Past Exhibitions

History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011 presents the work of silversmith Ubaldo Vitali, ceramic artist Cliff Lee, glass artist Judith Schaechter, and furnituremaker Matthias Pliessnig.

During the turbulent 1940s, artist George Ault (1891-1948) created precise yet eerie pictures—works of art that have come to be seen, following his death, as some of the most original paintings made in America in those years.

Close to Home presents photographs made during the past three decades by both established and emerging artists.

Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image is a series of rotating exhibitions drawn from SAAM’s permanent collection.

Alexis Rockman (b. 1962) has been depicting the natural world with virtuosity and wit for more than two decades.

A Revolution in Wood: The Bresler Collection celebrates the magnificent gift of sixty-six pieces of turned and carved wood to the Smithsonian American Art Museum by the noted collectors, Fleur and Charles Bresler.

The installation of John Gossage: The Pond celebrates the recent gift to the museum of this remarkable photographic series and the re-issue of one of the most influential photography books of the past three decades. John Gossage (b.

Telling Stories is the first major exhibition to explore in-depth the connections between Norman Rockwell's iconic images of American life and the movies.

The exhibition presented the majority of individual items— more than 350 objects—from the collective archive of artworks and related materials.

The Art of Gaman showcases arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II.

Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840–1882) was a photographer for two of the most ambitious geographical surveys of the nineteenth century. He traversed the mountain and desert regions of the western United States under the command of Clarence King and Lt.

Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the third in a series of special installations, celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper.

Enter the world of artist William T. Wiley, who has created a distinctive body of work during a 50-year career that addresses critical issues of our time.

Staged Stories: Renwick Craft Invitational 2009 presents the work of ceramic artist Christyl Boger, fiber artist Mark Newport, glass artist Mary Van Cline, and ceramic artist SunKoo Yuh.

Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the second in a series of special installations, celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper.

This installation in the Renwick Gallery's Grand Salon displays seventy paintings from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection, including landscapes, portraits, and allegorical works by fifty-one American artists from the 1840s to the 1930s.

Shin's most recent project, Everyday Monuments, debuts in the exhibition. The sprawling installation consists of nearly 2000 trophies donated by Washington, D.C.-area residents and projected images of the altered trophies.

The architecture and decorative arts designed by Charles Greene (1868-1957) and his brother Henry Greene (1870-1954) a century ago in California are recognized internationally as among the finest of the American Arts and Crafts Movement.

In 1934, Americans grappled with an economic situation that feels all too familiar today.

For more than 30 years, Frank Gohlke (b. 1942), a leading figure in American landscape photography, has explored the ways Americans build their lives in a natural world that rarely fits within a traditional pastoral ideal.

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.

Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum features forty-three key paintings and sculptures by thirty-one of the most celebrated artists who came to maturity in the 1950s.

Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern Renaissance in Glass is the first exhibition to thoroughly examine the art of Lino Tagliapietra (b.

Sunlight deserts, Taos churches, and Western skies are captured in the remarkable work of two iconic American artists.

Explore the expressive possibilities of color in this special installation of twenty-seven large-scale paintings from the museum's permanent collection.

Nature's strength, endurance, and fragility are captured in the dynamic work of Barbara Bosworth (b. 1953).

Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist is the first nationally touring retrospective that brings together more than eighty rarely seen works by the artist Aaron Douglas (1899–1979), one of the most influential visual artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection is a landmark exhibition that explores contemporary jewelry from a global perspective.

Travel back 143 years to the revelry of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball. This small, focused exhibition celebrates the president's second inaugural ball, held on March 6, 1865 in what is now the museum's historic home.

Color as Field: American Painting, 1950–1975 is the first ever full-scale examination of the sources, meaning and impact of the Color Field movement.