Graphic Masters I: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Media - 1929.6.70 - SAAM-1929.6.70_1 - 52029

John La Farge, Water Lily in Sunlight, ca. 1883

Graphic Masters I: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum is the first in a series of special installations that celebrate the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists’ works on paper. 

Description

These exceptional watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the early nineteenth century through the 1930s reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Rarely seen works from the museum's permanent collection by masters such as John James Audubon, Romaine Brooks, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, John La Farge, Man Ray, John Marin and Georgia O'Keeffe will be featured in the exhibition. Joann Moser, senior curator for graphic arts, selected the artworks in Graphic Masters.

Visiting Information

November 21, 2008 May 24, 2009
Open Daily, 11:30 a.m.–7:00 p.m
Free Admission

Publications

graphic_500.jpg
Graphic Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Graphic Masters celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists’ works on paper. Exceptional watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the 1860s through the 1990s reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Traditionally a more intimate form of expression than painting or sculpture, drawings often reveal greater spontaneity and experimentation. Even as works on paper become larger and more finished, competing in scale with easel paintings, they retain a sense of the artist’s hand, the immediacy of a thought made visible.

Online Gallery

Media - 1985.81 - SAAM-1985.81_1 - 52066
Feeling Pushed
Date1977
chalk, pencil, and crayon on paper
Not on view
Study for Self-Portrait
Date1982-1983
charcoal on vellum with traces of colored pencil
Not on view
Media - 1979.159.59 - SAAM-1979.159.59_1 - 52055
Study for Swimmers Atlanta: Seaweed
Date1979
watercolor, enamel, pen and ink, and pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1997.111 - SAAM-1997.111_1 - 52091
August Breakfast/​Maine
Date1997
watercolor on paper
Not on view
Media - 1986.6.88 - SAAM-1986.6.88_1 - 52072
Preliminary sketch for Subway Symphony
Date1973
pencil, casein, crayon, and chalk on paper mounted on paperboard
Not on view
Media - 1990.84 - SAAM-1990.84_1 - 52081
Storm and Fires
Date1990
charcoal and pastel on paper
Not on view
Media - 1991.20 - SAAM-1991.20_1 - 64515
October Meeting
Date1984
brush and ink on paper on paper
Not on view
Media - 2008.8 - SAAM-2008.8_1 - 70995
Patty Ann” Rodeo Queen
Date1971
colored pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 1988.3 - SAAM-1988.3_1 - 52074
Night Piece
Date1987
pastel on paper
Not on view
Media - 1989.64 - SAAM-1989.64_1 - 64760
4/1/86
Date1986
graphite and oil on mylar
Not on view
Media - 1979.53.23 - SAAM-1979.53.23_1 - 52057
Arytystic Pairanoiya
Date1978
watercolor and pencil on paper
Not on view
Media - 2005.5.52 - SAAM-2005.5.52_1 - 67275
Inverted Letter Q
Date1973
charcoal and watercolor on paper
Not on view
Media - 2009.19 - SAAM-2009.19_1 - 70973
Untitled (Bathroom)
Date1961
pastel crayon and collage on paper
Not on view
Media - 1967.102.1 - SAAM-1967.102.1_1 - 52037
Still Life with Cat
Date1966
pen and ink, ink wash, colored pencil, pencil and paper collage on paper
Not on view
Media - 1990.28 - SAAM-1990.28_1 - 52077
Oiran and Mirror, from the AIDS Series
Date1988
watercolor on paper
Not on view
Media - 1999.80 - SAAM-1999.80_1 - 52092
Neapolitan Meringue
Date1986/1999
pastel over trial proof lithograph on paper
Not on view
Media - 1996.45 - SAAM-1996.45_1 - 64763
Hats #2
Date1988
silverpoint on prepared paper
Not on view
Media - 1996.20 - SAAM-1996.20_1 - 68806
Expulsion
Date1980
pencil on paper
Not on view

Artists

John James Audubon
born Les Cayes, Haiti 1785-died New York City 1851
Media - portrait_image_113285.jpg - 89956
Romaine Brooks
born Rome, Italy 1874-died Nice, France 1970

Romaine Brooks, the daughter of a wealthy, unbalanced woman estranged from her husband before Romaine's birth, had a miserable and unstable childhood.

Media - J0001736_1b.jpg - 89285
Childe Hassam
born Dorchester, MA 1859-died East Hampton, NY 1935

Painter and illustrator. Hassam was a leading American Impressionist whose work was much influenced by Claude Monet.

Media - J0001697_1b.jpg - 89277
Winslow Homer
born Boston, MA 1836-died Prout's Neck, ME 1910

Painter and graphic artist. Homer's illustrations of the Civil War for Harper's Weekly are singular and outstanding examples of wartime reporting.

Media - J0001833_1b.jpg - 89300
John La Farge
born New York City 1835-died Providence, RI 1910

Painter, stained glass designer. Among his many commissions, decoration of the Trinity Church in Boston placed La Farge at the forefront of the American Arts and Crafts movement.

Media - portrait_image_113733.jpg - 90405
Man Ray
born Philadelphia, PA 1890-died Paris, France 1976

Born in Philadelphia, lived intermittently in the United States, but preferred Paris.

Media - J0001950_1b.jpg - 89325
John Marin
born Rutherford, NJ 1870-died Cape Split, ME 1953

Painter, early modernist who worked in watercolors, oils and etching. His style was semi-abstract and expressionistic, though always rooted in natural forms and rhythms.

Media - portrait_image_113620.jpg - 90333
Georgia O’Keeffe
born Sun Prairie, WI 1887-died Santa Fe, NM 1986

Painter.