Lectures on American Art

Getting Below the Surface: On American Painters and Their Paints

March 28, 2012

John Singleton Copley's Mrs. George Watson Somewhere between the letters PhD and CSI lives the amazing work of painting conservators. Part researcher and part detective, they study paintings with state-of-the-art tools that help them see through layers of paint and...

The 2012 Edition of American Pictures

March 22, 2012

Alli Jessing, Joint Programs Coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, fills us in on our upcoming lecture series, American Pictures. Speakers at this year's American Pictures lecture series (clockwise from upper left): James McBride (photo...

GameFest Highlight: King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

March 13, 2012

Alli Jessing, Joint Programs Coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, gives us a peek at our upcoming screening of Seth Gordon's documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters showing this Saturday, March 17...

Annie Leibovitz's State of the Union

February 7, 2012

Annie Leibovitz, Plano, Illinois, 2011. © Annie Leibovitz, 2011 On Tuesday, January 24, a couple of hours before the President delivered his address to Congress, Annie Leibovitz presented her own state of the union to a sold-out audience at American...

Mousetrap 101: Patents and Innovation with Collector Alan Rothschild

December 13, 2011

Mousetrap, 1870, John O. Kopas (Inventor), George W. Bauer (Inventor), mixed media, 10 x 8 1/2 x 9 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Alan and Ann Rothschild, 2011.37.15 The American Art Museum is no stranger to invention. The...