SAAM Stories

Media - 1967.39.2 - SAAM-1967.39.2_1 - 2536
06/26/2012
This post is part of an ongoing series on Eye Level: "Q and Art," where American Art's Research department brings you interesting questions and answers about art and artists from our archive.
40 under 40 Gabriel Craig
It’s no secret that we’re excited for 40 under 40: Craft Futures to open at our Renwick Gallery July 20. If you’ve been following along, you know we’ve been featuring videos each of the 40 young artists created to introduce themselves to you. We got so many amazing and creative clips from them, it’s hard to choose favorites. But today we do want to show you the video we received from Gabriel Craig, a metalsmith, writer, and self-proclaimed craft activist.
Mandy
Blog Image 296 - Preparing for African American Art: Conserving a Work by Richard Hunt
06/21/2012
One of our current exhibitions, African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, will be visiting five other museums across the country once it closes here in September, and our conservation staff have been hard at work ensuring that the pieces on display are "road ready."
Courtney
Media - 2000.91.6 - SAAM-2000.91.2-7_1 - 56424
If you haven't noticed, we are very excited about the upcoming exhibition 40 under 40: Craft Futures in honor of the Renwick Gallery's 40th anniversary as the museum's branch for craft and decorative arts! In anticipation of the July 20th opening, we at the Luce Foundation Center thought we’d join in on the celebration by highlighting two craft objects on display in the Luce Center by young artists in our permanent collection.
Erin
Image Not Available
06/06/2012
In just over a month, the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery opens 40 under 40: Craft Futures, an exhibition celebrating the Renwick's fortieth birthday as our branch for contemporary craft and decorative art.
Mandy
Blog Image 326 - Preparing for African American Art: Conserving a Work By John Scott, Part 3
05/31/2012
Do you know that some of the materials used in art conservation are similar to those you might find listed on the back of your hair gel or face lotion bottle?
Mary
Image Not Available
05/29/2012
How many of you, as youngsters, wanted to be a superhero when you grew up? I wonder if sculptor Bret Price had any such aspirations.
Bridget Callahan
Luce Program Coordinator
Blog Image 121 - Behind the Scenes: Preparing an Artwork for Exhibition
Conservators must use a variety of techniques when treating mixed media artworks, each suited to a particular material in that piece. Read on to learn about the different treatments that Paintings Conservator Amber Kerr-Allison used to prepare Löis Mailou Jones's mixed media painting Moon Masque for display in our exhibition African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, now on display through September 3.
Courtney
Media - 2013.76.1A-B - SAAM-2013.76.1A-B_4 - 116132
05/22/2012
Meet Martha the Passenger Pigeon and Incas the Carolina Parakeet. These two fine aves were lovingly crocheted by artist Laurel Roth for the exhibition 40 under 40: Craft Futures, opening at the museum's Renwick Gallery July 20.
Mandy
Blog Image 76 - Comment Sketches from The Art of Video Games
05/17/2012
The Art of Video Games exhibition includes a lot of interactive technology, but one of our favorite components is not hi-tech at all; it's a plain spiral-bound notebook that asks visitors to leave a comment.
Georgina
Media - 1993.72.1 - SAAM-1993.72.1_1 - 11764
05/15/2012
In a poem titled, "Mother to Son," Langston Hughes wrote of an African American woman's hardships, as she advises her son to never give up: "Well, son, I'll tell you:/Life for me ain't been no crystal stair..." Far from it. These steps have tacks, splinters and torn up boards. Sometimes the stairs are bare. It is these steps I was reminded of when I visited American Art's new exhibition, African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights, and Beyond, on view through September 3, 2012.
Blog Image 54 - The Moving Image: Watch This 2.0
05/10/2012
Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image, the dynamic exhibition of time-based media has been reinstalled, with new examples of video art that span the last fifty years. It has its own dedicated gallery on the third floor of the museum and is a welcoming space filled with works that fascinate, stimulate, and resonate.
An photograph inside the Luce Foundation Center during a live performance.
The American Art Museum has been serving its own special pairing since November 2010. Called Luce Unplugged, we pair art with music. Each month the museum asks local musicians to perform on a Sunday afternoon after an art-talk on a piece chosen by the performing group.
Tierney
Blog Image 105 - Throwback Thursday: Seats of Power (and an Occasional Settee)
05/03/2012
Behind every good sunrise lurks an inevitable sunset. This Sunday, May 6, Something of Splendor: Decorative Arts from the White House closes at American Art's Renwick Gallery after a near seven-month run.
Handi-Hour
Combining "happy hour" and "handmade," our May 10th Handi-hour offers the opportunity to make crafts, taste selected craft beers, and listen to live music in the Grand Salon of our Renwick Gallery of American Craft.
SAAM Staff
Blog Editor
Now Open African Art
04/27/2012
Our latest exhibition, African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, opens today and runs through September 30, 2012. The show features a selection of paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs by black artists from the museum's collection.
Georgina
Image Not Available
04/24/2012
Austin Wintory is the composer behind such video games as Journey and flOw. Wintory will be doing a pre-concert Q&A on April 29th at 2:30 p.m. before the University of Maryland Gamer Symphony Orchestra plays in the museum's Kogod Courtyard. Laurel Fehrenbach, public programs coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, asks Wintory how music is yet another form of the art of video games.
SAAM Staff
Blog Editor
Blog Image 432 - Celebrating Ella at 95
04/19/2012
For the third straight year, the American Art Museum will be celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month with a tribute to the Empress of the Blues, Ella Fitzgerald. The performance will take place April 22 and is generously supported by the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation.
SAAM Staff
Blog Editor