Visit the Museums
Two historic locations
The Smithsonian American Art Museum shares its collections, programs, and exhibitions in two locations in Washington, DC. SAAM’s main building is located at the heart of a vibrant downtown cultural district, while its recently renovated branch museum for contemporary craft and decorative art, the Renwick Gallery, is located nine blocks west, near the White House.
SAAM
Closed due to government shutdown
Free Admission
American art museum featuring works from the colonial era to the present
8th and F Streets, NW
Washington, DC 20004
More on Visiting SAAM
Renwick Gallery
Closed due to government shutdown
Free Admission
Branch museum featuring contemporary craft and decorative arts
Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
More on Visiting Renwick
Featured Exhibitions
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Disrupting Craft: Renwick Invitational 2018
November 9, 2018 - May 5, 2019
Renwick Gallery (Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW)Disrupting Craft presents the work of Tanya Aguiñiga, Sharif Bey, Dustin Farnsworth, and Stephanie Syjuco, four artists who challenge the conventional definitions of craft by imbuing it with a renewed sense of emotional purpose, inclusiveness, and activism.
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Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor
September 28, 2018 – March 17, 2019
Smithsonian American Art Museum (8th and F Streets, NW)Bill Traylor is regarded today as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. His drawn and painted imagery embodies the crossroads of multiple worlds: black and white, rural and urban, old and new. His life—which spanned slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Great Migration and foreshadowed the era of Civil Rights—offers a rare perspective to the larger story of America. -
Diane Arbus: A box of ten photographs
April 6, 2018 — January 27, 2019
Smithsonian American Art Museum (8th and F Streets, NW)This exhibition traces the history of A box of ten photographs between 1969 and 1973, telling the crucial story of the portfolio that established the foundation for Arbus’s posthumous career.
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No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man
March 30, 2018 - January 21, 2019
Renwick Gallery (Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW)No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man brings the large-scale work from this annual desert gathering to the nation’s capital for the first time.