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Scenes of American Life Opens in Dayton


Northern Minnesota Mine "If there is quintessential American art, this may be it—democratic, accessible, pragmatic." —Albany Times Union, October 21, 2001

Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum opens today at the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio. Drop by and see images of jazz and street life, farms and factories, workers and families that capture a changing America from the depression through the post-war period.

This brightly colored canvas by a native of Minnesota speaks to the productivity of American agriculture and industry. The curving sweep of the mine excavation in the background, the seedlings and mature crops in the foreground, and the cluster of figures beside the railroad tracks offer a positive view of Midwestern life even during the depths of the depression.

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

Pictured: E. Dewey Albinson, 1898 USA–1971 Mexico, Northern Minnesota Mine, 1934, oil, 40 x 50 1/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor.