SAAM Staff

Wes Yamaka recently wrote a comment about his father-in-law on our The Art of Gaman exhibition comment page. We'd like to post it on Eye Level as a testament to the personal stories that have been passed down from internees in the camps.

This Howard Finster painting was the most talked about artwork at American Art's recent Slow Art event.

Six months ago American Art, along with twelve other museums around the world, invited people to spend an afternoon taking a long look at art as part of Slow Art day. It was the antithesis of the fast-paced social networking world personified by Twitter and Facebook.

Laurel Fehrenbach, public programs assistant here at American Art, manages the free Take 5! jazz concerts, which take place in the Kogod Courtyard every third Thursday from 5–8 p.m. She talked with Sandy Asirvatham, who will be performing vocals and keyboard with Frank Russo (drums), Max Murray (bass) and Jeff Antoniuk (sax) at Take 5! The program, A Tribute to the Tax Man with Sandy Asirvatham, will take place on tax day, Thursday, April 15, in the museum’s Kogod Courtyard from 5–8 p.m.

This post is part of an ongoing series on Eye Level: The Best of Ask Joan of Art. Begun in 1993, Ask Joan of Art is the longest-running arts-based electronic reference service in the country. Question: Can you tell me more about Eleanor Roosevelt's connection to Augustus Saint-Gaudens's Adams Memorial?

Running Fence, the monumental temporary artwork by Christo and Jeanne-Claude existed for only two weeks in September of 1976. It was made of 240,000 square yards of heavy woven white nylon fabric, 90 miles of steel cable, 2,050 steel poles, 350,000 hooks, and 13,000 earth anchors. In 2008 American Art acquired the definitive record of this artwork and our exhibition, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence opens this Friday.

This post is part of an ongoing series here on Eye Level: The Best of Ask Joan of Art. Begun in 1993, Ask Joan of Art is the longest running arts-based electronic reference service in the country. Question: What do the paintings of Stuart Davis reveal about trends or themes in America?

Snow. Need I say more? The Smithsonian has been closed since Friday afternoon; schools are closed this entire week; and snow is piled a mile high (okay, not really, but my snow-shoveling back seems to think so). And there appears to be no vaccine in sight for an epidemic of cabin fever. Is this Washington or is this Buffalo?

To celebrate the life of Nam June Paik, John G. Hanhardt, Senior Curator for Media Arts, Nam June Paik Media Arts Center, has written a remembrance of the artist on the fourth anniversary of his death.

Lighting designer, Scott Rosenfeld puts the finishing touches on Graphic Masters, the final exhibition of our graphic works on paper series.

Our Kogod Courtyard is a great place to meet friends, read a book, or surf the net using our free WiFi. But this Star Trek action figure sighting is a first. From American Art's Flickr group, photographer "Mr. T in DC" explains it all:

New Media Initiatives intern Lauren Pond recently made this time lapse of the light in our Kogod Courtyard. Here's her story.

You've seen the William T. Wiley exhibition. Now play the game! What, you haven't seen the show yet? Well, now's your opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

How long does it take to really see a work of art? Some visitors to American Art's Slow Art event this past Saturday had a go at answering that question and then discussed the artworks they had taken a long look at in the museum.

Leah Rand interned this past summer and was co-curator for the exhibition Hard Times: 1929–1939, organized by the Archives of American Art, which is on view through November 8th in the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery on the first floor of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture.

This month, Slow Art will take place at sixteen museums around the world. I asked Georgina Goodlander and her staff at the Luce Foundation Center if they'd be interested in hosting an event at American Art. At Slow Art meetups, a group of people come together and spend quality time looking at art.

The Grammy Award-winning Afro-Cuban jazz septet, Afro Bop Alliance, has been a leading name in the Mid-Atlantic jazz scene for years. On Thursday, October 15, they return to American Art for Take 5! with three albums and a WAMMIE award under their belts as well. I was thrilled to catch up with band leader and drummer, Joe McCarthy, and asked him five questions.

Jo Ann Gillula is Chief of our External Affairs department. Ken Burns's latest documentary on our national parks gave her a chance to reflect on some of our country's greatest nineteenth-century artists.

Native Americans really did use every part of the bison. Your kids can find fun facts like this and more at the Art Cart in a gallery of George Catlin artworks on the second floor of American Art.

Say you bought a painting from a London junk store fifty years ago. It's been hanging in your house all this time. You think it might be an old Dutch-period painting, and you think it's in good condition, but you aren’t sure. What would you do? You could wait for the Antiques Roadshow to come to your town. Or you could make a personal appointment with our conservators during one of our monthly Lunder Conservation Center Conservation Clinics. That's what Arline and Malcolm Martin did.