SAAM Stories

On July 4, 1836, President Andrew Jackson authorized the construction of a patent office, the historic landmark building that is now home to the American Art Museum.

Staying close to home this July 4th weekend? Out of town guests making the sacrifice on the New Jersey Turnpike to visit you this time? Bring them to the Renwick Gallery to explore History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011, highlighting the creativity and talent of craft artists working today.

A crew from Antiques Roadshow, along with Nancy Druckman from Sotheby's, filmed a segment about some of American Art's portrait miniatures last summer and it will be premiering tonight, June 27 (check your local PBS channel for times and other airings).

This post is part of an ongoing series on Eye Level: The Best of Ask Joan of Art. Begun in 1993, Ask Joan of Art is the longest-running arts-based electronic reference service in the country. The real Joan is actually many people from our museum’s Research and Scholars Center. These experts answer the public's questions about art.

"Yellow makes everything shine," ceramicist Cliff Lee said at the opening of the Renwick Gallery exhibition History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011, which features his work.

Summer is almost officially here, though it already feels like it when we step out of the crisp, cool corridors of the museum. In celebration of the sunshine and swelter, one of our public programs assistants, Laurel Fehrenbach, has some ultra funky sessions of our monthly jazz series, Take 5!, lined up for you. Eye Level grabbed Laurel on the fly to ask her about what's in store.

Some of the more interesting clouds these days are hanging out at American Art's exhibition, To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America.

Luce Unplugged, an acoustic concert series in the museum's Luce Foundation Center for American Art is the creative genius of Tierney Sneeringer, a program assistant at the Center.

George Inness (1825-1894) has been like a thorn in my side for the past year, so when I learned that we share the same birthday (May 1st), 150 years apart, I softened to the great nineteenth-century landscape painter. The reason he's a thorn in my side is because I have been updating over 2,000 records of his works in the National Art Inventories for weeks.

Local DC collector and philanthropist Robert Lehrman was the third and final speaker in this year's Collectors' Roundtable series. Speaking on the "Secrets of the Art World," Lehrman tried to unlock those secrets for the enthusiastic audience who came to hear the collector speak on some of his favorite artists and acquisitions. His talk touched on the personal joys and perils of collecting as well as the larger purpose for art. As Lehrman said, "Collecting and supporting arts organizations is a vital civic responsibility."

May 25, 2011 is the one hundredth birthday of American artist Will Barnet.

This is not your grandmother's stained glass. Inspired by sources as disparate as comic books, old cartoons such as Popeye, Japanese woodblock prints, medieval tapestries, and punk rock, Judith Schaechter practices a contemporary alchemy: turning glass into dark narratives.

Laurel Fehrenbach, public programs assistant here at American Art, spoke with Avi Wisnia of the Avi Wisnia Quartet about their upcoming performance at Take 5! on Thursday, May 19, from 5 to 8 p.m.

American Art collaborated with the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) to research the materials and techniques of American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) in preparation for a 2012 PAFA exhibition of Tanner's works titled, Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. American Art's paintings conservator Amber Kerr-Allison tells us about the process.

Alli Jessing, Joint Programs Coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, spoke with Carlos Garza and Rich O'Meara of Silent Orchestra about their upcoming cineconcert. On May 14, 2011, the duo will premiere a new score that they have composed for the classic 1927 German expressionist film Metropolis. The cineconcert begins at 3 p.m. in the museums' McEvoy Auditorium. The program is free, but tickets are required. Tickets will be available in the G Street lobby thirty minutes prior to the performance.

In the more than sixty years since first collecting dolls and Katy Keene comics (complete with cut-out costumes!) as a child, Helen Zell, smitten with what she called "the collection gene gone wild," hasn't stopped. In more recent years, the Chicago born-and-based Zell and her husband Sam have amassed an important collection of twentieth century artwork as well as early ethnographic pieces.

Today is a very exciting day! Earlier this year, American Art invited the public to help select the video games that will be included in its upcoming exhibition The Art of Video Games. Voting took place between February 14 and April 17, 2011, and we received more than 3.7 million votes from 119,000 people in 175 countries.

Alexis Rockman's monumental painting, Manifest Destiny, has just been approved for acquisition. The painting is made up of four contiguous panels that extend twenty-four feet in length, and depicts the Brooklyn waterfront several hundred years in the future.