Art + Artists

Featured Exhibitions

American Myth & Memory: David Levinthal Photographs

June 7, 2019 — October 14, 2019

Smithsonian American Art Museum (8th and F Streets, NW)

Populated with toy cowboys and cavalry, Barbie dolls and baseball players, David Levinthal’s photographs reference iconic images and events that shaped postwar American society. Despite their playful veneer, Levinthal’s images provide a lens through which to examine the myths and stereotypes lurking within our most beloved pastimes and enduring heroes. In doing so, Levinthal encourages us to consider the stories we tell about ourselves—what it means to be strong, beautiful, masculine, feminine, and ultimately, American.
Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975

March 15, 2019–August 18, 2019

Smithsonian American Art Museum (8th and F Streets, NW)

Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 makes vivid an era in which artists endeavored to respond to the turbulent times and openly questioned issues central to American civic life.
Tiffany Chung: Vietnam, Past Is Prologue

March 15, 2019–September 2, 2019

Smithsonian American Art Museum (8th and F Streets, NW)

Through maps, videos, and paintings that highlight the voices and stories of former Vietnamese refugees, Tiffany Chung probes the legacies of the Vietnam War and its aftermath.
Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery

March 29, 2019 - Ongoing

Renwick Gallery (Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW)

Connections is the Renwick Gallery’s dynamic ongoing permanent collection presentation, featuring more than 80 objects celebrating craft as a discipline and an approach to living differently in the modern world. The installation includes iconic favorites alongside new acquisitions.
David Best's Temple

March 30, 2018 - January 5, 2020

Renwick Gallery (Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW)

David Best’s Temple transforms the Renwick Gallery’s Bettie Rubenstein Grand Salon into a glowing sanctuary, offering visitors a quiet place to reflect and pay tribute to lost loved ones.

Collection Highlights

Early American Art

The museum’s collection begins with works from the colonies of New Spain and New England.

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The museum’s collection charts the nation’s growth from a young republic to an emerging world power. Landscapes extolling the nation’s geographic wonders from Niagara Falls to the Grand Canyon drove and documented westward expansion. Asher Durand’s Dover Plains, Dutchess County, New York presents an idyllic landscape where man and nature coexist.

20th Century

Artists in the twentieth century chose two distinct ways to depict modernism and the excitement of progress—realism and abstraction. Both are well represented in the collection. The museum has the largest collection of New Deal art and murals in the country. Images of jazz and street life, farms and factories, workers and families captured a changing America

Contemporary Art

In recent years, the museum has strengthened its commitment to contemporary art through acquisitions, commissions, and exhibitions.

Art by African Americans

SAAM is home to one of the most significant collections of African American art in the world, boasting more than two thousand works by more than two hundred African American artists. Covering centuries of creative expression, the artworks explore themes that reflect the African American experience in paintings, sculpture, prints, textiles and photographs.

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Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts

The museum’s collection of contemporary American craft is considered one of the finest in the United States.

Folk and Self-Taught Art

The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection of folk and self-taught art represents the powerful vision of America’s untrained and vernacular artists. Represented in the museum’s collection are pieces that draw on tradition and artworks that reveal a more personal vision.

Latino Art

The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Latino art collection represents a profound commitment to building a great national collection reflecting the rich contributions of Latinos to our country from the colonial period to the present.

Photography

America’s continuing love affair with the camera can be traced through the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection, which ranges from early daguerreotypes to contemporary digital works. In 1983, the museum began to seriously collect photography. That year, more than 1,800 photographs were transferred to the museum from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Browse Artworks by Color

Today's Birthday

Oscar R. Castillo

Born: El Paso, Texas 1945

Art + Artists

Featured Exhibitions

American Myth & Memory: David Levinthal Photographs

June 7, 2019 — October 14, 2019

Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975

March 15, 2019–August 18, 2019

Tiffany Chung: Vietnam, Past Is Prologue

March 15, 2019–September 2, 2019

Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery

March 29, 2019 - Ongoing

David Best's Temple

March 30, 2018 - January 5, 2020

View All Current Exhibitions

Collection Highlights

Early American Art

19th Century

20th Century

Contemporary Art

Art by African Americans

Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts

Folk and Self-Taught Art

Latino Art

Photography

Sculpture

Works on Paper

Time-Based Media

Browse Artworks by Color

Today's Birthday

Oscar R. Castillo

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