Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the third in a series of special installations, celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists works on paper. The installation includes watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the 1960s to the 1990s by artists such as Jennifer Bartlett, Philip Guston, and Luis Jimnez. View

Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840–1882) was a photographer for two of the most ambitious geographical surveys of the nineteenth century. He traversed the mountain and desert regions of the western United States under the command of Clarence King and Lt. George M. Wheeler for six seasons between 1867 and 1874. O'Sullivan developed a forthright and rigorous style in response to the landscapes of the American West. Framing the West is the first major exhibition devoted to this remarkable photographer in almost three decades and features more than 120 photographs and stereo cards by O'Sullivan, including a notable group of King Survey photographs from the Library of Congress View

The most lyrical and spectacular of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's epic projects was the Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76. It survives today as a memory and through the artwork and documentation by the artists—drawings, collages, photographs, film, and components. Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence re-assesses after thirty years the impact of one of the artists' best-known projects. View

Telling Stories is the first major exhibition to explore the connections between Norman Rockwell’s iconic images of American life and the movies. Two of America’s best-known modern filmmakers—George Lucas and Steven Spielberg—recognized a kindred spirit in Rockwell and formed in-depth collections of his work.  View

Alexis Rockman (b. 1962) has been depicting the natural world with virtuosity and wit for more than two decades. His extensive body of work combines art history, science, and popular culture to address a wide range of subjects from evolutionary biology and genetic engineering to deforestation and global climate change. Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow is the first major survey of the artist's work and will feature approximately eighty paintings and works on paper from private and public collections. View

American Art through 1940, on the second floor, links artworks to major moments in America's past, from the American Colonies and the founding of the new republic to western art featuring expansion and discovery, to Civil War photographs, impressionist paintings, a selection of WPA murals and early modernist works. View

Paintings by Edward Hopper entice visitors to the American Experience, introductory galleries on the first floor. Landscapes from across the United States are on display in this suite, including 19th-century paintings and modern and contemporary paintings and sculpture, which convey a sense of place and the defining role of land in the American imagination. The landscape galleries are paired with photography galleries that present a selection of 56 photographs from Lee Friedlanders series The American Monument (1963-2001), a recent museum acquisition. View

Art created since 1945 is featured in galleries dedicated to Abstract Expressionism, Color Field and Pop Art. Paintings and sculpture by major artists such as Christo, Gene Davis, Willem de Kooning, Morris Louis, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Anne Truitt are on display. Works by video artist Nam June Paik also are on view in these galleries. View

The Smithsonian American Art Museum commissioned MVSEVM, a delightful new sculpture by David Beck, which debuted at the museum's grand opening on July 1, 2006. This exquisitely crafted world in miniature is inspired by the neoclassical architecture of the museum's historic Greek Revival building and presents aspects of the museum's collections and the building's history from the 1840s when it was Washington’s Patent Office and its first museum to the present day. The piece is on view in the south lobby on the second floor. View

The Smithsonian American Art Museum's most recent acquisition is For SAAM, a major site-specific light sculpture by Jenny Holzer. It is the artist's first cylindrical column of light and text created from white electronic LEDs (light emitting diodes) and the only Holzer on public view in Washington, D.C. View

The Smithsonian American Art Museum's Luce Foundation Center, the first visible art storage and study center in Washington, provides new ways to experience American art. It features more than 3,300 artworks including paintings densely hung on screens; sculptures, contemporary craft and folk art objects arranged on shelves; and portrait miniatures, bronze medals and contemporary jewelry and in drawers that slide open with the touch of a button. View

The Lunder Conservation Center, the first of its kind, allows the public permanent behind-the-scenes views of the essential preservation work that takes place in museums every day. Conservation staff are visible to the public through floor-to-ceiling glass walls that allow visitors to see firsthand all the techniques that conservators use to examine, treat, and preserve artworks. View

Many recently acquired major works by modern and contemporary artists, including Deborah Butterfield, Duane Hanson, Jenny Holzer, James Rosenquist, and Sean Scully, are now on view. Several emotionally powerful works, such as David Hockney’s Snails Space with Vari-Lites, ‘Painting as Performance,’ Edward and Nancy Kienholz’s Sollie 17 and Nam June Paik’s Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii are not to be missed in the museum’s soaring Lincoln Gallery. View

Paul Manship (1885-1966) was one of the most famous exponents of Art Deco in the United States. The Smithsonian American Art Museum has installed 25 of his graceful sculptures near the museum’s G Street lobby. View

Renovating a Landmark: From Patent Office to Reynolds Center coincides with the November 18 public opening of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard. The completion of the courtyard marks the final phase of a major renovation of the National Historic Landmark building that houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. View

The Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard is a signature element of the renovated National Historic Landmark building that houses the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The enclosed courtyard with its elegant glass canopy designed by the world-renowned architectural firm Foster + Partners provides a distinctive, contemporary accent to the museums' Greek Revival building.  View

The museum's Folk Art galleries display objects that affirm the basic human impulse to create. James Hampton's The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly, a visionary work made from salvaged materials covered in gold and silver foilperhaps the artwork most beloved by visitors—is installed in a special niche in the Folk Art galleries. View

The National Portrait Gallery recently completed the jurying portion of the second triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, whose winner will receive a grand prize of $25,000 and an opportunity to create a portrait for the Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection. View

Portraiture Now: Communities continues the National Portrait Gallery’s series of exhibitions that presents a myriad of approaches to contemporary portraiture. In this fifth installation, each of the three selected painters has explored the idea of community through a series of portraits of friends, townspeople or families. Seen together, the paintings by Rose Frantzen, Jim Torok and Rebecca Wescott suggest the enduring power of personal communities. View

“Echoes of Elvis” opens January 8, 2010, and marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birth. Although Presley died more than thirty years ago, the world remains fascinated with his image and music. His records have continued to sell by the millions, and public interest in his music, career and life has yet to subside. Artists such as Ralph Wolfe Cowan, Red Grooms, Robert Arneson and others have created mythical, spiritual and earthly images of the man whose legacy includes multiple superlative moments in music, entertainment, life and afterlife. To this day Presley is the subject of poetry, literature, music, film and the visual arts. View

Two additional exhibitions feature particular themes in American life. “Bravo!” showcases individuals who have brought the performing arts to life, beginning with P. T. Barnum, who raised the curtain on modern entertainment in the late 19th century, and continuing through the present. “Champions” salutes the dynamic American sports figures whose impact extends beyond the athletic realm and makes them a part of the larger story of the nation. A lively combination of portraits, artifacts, memorabilia and videos enhance both exhibitions. View

The nation’s only complete collection of presidential portraits outside the White House, this exhibition lies at the very heart of the Portrait Gallery’s mission to tell the American story through the individuals who have shaped it. The exhibition showcases an enhanced and extended display of multiple images of the past 42 presidents of the United States, including the greatest historical painting in the nation’s history, Gilbert Stuart’s “Lansdowne” portrait of George Washington. Also included are the famous “cracked plate” image of Abraham Lincoln and whimsical sculptures of Presidents Johnson, Carter and Nixon by noted caricaturist Pat Oliphant. Five presidents are given expanded attention because of their significant impact on the office: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. View

A “conversation about America” is on view in a series of 17 galleries and alcoves chronologically arranged to take the visitor from the days of contact between Native Americans and European explorers through the struggles of independence to the Gilded Age. Major figures from Pocahontas to Chief Joseph, Alexander Hamilton to Henry Clay, and Nathaniel Hawthorne to Harriet Beecher Stowe are among those included.

Three of the galleries are devoted exclusively to the Civil War, examining this conflict in depth. A group of modern photographic prints produced from Mathew Brady’s original negatives complement the exhibition. Highlights from the Gallery’s remarkable collection of daguerreotypes, the earliest practical form of photography, are on view in “American Origins,” making the National Portrait Gallery the first major museum to create a permanent exhibition space for daguerreotype portraits of historically significant Americans. Visit the companion website for the exhibition. View

Fourteen portraits in bronze and terra-cotta made by renowned American sculptor Jo Davidson between 1908 and 1946 include depictions of Gertrude Stein, Franklin D. Roosevelt, artist John Marin and Lincoln Steffens. View

The Lunder Conservation Center, the first of its kind, allows the public permanent behind-the-scenes views of the essential preservation work that takes place in museums every day. Conservation staff are visible to the public through floor-to-ceiling glass walls that allow visitors to see firsthand all the techniques that conservators use to examine, treat, and preserve artworks. View

Renovating a Landmark: From Patent Office to Reynolds Center coincides with the November 18 public opening of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard. The completion of the courtyard marks the final phase of a major renovation of the National Historic Landmark building that houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. View

The Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard is a signature element of the renovated National Historic Landmark building that houses the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The enclosed courtyard with its elegant glass canopy designed by the world-renowned architectural firm Foster + Partners provides a distinctive, contemporary accent to the museums' Greek Revival building.  View

Four newly created galleries off of the museum’s magnificent third-floor Great Hall showcase the major cultural and political figures of the 20th century. From the reform movement of the first two decades to the movements for social justice and civil rights of the 1960s and 1970s and from World War I to the Persian Gulf War, visitors can follow the unceasing struggle to achieve the American ideal. View