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Timeless Joy

You do not have much time left to enjoy our traveling exhibition Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum!

It closes its run at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock tomorrow before going to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where it opens on August 4.

Paul Manship's sculpture Playfulness delights viewers wherever it travels. The bond between mother and child blends past, present, and future in an unchanging cycle of existence. The soft patina of the surface, ranging in color from deep browns to delicate greens, gives an ancient quality to the sculpture's modern form.

Source: Virginia Mecklenburg. Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured: Paul Manship, 1885–1966, Playfulness, 1912, cast 1914, bronze on marble base, 13 3/8 x 12 5/8 x 7 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist.