Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the second in a series of special installations, celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists’ works on paper. 

Description

These exceptional watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the 1920s to the 1960s reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Rarely seen works from the museum's permanent collection by artists such as Stuart Davis, Sam Francis, Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Stella, Grant Wood, and Andrew Wyeth will be featured in the exhibition. Joann Moser, senior curator for graphic arts, selected the artworks in Graphic Masters.

Visiting Information

June 18, 2009 January 10, 2010
Open Daily, 11:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m
Free Admission

Publications

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Graphic Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Graphic Masters celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists’ works on paper. Exceptional watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the 1860s through the 1990s reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Traditionally a more intimate form of expression than painting or sculpture, drawings often reveal greater spontaneity and experimentation. Even as works on paper become larger and more finished, competing in scale with easel paintings, they retain a sense of the artist’s hand, the immediacy of a thought made visible.

Online Gallery

Media - 1966.47.237 - SAAM-1966.47.237_1 - 81770
Sketch of Egyptian Jackals
Date1924
watercolor, gouache and pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1967.59.1088 - SAAM-1967.59.1088_1 - 52039
Going Out
Dateca. 1939-1942
gouache, pen and ink and pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1967.59.1100 - SAAM-1967.59.1100_1-000001 - 52040
Lunchtime Rest
Dateca. 1940-1941
tempera and pen and ink on paper
Not on view
Media - 1969.35.28 - SAAM-1969.35.28_1 - 69705
Black Shore Dunes
Dateca. 1955-1965
brush and ink and ink wash on paper
Not on view
Media - 1969.58.2 - SAAM-1969.58.2_1 - 69912
Amagansett
Date1944
pen and ink and watercolor on paper
Not on view
Media - 1969.78 - SAAM-1969.78_1 - 52045
Folded Wings – Memory – & the Moon Weeping
Dateca. 1942-1943
ink wash and gouache on paper
Not on view
Media - 1971.447.80 - SAAM-1971.447.80_1 - 61124
Back of the Yards
Dateca. 1937
pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1972.123 - SAAM-1972.123_1 - 52287
Drawbridge
Date1939
pencil and charcoal pencil on illustration board
Not on view
Media - 1972.81 - SAAM-1972.81_1 - 52047
Abstraction
Date1937
watercolor and gouache on paper
Not on view
Media - 1973.32.2 - SAAM-1973.32.2_1 - 52489
Portrait of Clara Fasano
Date1943
pastel on paper
Not on view
Media - 1975.83.111 - SAAM-1975.83.111_1 - 4736
The Waitress
Dateca. 1934-1939
pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1976.10 - SAAM-1976.10_1 - 61156
Stage Setting for Gas”
Date1926
pen and ink, brush and ink, tempera and pencil on paperboard
Not on view
Media - 1976.130 - SAAM-1976.130_1 - 66277
Blue in Space
Dateca. 1937
pastel on paper mounted on paperboard
Not on view
Media - 1979.104 - SAAM-1979.104_1 - 88545
Untitled
Dateca. 1951
ink and tempera on paper
Not on view
Media - 1979.98.31 - SAAM-1979.98.31_1 - 47415
Card Player
Date1937
pen and ink, ink wash, and pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1980.5.2 - SAAM-1980.5.2_1 - 52293
Untitled
Date1950
enamel on paper mounted on paperboard
Not on view
Media - 1982.90 - SAAM-1982.90_1 - 52465
Study for American Interior, 1934
Dateca. 1934
watercolor, opaque watercolor and pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1985.65.21 - SAAM-1985.65.21_1 - 52064
Monument to Sound
Date1936
pencil on paper mounted on fiberboard
Not on view
Media - 1985.78 - SAAM-1985.78_1 - 52065
Self-Portrait
Date1928
charcoal, conte crayon and pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1986.6.24 - SAAM-1986.6.24_2 - 135613
Car across the Street
Date1940
pen and ink and watercolor on paper
Not on view
Media - 1986.6.37 - SAAM-1986.6.37_2 - 135619
Hibernation
Date1954
watercolor on paper mounted on paper
Not on view
Media - 1986.6.41 - SAAM-1986.6.41_2 - 135621
White River at Sharon
Date1937
watercolor and pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1986.6.79 - SAAM-1986.6.79_2 - 135607
Canticle
Date1954
casein on paper
Not on view
Media - 1986.92.73 - SAAM-1986.92.73_1 - 10254
Sketch for Machine Composition #2
Dateca. 1936
pencil and crayon on paper
Not on view
Media - 1988.60 - SAAM-1988.60_1 - 88550
Private Law and Order Leagues (study for medallion, Medals…
Dateca. 1938-1939
felt-tipped pen and ink (from verso) and pen and ink on paper
Not on view
Media - 1990.55 - SAAM-1990.55_1 - 52079
November First
Date1950
watercolor on paper mounted on paperboard
Not on view
Media - 1990.65 - SAAM-1990.65_1 - 11017
Captain Skinner
Date1944
gouache on paperboard
Not on view
Media - 1991.122.1 - SAAM-1991.122.1_1 - 64520
Village Slums
Date1937
charcoal, pencil and chalk on paperboard
Not on view
Media - 1992.58 - SAAM-1992.58_1 - 52084
Celestial
Date1956
mixed media: pencil, tempera, oil and wax on illustration board
Not on view
Media - 1993.48.5 - SAAM-1993.48.5_1 - 52085
Arroyo Landscape
Dateca. 1929-1933
watercolor on paper
Not on view
Media - 1993.70 - SAAM-1993.70_1 - 52086
Double Portrait
Date1944
watercolor and black ink on paper
Not on view
Media - 1995.10 - SAAM-1995.10_1 - 52088
On Fire
Date1949
pencil and colored pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1996.104.55 - SAAM-1996.104.55_1 - 55872
Saber Dance
Date1952
ink and ink wash on paper
Not on view
Media - 2001.4 - SAAM-2001.4_3 - 119586
Our Good Earth
Date1942
watercolor on illustration board
Not on view
Media - 2005.5.25 - SAAM-2005.5.25_1 - 67670
Over the Harbor, Centerport
Date1942
watercolor on paper
Not on view
Media - 2005.5.31 - SAAM-2005.5.31_1 - 66674
Untitled
Date1960
gouache on paper
Not on view
Media - 2009.13 - SAAM-2009.13_1 - 70644
The Children
Date1950
ink and graphite on paper
Not on view

Artists

Media - J0001440_1b.jpg - 87632
Stuart Davis
born Philadelphia, PA 1892-died New York City 1964

Pioneer modernist painter who exhibited at the 1913 New York Armory Show. Davis believed that "a subject had its emotional reality," which could be gleaned through an awareness of geometric planes and spatial relationships.

Media - portrait_image_114398.jpg - 90459
Willem de Kooning
born Rotterdam, Netherlands 1904-died East Hampton, NY 1997

Born in Holland, moved to the United States in 1924.

Sam Francis
born San Mateo, CA 1923-died Santa Monica, CA 1994

Of the West Coast artists that Martha Jackson brought to New York, certainly the most celebrated and ultimately the most successful was a painter whose reputation was well established in Europe before Americans paid him much heed.

Media - J0001707_1b.jpg - 89281
Edward Hopper
born Nyack, NY 1882-died New York City 1967

Realist painter who studied with Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the New York School of Art.

Joseph Stella
born Muro Lucano, Italy 1877-died New York City 1946

Born in Italy, brought to New York City in 1896, visited Europe in later years. Artist who experimented with a variety of approaches (ranging from Futurism to classic idealism) and techniques (including oils, pastels, and collage.)

Media - J0002305_1b.jpg - 89391
Grant Wood
born Anamosa, IA 1891-died Iowa City, IA 1942

Painter. A practitioner of American scene painting, Wood painted views of the Midwest in a realistic style mixed with satire.

Andrew Wyeth
born Chadds Ford, PA 1917-died Chadds Ford, PA 2009

Born 12 July 1917, Chadds Ford, Pa., the son of illustrator and painter N.C. Wyeth, who instructed him in art. Family divided each year between Chadds Ford and New England, especially Port Clyde, Maine; a habit Wyeth has continued.