Howard Kaplan

Kicking off the 2011 season of the Clarice Smith Distinguished Lectures in American Art, Meryle Secrest presented an engaging and lively talk that could have been subtitled, "A City of Two Tales."

Charles Willson Peale, is the poster boy, er...gentleman, for the current exhibition, The Great American Hall of Wonders. In the iconic self-portrait (on a rare loan from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts) Peale lifts a plush curtain to reveal his own museum, and greets the visitor with an extended palm at the entrance of the exhibition.

Growing up in New York when the Twin Towers were being built makes me think we were raised at about the same time. They became a part of the landscape and my friends and I marveled at their growth, their prominence in the city, and how they helped to make history, especially the following year, when Philippe Petit decided to walk an aerial between the two buildings.

Now that the exhibition, To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America is closing on September 5, we thought we'd share some visitor comments.

US Highway 1 was acquired by American Art earlier this year. This post is part of an ongoing series spotlighting works that have been recently added to the collection.

"Watch this. You've got to see what I'm doing," an enthusiastic Nam June Paik would say to John Hanhardt, his longtime friend, curator, and currently curator of new media at American Art. Paik, who died in 2006 at the age of 74, is long considered the father of video art.

"In 2006 I built a boat and was attracted to the process as well as to the form. It required a whole new way of thinking for me--a 180 degree turnaround," said artist Matthias Pliessnig, whose sublime, wood-ribbed works are on view in History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011 at the Renwick Gallery through July 31.

Join John Hanhardt, senior curator for media arts, and artist Jim Campbell Wednesday evening at 6pm in American Art's Watch This! gallery for a celebration in honor of video artist Nam June Paik's birthday. Paik (1932-2006), internationally recognized as the father of video art, was also a composer, performer, and multimedia artist.

E. Carmen Ramos became the Smithsonian American Art Museum's curator of Latino art last fall. Now that she's had a chance to get settled, we caught up with her to ask about her interests and the rich holdings of Latino art in the museum's permanent collection.

"Welcome to the disquieting, and I may say, disturbing world of George Ault," independent historian Stephen May told us at the beginning of his lecture on the painter who is the subject of the exhibition To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America, currently on view at the museum.

On July 4, 1836, President Andrew Jackson authorized the construction of a patent office, the historic landmark building that is now home to the American Art Museum.

"Yellow makes everything shine," ceramicist Cliff Lee said at the opening of the Renwick Gallery exhibition History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011, which features his work.

Some of the more interesting clouds these days are hanging out at American Art's exhibition, To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America.

Local DC collector and philanthropist Robert Lehrman was the third and final speaker in this year's Collectors' Roundtable series. Speaking on the "Secrets of the Art World," Lehrman tried to unlock those secrets for the enthusiastic audience who came to hear the collector speak on some of his favorite artists and acquisitions. His talk touched on the personal joys and perils of collecting as well as the larger purpose for art. As Lehrman said, "Collecting and supporting arts organizations is a vital civic responsibility."

May 25, 2011 is the one hundredth birthday of American artist Will Barnet.

This is not your grandmother's stained glass. Inspired by sources as disparate as comic books, old cartoons such as Popeye, Japanese woodblock prints, medieval tapestries, and punk rock, Judith Schaechter practices a contemporary alchemy: turning glass into dark narratives.

In the more than sixty years since first collecting dolls and Katy Keene comics (complete with cut-out costumes!) as a child, Helen Zell, smitten with what she called "the collection gene gone wild," hasn't stopped. In more recent years, the Chicago born-and-based Zell and her husband Sam have amassed an important collection of twentieth century artwork as well as early ethnographic pieces.

Alexis Rockman's monumental painting, Manifest Destiny, has just been approved for acquisition. The painting is made up of four contiguous panels that extend twenty-four feet in length, and depicts the Brooklyn waterfront several hundred years in the future.

This is the eighth in a series of personal observations about how people experience and explore museums. Take a look at Howard's other blog posts on the subject.

This is the first of four blog posts that takes a closer look at one object by each of the artists in the exhibition History in the Making: Renwick Craft Invitational 2011 now on display at the Renwick Gallery until July 31.