photography
September 7, 2007
Six William Bell photographs of wounded Civil War solders are on view at SAAM. Even cherished memorial traditions fade as new generations adopt new practices to memorialize the wars, deaths, and other public losses that they deem significant. For example,...
Popular Music, Popular Art
August 31, 2007
Song siren Laura Burhenn with SAAM's Harry Bertoia American art makes a few surprise appearances in popular music this week: James Hampton's Throne Of The Third Heaven Of The Nations Millennium General Assembly is discussed in SAAM's latest podcast on...
Newsweek lists our Earl Cunningham show as a must see.
August 15, 2007
Newsweek lists our Earl Cunningham show as a must see. I didn't purchase the professional version of Smithsonian Radar when I signed on for this job ten years ago (that's reserved for our Public Affairs department who scours newspapers and...
Bison Bladders
August 10, 2007
A big box of bison bladders, similar to the kind George Catlin used to store his paints. If his brush stroke doesn't tip you off, his subject matter will. And if by the subject matter you can't tell that George...
Comic Book Newsarama
June 15, 2007
Jog and Chris from the comic book industry magazine Newsarama drove down from Pennsylvania to see our Saul Steinberg exhibition. Take a look at their review. Thanks for coming down guys! If you want to write your own review there's...
Keeping Up With the Joneses
June 14, 2007
Duane Hanson; Woman Eating; 1971; polyester resin, fiberglass, polychromed in oil paint with clothes, table, chair and accessories; 50 x 30 x 55 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2005.22...
Westermann's Table
June 7, 2007
H. C. Westermann; Westermann's Table; 1966, Douglas-fir plywood, Masonite, books, bolt, paint and graphite; 44 x 23 x 23 1/2 in.; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment; 2002.51 "Herman Melville's cursed...
A Week in Reviews
May 25, 2007
Nice review of our Scully exhibition in dcist earlier this week. (They also have a review of our Saul Steinberg exhibition.) Sean Scully, Saul Steinberg, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Apples, Oranges
May 16, 2007
Sean Scully; Untitled (Print #6), from the portfolio Enter Six; 1998; etching, aquatint, sugarlift, and spitbite; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Gift of the artist The upcoming exhibition of Sean Scully's prints puts me in mind of a conversation I had...
On the Calendar: Week of May 7, 2007
May 7, 2007
Some noteworthy events this week: a lecture by New Yorker cartoonist Matthew Diffee, a discussion with glass artist Beth Lipman at the Renwick (Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street, NW), and a screening of Seven Days in May. Events for the...
ColorField.remix
May 1, 2007
SAAM's Color Field Gallery with works by (from left to right): Paul Reed, Ann Truitt, Gene Davis, and Kenneth Noland. When Washington-area museums and galleries celebrate in tandem the legacy of the Washington Color School during ColorField.remix, one road will...
On the Calendar: The Week of April 30, 2007
April 27, 2007
We’ve decided that you might appreciate an occasional FYI about upcoming events—as long as we don’t spam you with PR. Stay tuned as we tweak this feature and leave us a comment if you love it, hate it, or have...
Etcetera
April 12, 2007
Karoline von Günderode is not a name you'd expect to pop up in modern art—she was a minor German Romantic poet. Her history, however, is fascinating, marked by fatal longing. After being refused romantically by the philologist Friedrich Creuzer, von...
In the News: Report on Smithsonian Arts
March 21, 2007
Today, the External Review Committee Report on Smithsonian Arts was made public. The Art Newspaper broke the story yesterday. After the Washington Post covered it today, the Museum pulled together a few thoughts in response: The report is silent on...
Springtime for Crafters
March 14, 2007
Beth Cavener Stichter; Olympia; 2006; stoneware, porcelain slip, polyester, and mixed media; Collection of Christine Rémy; Photo: Noel Allum; Courtesy Garth Clark Gallery After a late March snowfall, spring made its glorious debut, tempting this winter homebody to take a...
Last Weekend for Joseph Cornell
February 16, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007, is the last day to see the exhibition Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination. (Museum location and hours.) Joseph Cornell, American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Valentine's Day Scramble
February 14, 2007
The Luce Center staff made a Valentine's Day word scramble game for visitors. Sample question: Lots of couples go on dates for Valentine's Day. The artist who created this work, behind the glass wall on the 3rd floor, shows us...
SAAM's Second Podcast
February 9, 2007
Dust Bowl by Alexandre Hogue Ninety years from now, when America begins to reflect on the past one hundred years, what will our descendants think of the early part of the 21st century? And how will artists define the era?...
Lighting the Joseph Cornell Retrospective
February 5, 2007
We asked SAAM's lighting designer, Scott Rosenfeld, to discuss his thinking as he lit the exhibition on Joseph Cornell currently on view in the third-floor galleries. To fully reveal Cornell's boxes, traditional gallery lighting above the cases was supplemented with...
Luce Jewelry
January 30, 2007
Back before the holidays we got a question about how jewelry was displayed in the Luce Center. A few of the necklaces hang on forms in cases that provide special temperature and humidity control; everything else is in drawers that...
Joseph Cornell as Maker
January 22, 2007
Explore Joseph Cornell's Wonderland as a QTVR I think Joseph Cornell was one of the original makers: he understood that the manufactured things around us can be disassembled into their component parts and recombined into new things. Our Interact page...
Prufbox
January 9, 2007
Prufbox staged at our Reynolds Center's Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium this past December. The Happenstance Theater returned Prufbox to the stage after a well received run in the first annual Capital Fringe Festival. The encore performance was staged before the...
The Halff Collection
December 26, 2006
Childe Hassam, The New York Bouquet: West Forty-Second Street, 1917, Oil, 35 3/8 in. x 23 3/8 in., Collection of Hugh and Marie Halff Twenty-six major paintings from America's Gilded Age make up the collection assembled by San Antonio's Hugh...
Groove is in the Heart
December 19, 2006
SAAM's ¡del Corazón! Web Site The Smithsonian American Art Museum recently launched ¡del Corazón!, an online catalogue of Latino art from the United States. The variety of artists highlighted just goes to show that there is no monolithic "Latino" visual...
American Art Meets Desperate Housewives
December 1, 2006
SAAM's The Girl I Left Behind Me by Eastman Johnson graces the wall of Bree's home in an episode of Desperate Housewives. I was watching a backlog of Desperate Housewives episodes on TiVo the other evening and suddenly I noticed...
Picture This: Goop Joe's Poultry Pages
November 28, 2006
During the press preview for our Joseph Cornell exhibition I kept seeing people smiling and laughing while looking at the objects in one particular case. It contains pages from Goop Joe's Poultry Pages, a delightful mashup that Cornell made for...
The Empirical Cornell
November 20, 2006
Soap Bubble Set, 1949-50, Wood box construction with glass and mixed media, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the American Art Forum In "Dance With Duality," her essay for Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay Eterniday, Linda Roscoe Hartigan writes:...
Picture This: Joseph Cornell Docent Training
November 17, 2006
Exhibition curator Lynda Hartigan leads a training session for docents in the galleries of our Joseph Cornell exhibition (opening today). Cornell is known for his glass-paned boxes filled with intricate three-dimensional collages. This picture made me realize that we've created...
Art in America (by way of France)
November 14, 2006
Jack (Jackson Pollock), Charles Pollock, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Collection of Elizabeth Pollock, 1976.65.7. What if Jackson Pollock hadn't been born in Cody, Wyoming, but rather Moulins sur Allier in France?...
Sportsman's Camo
October 19, 2006
Copperhead Snake on Dead Leaves, study from the book Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, by Abbott Handerson Thayer One of Chicago's contemporary galleries hosts the photography of Harvey Opgenorth. In his Museum Camouflage series, his guerilla tactics appropriate museum-hung...
Give Me Park Avenue
September 1, 2006
Georgia O'Keeffe, Manhattan, 1932, oil, 84 3/8 x 48 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, 1995.3.1 Visitors may be surprised to learn that this glorious cityscape of Manhattan, hanging in our first-floor galleries, is...
Bar Italia
August 18, 2006
Paul Cadmus, Bar Italia, 1953–1955, tempera on wood, 37 1/2 x 45 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 1969.47.54. Getting tired of mobs of tourists wherever you travel this summer? Paul Cadmus could...
Cornell Cool
August 17, 2006
Joseph Cornell, "Ideals are like stars, about 1957-58, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1984.124.71 The "Week Ahead" column in the Sunday, August 13, New York Times notes a Joseph Cornell exhibiton at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York....
In This Case: Catlin
August 8, 2006
In This Case is a series of weekly posts on art in the Luce Foundation Center, a visible art storage facility at the Smithsonian American Art Museum that displays more than 3,300 pieces in fifty-seven cases. George Catlin, Prairie Meadows...
George Washington: His Head in the Clouds
August 5, 2006
Thomas P. Rossiter, Visit of the Prince of Wales, President Buchanan, and Dignitaries to the Tomb of Washington at Mount Vernon, October 1860, 1861, oil, 27 1/4 x 54 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Harriet Lane Johnston,...
The Science
July 31, 2006
Ann Creager uses microtweezers to restore Gene Davis's Two Part Blue. Photo by Michael Mansfield. Gene Davis's Two Part Blue was given to American Art in the ‘90s as part of the late artist’s estate. The painting came with a...
Museum Lighting: How We Do It
July 24, 2006
Color Field Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Scott Rosenfeld: "I think the entrance view works well. All three artworks, Anne Truitt's 17th Summer (left), Paul Reed's #1D (center) and Gene Davis's Wall Stripes No.3 (right) read as dynamic fields of...
Trout Fishing in America
July 5, 2006
Albert Bierstadt's Among the Sierra Nevada, California Peer closely at Albert Bierstadt's Among the Sierra Nevada, California—you need to be standing up close and personal, because you won't find it even in a large image—and you will see, in the...
This is Only a Test
July 1, 2006
David Hockney, Snails Space with Vari-Lites, "Painting as Performance", 1995-1996, oil on two canvases, acrylic on canvas, covered masonite, wood dowels, 84 1/4 x 264 x 135 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Nan Tucker McEvoy, 2003.31A-X Offset from...
Our First Podcast
July 1, 2006
Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Morning, 1950, oil, 34 1/8 x 40 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.92 Here, in the middle of opening day hubbub, we proudly present the first installment of our...
Don't Miss These
June 30, 2006
Arthur Dove, Sun, 1943, wax emulsion on canvas, 24 x 32 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Suzanne M. Smith, 1989.83.3 Performances, demonstrations, and talks will mark the opening of the museum tomorrow. Assuming you have some interest in...
Luis Jiménez, 1940—2006
June 20, 2006
Artist Luis Jiménez poses with his work Vaquero. Born in El Paso and an alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin, Jiménez made sculpture that coupled a Pop medium (fiberglass) with traditional Southwestern themes. His work drew from the...
In Memoriam: Luis Jiménez (1940—2006)
June 15, 2006
Luis Jiménez, Vaquero, modeled 1980/cast 1990, acrylic urethane, fiberglass, steel armature, 199 x 114 x 67 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Judith and Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., Anne and Ronald Abramson, Thelma and Melvin Lenkin, 1990.44 Luis was...
Baseball at Night
May 26, 2006
Top: Morris Kantor, Baseball at Night, 1934, oil, 37×47 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Morris Kantor, 1976.146.18. Bottom: Camden Yards, Photo by Mike Edson. What can paint on canvas do better than a photograph? A few...
A Sound Take on Craft
May 23, 2006
Norm Sartorius, Spoon from a Forgotten Ceremony, 1994, dogwood, 1 1/2 x 18 x 3 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John and Robyn Horn, 1994.75 A few weeks ago, I wrote about a special project here at SAAM...
The Chair: An Update
May 10, 2006
Multiple versions of this piece exist. But SAAM's is the only one Thiebaud's studio knows about. Wayne Thiebaud, Electric Chair, 1957, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2005.5.69 Last month I picked up on an item from the American Art collection highlighted...
Before and After
May 1, 2006
Last week Kriston posted his impressions of the newly renovated Old Patent Office building which will house SAAM and the National Portrait Gallery come July 1. We showed a vintage photograph of the building interior when it was used as...
Eye Level Wins MUSE Award
April 28, 2006
Eye Level has won a MUSE Award from the American Association of Museums—we took home a silver in “Two-Way Communication Projects.” COSI Columbus took the gold in this category for its videoconference In Depth: Autopsy, SFMOMA and Antenna Audio received...
The Lucelia Artist Award: Matthew Coolidge of the Center for Land Use Interpretation
April 27, 2006
Center for Land Use Interpretation, Subterranean Renovations: The Unique Architectural Spaces of Show Caves, 1998, CLUI Archive photo Congratulations are in order for Matthew Coolidge, director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) and winner of the 2006 SAAM...
Speaking of Pictures: Abbott Handerson Thayer
April 25, 2006
Abbott Handerson Thayer, My Children (Mary, Gerald, and Gladys Thayer), about 1897, oil, 86 1/4×61 1/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.122 Check out SAAM’s new Interact feature—Speaking of Pictures—which allows you to roll over an...
Design This Web Site
April 25, 2006
If you were Boss of the World, and you were designing a new visit section for the SAAM and National Portrait Gallery Web site, you would...
Meet the Press
April 22, 2006
The Old Patent Office building housed government offices in the 1950s. Last week All Things Considered ran a feature by Lynn Neary about the restoration of the Old Patent Office building, which houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the...
Looking at Art with Fresh Eyes
April 19, 2006
Director of Education Susan Nichols discusses Dan Dailey’s Parkman Coupe with Holton students. There’s nothing like looking at artworks with fresh eyes—or, at least, watching others look with fresh eyes. Last Wednesday, the AP Art History class from The Holton-Arms...
Cherry Jam
April 7, 2006
Tidal Basin in Full Bloom. Photo by Mike Edson. This is the time of year when Washington policy wonks, lobbyists, federal employees, and even elected officials put down their budget reports and poll results and head out to roll around...
The Chair
April 6, 2006
Wayne Thiebaud, Electric Chair, 1957, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2005.5.69 Tyler Green writes about an off-key Wayne Thiebaud given to the Smithsonian American Art Museum last year as part of a bequest by Arthur and Edith Levin. It's a 1957...
Think Green
March 17, 2006
Frank Brito, Saint Patrick Missionary of Ireland, about 1960s, carved and painted cottonwood, 13 x 5 x 4 3/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H....
A Herculean Move
March 15, 2006
How do you get a large painting into an art museum? Click on the image to begin the video (Quicktime, 4.3 MB). How does SAAM move a monumental artwork into the museum? Watch this video to find out! A tower...
Grant Wood's Studio
March 10, 2006
Visit Grant Wood’s virtual studio. Grant Wood’s iconic work, American Gothic, makes a return visit to Washington for the first time in 40 years. See it—along with lesser-known gems, such as Corn Cob Chandelier— in Grant Wood’s Studio: Birthplace of...
Shedding Some Light on Art
March 7, 2006
Scott Rosenfeld, our lighting designer, tests a new lighting system. A small crowd gathered in our offices this morning to watch Scott Rosenfeld, SAAM's lighting designer, play with this funky new light fixture. Instead of a halogen or incandescent bulb,...
Olympian
February 22, 2006
Nam June Paik; Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii; 1995; 49-channel closed circuit video installation, neon, steel and electronic components; approx. 15 x 40 x 4 ft.; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Gift of the artist; 2002.23 Want to see this...
The Clay's the Thing
February 15, 2006
Margaret Boozer, Eight Red Bowls, 2005, Maryland terra cotta and pine, 11 1/4 x 27 x 5 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, purchase through the Richard T. Evans Fund, 2001.9 Over the last few months no fewer than three...
A Nod From South by Southwest Interactive
February 9, 2006
Eye Level nominated for SXSW Interactive Award Late Friday we got word that Eye Level is a finalist for a South by Southwest Interactive Web Award in the Blog category. SXSW defines this category as "Sites that revolutionize the power...
Lucelia Class of '06
February 6, 2006
[Opens envelope] And the 14 nominees for the 2006 Smithsonian American Art Museum Lucelia Artist Award are [drum roll]: Laylah Ali Janine Antoni The Center for Land Use Interpretation (Matthew Coolidge) Spencer Finch Tom Friedman Maureen Gallace Ellen Gallagher Jon...
300 Hours and One Legendary Artwork
January 25, 2006
It took eight people more than three days to install James Hampton’s Throne. Click on the image above to watch a time lapse of its intallation. (Quicktime 12.8 MB) With our museum reopening just five months away, SAAM is a...
Ask the Artist: William Christenberry
January 13, 2006
Installation shot: Passing Time: the Art of William Christenberry, Smithsonian American Art Museum With SAAM’s reopening set for this July (after a six year top-to-bottom renovation of our building), we begin a series of posts to give you an inside...
You Say You Want a Revolution
December 21, 2005
Karl Gerstner, "There are five revolutions that must take place either simultaneously or not at all: a political revolution; a social revolution; a technological and scientific revolution; a revolution in culture, values and standards; and a revolution in international and...
Updike Takes On . . .
December 19, 2005
Edward Hopper, People in the Sun, 1960, oil, 40 3/8 x 60 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 1969.47.61 I nearly forgot about the recent NPR interview with John Updike, author of Still...
Featuring Birds
December 13, 2005
John James Audubon, Cardinal Grosbeak, 1811, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U. S. National Museum, 1953.3.1 Here's an excerpt from Paul Richard's Washington Post article about Audubon's Birds of America, selections from which are on view at the...
Ghosts and Artisans
December 9, 2005
Wendall Castle, Ghost Clock, 1985, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1989.68 When art touches and powerfully shapes someone’s life, it always makes for a good story. But it’s not often that one hears such testimony about work made as recently as...
Opening Day
November 28, 2005
Unidentified, Eye, circa 1900s, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1967.110.1 Welcome to Eye Level! I'm pleased to introduce the Smithsonian American Art Museum's blog, the first by the Smithsonian and one of just a handful of museum sites in the blogosphere....
Pride or Prejudice?
November 15, 2005
George Catlin, Táh-téck-a-da-háir, Steep Wind, a Brave of the Bad Arrow Points Band, 1832, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1985.66.86 Since the NCAA's August decision to prohibit teams using Native American monikers or mascots from playing in or hosting official tournaments,...
The Scully Files
October 31, 2005
Sean Scully, Wall of Yellow Light, 2002, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2003.39.1 (printer: Gregory Burnet) I don't think I'm alone when I say that, from time to time, an artist whose work I've always casually admired will—without warning—completely capture my...
Happy Birthday to Clarice Smith
(the Lecture Series, That Is)
October 7, 2005
It occurs to me that just about this time last year Peter Schjeldahl kicked off the Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art series. That was a really sharp event. If you missed it, you're in luck—local blogger Charles Downey...
Art in America
September 30, 2005
John Singleton Copley, Mrs. George Watson, 1765, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1991.189 In 1762, American painter John Singleton Copley wrote to Swiss miniaturist Jean-Etienne Liotard about the condition of the arts in the American colonies: You may perhaps be surprised...
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