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Large-scale installation of corncob piñatas.

The Fantastical World of Justin Favela

Gold-fringed walls and piñata corncobs transform the Grand Salon of SAAM's Renwick Gallery and highlight the role of maize in North American visual culture.

Art + Artists

Explore the Art

Two children look at a large and colorful mural

Explore Artists

Four young women look at artwork

Exhibitions

A couple stares at an intricate artwork in the Renwick Gallery

Research

Shelves with periodicals in the American Art/Portrait Gallery Library

Conservation

A conservator restores a painting with a paintbrush

News & Stories

A woman sings in front of a synth player in the Luce Center

Featured Exhibitions

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Detail of "Nick Cave: Mammoth."

Nick Cave: Mammoth

February 13, 2026–January 3, 2027

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Artist Nick Cave invites visitors to walk among the fantastical remains of these ancient creatures.

Painting of rolling green hills with people an

Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work

November 25, 2025–July 12, 2026

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Grandma Moses: A Good Day's Work sheds new light on a beloved body of work by the artist.

Crop art with the title State Fairs: Growing American Craft and a cow's head in the center.

State Fairs: Growing American Craft

August 22, 2025–September 7, 2026

Renwick Gallery

State Fairs: Growing American Craft is the first major exhibition dedicated to artists’ contributions to the great U.S. tradition of state fairs.

Collection Highlights

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Asian American Art

SAAM’s collection includes many remarkable artworks that reflect the profound and longstanding contributions of Asian American and Asian diasporic artists in the United States.

A portrait of a man with goatee contained in a brooch

In 1983, the Smithsonian American Art Museum began actively building its photography collection. That year, more than 1,500 photographs were transferred to the museum from the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then, the collection has grown to more than 9,000 works that span the history of the medium.

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The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s leading Latinx 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.

A round grey sculpture with a hole in the center by Isamu Noguchi

The museum’s American sculpture collection is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

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Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art

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Time-Based Media

The Time-Based Media Art Initiative at the Smithsonian American Art Museum reflects a commitment to develop the museum’s time-based media collections, research resources, and programs.

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The museum has one of the finest and largest collections from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, including impressionist and Gilded Age works.

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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.

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African American Art

SAAM is home to one of the most significant collections of works by African American artists in the world.

Map of U.S. oil, collage and mixed media on canvas

Native and Indigenous Art

SAAM is committed to collecting and sharing art by Native makers whose perspectives and experiences are shaping American culture and identity.

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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.

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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. SAAM is one of the only major museums to clearly advocate for a diverse populist and uniquely American voice within the context of what is traditionally considered great art.

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Graphic arts comprise a large part of the museum’s collection, which reveals the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art.

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Early American Art

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

Something Fun

A black and white drawing of cakes by Wayne Thiebaud

See which artist shares your birthday.

A Collage of women artist featured in Drawn to Art 2023

What draws artists Laura Aguilar, Tanya Aguiñiga, Emma Amos, Chitra Ganesh, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Wendy Red Star, Miriam Schapiro, Lilly Martin Spencer, and Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, to create? Find out in a new set of Drawn to Art comics that are sure to inspire middle-grade readers and art lovers of any age.