Artist to Artist

Media - 1967.129 - SAAM-1967.129_1 - 65164

The work of the artist is often thought of as solitary. We picture the painter confronting a blank canvas alone, studio door figuratively shut. Yet few artists thrive in a social vacuum. Even those who prefer to work in private will seek out other artists for myriad reasons: mentorship and inspiration, practical assistance, a sense of solidarity or shared purpose. Artists are often each other’s first and most important audience, providing vital support before critics, curators, and collectors arrive on a scene. Two artists caring about one another’s work is fundamental to the creation of any art world,” large or small. 

Description

Assembled from the museum's extensive twentieth-century holdings, Artist to Artist features a rotating group of eight pairings. Artists currently featured in the galleries are George Tooker and Paul Cadmus, Kenjiro Nomura and Kamekichi Tokita, Frank O'Hara and Grace Hartigan, Tadashi Sato and Satoru Abe, Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Bumpei Usui, Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock, T.C. Cannon and Fritz Scholder, and Alma Thomas and Felrath Hines. Each pairing represents two figures whose trajectories intersected at a creatively crucial moment, whether as student and teacher, professional allies, a couple, or ardently close friends. Based in common goals or shared life experience, the personal interactions represented by these works helped shape and sustain American art.

Within this exhibition is "New on View," an ongoing series of installations that place recently acquired artworks—both gifts and museum purchases—in dialogue with works already in SAAM's collection. Previous pairings included Yayoi Kusama and Joseph Cornell, Loïs Mailou Jones and Elizabeth Catlett, Joan Brown and Elmer Bischoff, Miguel Luciano and Juan Sánchez, Hisako Hibi and Matsusaburo George Hibi, and Ray Yoshida and Christina Ramberg.

Melissa Ho, curator of twentieth-century art, organized the exhibition.

Visiting Information

October 1, 2021 May 18, 2025
Open Daily, 11:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m
Free Admission

Online Gallery

Grace Hartigan, Frank O'Hara, 1926-1966, 1966, oil on linen, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Grace Hartigan, 1967.129
Frank O’Hara, 1926 – 1966
Date1966
oil on linen
On view
George Tooker, The Waiting Room, 1959, egg tempera on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 1969.47.43
The Waiting Room
Date1959
egg tempera on wood
On view
Paul Cadmus, Night in Bologna, 1958, egg tempera on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.87
Night in Bologna
Date1958
egg tempera on fiberboard
On view
Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Strong Woman and Child, 1925, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation, 1986.6.50
Strong Woman and Child
Date1925
oil on canvas
On view
Thomas Hart Benton, Wheat, 1967, oil on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James A. Mitchell and museum purchase, 1991.55
Wheat
Date1967
oil on wood
On view
Jackson Pollock, Going West, ca. 1934-1935, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Thomas Hart Benton, 1973.149.1
Going West
Dateca. 1934-1935
oil on fiberboard
On view
Kamekichi Tokita, Self Portrait, ca. 1935, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Kamekichi and Haruko Tokita family of Seattle, Washington, USA, 2023.11
Self Portrait
Dateca. 1935
oil on canvas
On view
Kenjiro Nomura, The Farm, 1934, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor, 1964.1.36
The Farm
Date1934
oil on canvas
On view
Fritz Scholder, Indian in the Snow, 1972, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Benjamin P. Nicolette, 1980.107
Indian in the Snow
Date1972
acrylic on canvas
On view
T. C. Cannon, Waiting for the Bus (Anadarko Princess), 1977, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Barney Dreyfuss, 1982.5
Waiting for the Bus (Anadarko Princess)
Date1977
color lithograph on paper
On view
Satoru Abe, New Branches, 1980, cast and welded copper and brass on wood base, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Daniel K. Inouye Institute, in honor of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, 2021.78
New Branches
Date1980
cast and welded copper and brass on wood base
On view
Tadashi Sato, Embedded Rock, 1965, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Daniel K. Inouye Institute, in honor of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, 2021.43.2
Embedded Rock
Date1965
oil on canvas
On view
Felrath Hines, Yellow and Gray, 1976, oil on linen, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Barbara Fiedler Gallery, 1978.128
Yellow and Gray
Date1976
oil on linen
On view
Alma Thomas, Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze, 1973, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist, 1980.36.9
Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze
Date1973
acrylic on canvas
On view

Artists

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Thomas Hart Benton
born Neosho, MO 1889-died 1975 Kansas City, MO

An American scene painter who, along with John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, was a leading regionalist painter of the 1930s.

Elmer Bischoff
born Berkeley, CA 1916-died Berkeley, CA 1991
Joan Brown
born San Francisco, CA 1938-died Proddatur, India 1990
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Paul Cadmus
born New York City 1904-died Weston, CT 1999

Cadmus entered the school of the National Academy of Design at fifteen with the encouragement of his parents, both of whom were artists.

Black and White photo image of T.C. Cannon
T. C. Cannon
born Lawton, OK 1946-died Santa Fe, NM 1978
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Joseph Cornell
born Nyack, NY 1903-died New York City 1972

A premier assemblagist who elevated the box to a major art form, Joseph Cornell also was an accomplished collagist and filmmaker, and one of America's most innovative artists. When his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. John A.

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Grace Hartigan
born Newark, NJ 1922-died Timonium, MD 2008

Grace Hartigan grew up in New Jersey, where she married the boy next door after graduating from high school. She saw the 1935 film Call of the Wild and decided on a whim to move to Alaska with her new husband.

Hisako Hibi
born Kōchi, Fukui Prefecture, Japan 1907-died San Francisco, CA 1991
Matsusaburo George Hibi
born Iimura, Shiga Prefecture, Japan 1886-died New York City 1947
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Felrath Hines
born Indianapolis, IN 1913-died Silver Spring, MD 1993

Painter. Hines studied design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., and his paintings—in the tradition of the De Stijl movement—often contain strong design elements.

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Yasuo Kuniyoshi
born Okayama, Japan 1889-died New York City 1953

Painter and photographer of art. His languid women in repose from the 1930s are significant, but he also painted still lifes and landscapes.

Yayoi Kusama
born Matsumoto, Japan 1929
Miguel Luciano
born San Juan, Puerto Rico 1972

Miguel Luciano's Pure Plantainum (2006) is a precious object. The question is, what makes it so?

Media - 1976.65.7 - SAAM-1976.65.7_1 - 52832
Jackson Pollock
born Cody, WY 1912-died East Hampton, NY 1956

Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, Jackson Pollock's work defined America's artistic coming of age. Born in Cody, Wyoming, he first studied art in 1925 in Los Angeles, where he developed an interest in sculpture.

Juan Sánchez
born New York City 1954
Black and White Image of Fritz Scholder
Fritz Scholder
born Breckenridge, MN 1937-died Phoenix, AZ 2005
Alma Thomas with her portrait by Laura Wheeler Waring, Portrait of a Lady (1947, SAAM) in her home, Washington, DC, 1968. Photo by Ida Jervis. Alma Thomas papers, circa 1894-2001, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Alma Thomas
born Columbus, GA 1891-died Washington, DC 1978
Alma Thomas was a teacher and artist who developed a powerful form of abstract painting late in life. From the mid-1960s, she produced brilliantly colored and richly patterned works intimately connected to the natural world.
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George Tooker
born New York City 1920-died Hartland, VT 2011

Painter. He studied with Reginald Marsh and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League and later with Paul Cadmus. To achieve his haunting scenes of urban isolation and mechanization, Tooker employs the Renaissance egg termpera technique.

Bumpei Usui
born Nagano, Japan 1898-died New York City 1994