One of the best parts of my day is the time I set aside to search through the comments and photos people share with us on social media about the museum's artworks.

Donald Sultan's industrial landscape series depict an array of catastrophes, including forest fires, railway accidents, arsons, and industrial plants exuding toxic plumes. Twelve of these large-scale paintings are now on display at SAAM in the exhibition Donald Sultan: The Disaster Paintings.

On June 9 and June 10, Movies at SAAM is proud to co-host a two day film festival with the National Portrait Gallery's Taína Caragol, Curator of Latino Art and History, and SAAM's E. Carmen Ramos, Curator of Latino Art.

On Thursday, May 25, Bad Moves will perform in the Luce Foundation Center as part of Luce Unplugged, our free, monthly concert series presented with DC Music Download.

The exhibition, Down These Mean Streets: Community and Place in Urban Photography, takes as its starting point, the response by Latino artists to the "urban crisis," a term that emerged in the 1960s to refer to the changes that were going on in many cities throughout the United States. The exhibition title is inspired by author Piri Thomas, who grew up in El Barrio (aka Spanish Harlem), and captured the decline of the urban environment in his memoir Down These Mean Streets, published in 1967.

An expanded presentation of the now iconic Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly (aka The Throne) by James Hampton is currently on view in the newly installed and reimagined galleries for folk and self-taught art at SAAM.

As a visual for our film series Movies at SAAM, we've been using Xavier Barile's 42nd Street Nocturne. But did you know this painting hangs in the Luce Foundation Center? Situated in case 36B, Barile's small impressionistic painting shows New York City's 42nd Street Apollo Theatre aglow beneath a starry sky. Not only does this piece exemplify mid-20th-century American art, but it touches on key themes found within the history of film.

Lawrence Schiller, a former Life magazine photojournalist (who ironically was assigned to Nixon's failed presidential campaign) organized the exhibition and reviewed 34,000 photographs, before choosing seventy-seven "images that told the story."

AAM's Photograph Archives hold more than a quarter million photographs, documenting American art and artists. Curators, conservators, art collectors, and historians have used the images to inform or illustrate their projects. The Archives' largest collection contains 127,000 negatives from the Peter A. Juley & Son photography firm.

On April 25, 1917, one of the most iconic vocalists of our time was born—Ella Fitzgerald. This year, the world celebrates the centennial of the "First Lady of Song" and the legacy Ella left behind. For the eighth year in a row, the Smithsonian American Art Museum will fill its Kogod Courtyard with a celebration of her music on Saturday, April 29.

As the warm weather rolls into DC, so does our Spring Luce Unplugged Community Showcase. This Friday, April 28, get ready to dance with performances by Coup Sauvage & the Snips and Janel Leppin.

One of the questions we hear most often from visitors to the Lunder Conservation Center is "where are the conservators?"

As Emily Blachly leads a group of adults in discussing a 19th-century landscape in SAAM’s galleries, several visitors passing through the second floor hallway pause with interest. Two people stop to join the conversation. This is not an unusual occurrence for anyone who gives tours at SAAM, but Blachly’s gallery talk is especially intriguing for a visitor to encounter — she was speaking with her hands.

At first glance, the objects on display at SAAM's Renwick Gallery by June Schwarcz and Peter Voulkos couldn't be more different. Schwarcz's enamel work is precise and almost ethereal, while Voulkos's pots and sculptures are weighty and improvisational. But both artists had a powerful impact in the art world, defying convention and breaking all the rules of their traditional media.