SAAM Stories

Please join us for "Movies at SAAM's" winter season of films about American art and artists. If you enjoy learning about the creative process, history of African American photography, and contemplating the nature of great art, then you're sure to enjoy what we have in store for you.

On December 8, April + VISTA performs at the Luce Foundation Center as a part of Luce Unplugged, our free, monthly concert series presented in part with D.C. Music Download.

Today, we begin a periodic series of photos visitors take in our galleries where, with many exhibitions, photography is encouraged. In my daily dive into our social media interactions, I take note of the unique ways you, our visitors, capture your experience in SAAM and the Renwick Gallery.

SAAM mourns the loss of artist and friend, William Christenberry, who died this past Monday at 80. As a young man, Christenberry often traveled the back roads of the South with his father. He studied painting as a graduate student at the University of Alabama until he discovered James Agee‘s book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Happy Thanksgiving from SAAM! To celebrate this year's holiday we wanted to share a woodcut by Harry Cimino.

In honor of Elizabeth "Betsy" Broun's thirty years at the helm of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and her imminent retirement, Broun spoke to a full house last month at the McEvoy Auditorium, revealing insights and personal observations about her favorite works of art in SAAM's collection.

To celebrate his philosophy and boldly declare that our new exhibition of his signature stripe paintings is now open, we have striped the museum's entrances.

Each month, visitors to SAAM are invited to participate in a discussion-based program called Conversation Pieces. Spending an hour with a single work of contemporary art, participants engage in an open-ended experience of guided looking and discussion facilitated by Joanna Marsh, Senior Curator of Contemporary Interpretation.

Isamu Noguchi, Archaic/Modern opens today, a celebration of the renowned sculptor who often found inspiration in ancient art and architecture, including Egyptian pyramids and Buddhist temples, Zen gardens and American Indian burial mounds.

In honor of the renovation and reinstallation of SAAM’s galleries for folk and self-taught art on the first floor, four specialists in the field came together to address the perceptions and practice of folk and self-taught artists, each from a unique vantage point. The speakers joined Leslie Umberger, SAAM's curator of folk and self-taught art and emcee for the evening, in a discussion on the unique position of these out-of-the-ordinary makers of art.

Loving this crisp fall weather or wishing for the warmth of summer? Either way, this Handi-hour has you covered. Using dried autumn leaves or pressed wild flowers, come and make your own decorative candle or a bookmark. Come to the Renwick Gallery for Novermber's Handi-Hour.

Every day, SAAM's nearly 130 volunteer docents share their knowledge and love of American art with the public through highlights tours, school field trips, outreach, videoconferencing, and more. Eye Level sat down with two of our longest-serving docents, Phoebe Kline and Susanne Joyner, to hear their reflections on the ways the Museum has changed, highlights of its history, and what keeps them engaged.

Deborah Butterfield was speaking to a full house at SAAM's McEvoy Auditorium as the second speaker in this year's Clarice Smith Distinguished Lecture Series. During the course of the evening, she led us through four decades of her work.

Joanna Marsh, Senior Curator of Contemporary Interpretation, fills us in on the theory behind Conversation Pieces, a discussion-based public program that takes place monthly in SAAM's galleries.

On November 4, Hand Grenade Job (HGJ) performs at our Fall Luce Unplugged Community Showcase in the Luce Foundation Center. We teamed up with Washington City Paper to present this experimental post-Americana duo from the D.C. DIY punk scene. With Beck Levy playing guitar and Erin McCarley on percussion, both women are vocalists and multi-instrumentalists.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum's ground floor galleries of Folk and Self-Taught Art reopen today with a compelling, new installation that features more than 120 objects, including 59 new acquisitions. These include works by artists such as Emery Blagdon, Ralph Fasanella, Clementine Hunter, Eddy Mumma, and Achilles Rizzoli. These join visitor favorites by Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Martín Ramírez and Jon Serl.

During this election season, Americans have been debating what it means to be American. So, it's fitting to consider what is American about American art. In October 2012, Adam Gopnik, writer for The New Yorker, spoke about this as part of SAAM's Clarice Smith Lecture series.

Furniture "affects every single aspect of who we are and what we do though we don't always acknowledge that," said Nora Atkinson, the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft at the Renwick Gallery, in her introductory remarks at the recent Maloof Symposium, Furniture and the Future. A stellar group of experts, designers, artists, and makers looked closely at the changing role of studio furniture, in light of the brave new world of digital technologies and marketplaces.