Exhibitions
Online Exhibitions
Vivian Beer Slither.walk.fly
Available indefinitely, the Smithsonian American Art Museum's online exhibitions complement and extend our gallery and traveling shows. To see what exhibitions are presently on view or on tour, take a look at our Current, Upcoming, and Traveling exhibition schedule.
- Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color fully examines the extraordinary career of Thomas Day (1801-about 1861), a free African American who owned and operated one of North Carolina's most successful cabinet shops prior to the Civil War.
- Nam June Paik: Global Visionary offers an unprecedented view into the artist's creative method by featuring key artworks that convey Paik's extraordinary accomplishments as a major international artist as well as material drawn from the Nam June Paik Archive, which was acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum from the artist's estate in 2009.
- The Civil War and American Art examines how America's artists represented the impact of the Civil War and its aftermath. Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, Frederic Church, and Sanford Gifford–four of America's finest artists of the era–anchor the exhibition.
- 40 under 40: Craft Futures features forty artists born since 1972, the year the Smithsonian American Art Museum's contemporary craft and decorative arts program was established at its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery.
- Abstract Drawings presents a selection of forty-six works on paper from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's permanent collection that are rarely on public display.
- African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond presents a selection of paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs by forty-three black artists who explored the African American experience from the Harlem Renaissance through the Civil Rights era and the decades beyond, which saw tremendous social and political changes.
- Multiplicity features 83 works from the museum's permanent collection by such outstanding contemporary artists as John Baldessari, John Cage, Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, R. Luke DuBois, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Julie Mehretu, Martin Puryear, Susan Rothenberg, Kiki Smith, and Kara Walker.
- Inventing a Better Mousetrap features thirty-two models illustrating the wide variety of nineteenth-century patented inventions submitted by inventors from across the United States.
- Something of Splendor: Decorative Arts from the White House. This exhibition allows visitors to explore the history of the decorative arts in the nation's foremost home. It includes 95 objects - furniture, ceramics, metals, glass and textiles - from the permanent collection of the White House.
- The Great American Hall of Wonders examines the nineteenth-century American belief that the people of the United States shared a special genius for innovation.
- 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.
- To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America captures a 1940s America that was rendered fragile by the Great Depression and made anxious by a global conflict.
- Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow is the first major survey of the artist's work and features 47 paintings and works on paper from private and public collections.
- 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.
- Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg is the first major exhibition to explore in-depth the connections between Norman Rockwell's iconic images of American life and the movies.
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Graphic Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is American Art's third exhibition of works on paper by American artists from the collection of the museum.
Staged Stories: Renwick Craft Invitational 2009 is the fourth in a biennial exhibition series, established in 2000, that honors the creativity and talent of craft artists working today.
Through video, photography and blog posts, explore the complex processes of installation artist Jean Shin as part of the American Art Museum's 2009 Exhibition Jean Shin: Common Threads
Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper drawn exclusively from the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
A series of features exploring artworks commissioned by the FDR's Public Works of Art Program through 1934: A New Deal for Artists.
Artful Abe: Celebrating the life and visual legacy of Abraham Lincoln through art and artists inspired by the nation's 16th president!
- Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern Renaissance in Italian Glass
Anatomy of a Painting: Honoré Sharrer's Tribute to the American Working People (via The Smithsonian Archives of American Art)
The workshop of Joseph Cornell's Wonderland from the exhibition Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination
Behind the scenes of the Renovation of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's National Historic Landmark building
The conservation of William H. Johnson's Portrait of a Man
The conservation of Harry Bertoia's Sculpture Group Symbolizing World's Communication in the Atomic Age
Treasures to Go series
Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Lure of the West: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Modernism and Abstraction: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
American Kaleidoscope: Themes and Perspectives in Recent Art
Lia Cook: Material Allusions and Mark Lindquist: Revolutions in Wood
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