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Current, Upcoming and Traveling Exhibitions

• Current Exhibitions

• Upcoming Exhibitions

• Traveling Exhibitions

Current Exhibitions

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is now open! Its glorious historic main building in the heart of Washington's downtown cultural district is a dazzling showcase for American art. Special exhibitions are in galleries at the Donald W. Reynolds Center, located at Eighth and F Streets N.W., unless otherwise noted. Exhibitions of contemporary craft and decorative arts are ongoing at the museum's branch, the Renwick Gallery.

Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Now through Jan. 10, 2010

Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the second in a series of special installations, celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper. These exceptional watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the 1920s to the 1960s reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Rarely seen works from the museum's permanent collection by artists such as Stuart Davis, Sam Francis, Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Stella, Grant Wood, and Andrew Wyeth will be featured in the exhibition. Joann Moser, senior curator for graphic arts, selected the artworks in Graphic Masters.

Publication
The accompanying book, Graphic Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is available in the museum's online shop for $19.95.

Grand Salon Installation—Paintings from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Renwick)
June 6, 2009 — Permanent

A new installation of seventy paintings from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection is on view indefinitely in the Grand Salon of the Museum's branch, the Renwick Gallery. The installation features landscapes, portraits, and allegorical works by fifty-one American artists from the 1840s to the 1930s. Many of these paintings have not been exhibited in a number of years. Artists whose works are on view include Edward Mitchell Bannister, Romaine Brooks, Elliott Daingerfield, Daniel Garber, William Morris Hunt, George Inness, Homer Dodge Martin, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Abbott Handerson Thayer, John Henry Twachtman, and Irving R. Wiles. The room is installed salon style, with paintings hung one-atop-another and side by side. A visitor guide, Looking at Pictures in the Grand Salon — A Guide to the Artists, is available only on site in the Grand Salon and includes short biographies of the artists and wonderful archival photographs .

Free Gallery Talks
July 10, 2009; Gallery Talk with Robert Johnston, Americans Abroad (Brooks, Shannon, Tanner, and Weeks)

August 21, 2009; Gallery Talk with Robert Johnston, A Few of The Ten Plus Some Others (Twachtman, Tarbell, Weir, and Ochtman)

September 11, 2009; Gallery Talk with Robert Johnston, Out of the Past (Cox, Ballin, Loeb, Macomber, and Walker)

Jean Shin: Common Threads
Now through July 26, 2009

Jean Shin is nationally recognized for her monumental installations that transform castoff materials into elegant expressions of identity and community. This exhibition features eight works created since 2000, including the new site-specific installation Everyday Monuments commissioned by the Museum in 2008.

Shin employs a meticulous process of dismantling and alteration to create evocative sculptural installations that are composed of everything from worn shoes and lost socks to broken umbrellas and discarded lottery tickets. The resulting assemblages consist of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of seemingly identical objects gathered from friends, relatives, and perfect strangers.

Shin's most recent project, Everyday Monuments, debuts in the exhibition. The sprawling installation consists of nearly 2000 trophies donated by Washington, D.C.-area residents and projected images of the altered trophies. Inspired by the well-known historic monuments and heroic statuary displayed throughout Washington’s public spaces, Everyday Monuments venerates the accomplishments of ordinary Americans—stay-at-home moms, waitresses, janitors, postal carriers—whose everyday labors go unrecognized. Shin transformed each figurine to represent these tasks. The trophies are arranged according to a scale plan of the National Mall, symbolically filling the expanse of Washington's signature public space.

The exhibition also includes the largest installation to date of Chance City, a towering cityscape of scratch-and-win lottery tickets, whose inevitable collapse serves as a metaphor for the illusory promise of fast money; Chemical Balance III, a towering arrangement of empty prescription pill bottles that speaks to a dependency on prescription medications; and Unraveling, a dense, brightly colored web of woolen threads that visualizes the network of relationships within the Asian American arts community. The exhibition is organized by Joanna Marsh, The James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art.

Download a copy of the exhibition brochure (PDF, 2.2MB).

Common Threads Flickr Group
Go behind-the-scenes on Flickr to see images of the artist and her assistants, along with Museum staff, installing the exhibition. Join the group and load images of your worn-out sweaters, ridiculous business ties, grade school trophies and award ceremonies, broken umbrellas, and discarded lottery tickets, or your own creations made from everyday materials. Don't forget to include the stories behind them too.

The Museum's blog Eye Level
Read exhibition-related blog posts including, A Trophy for the Installation, and Shin Exhibition Backstory: Trophy Lives.

Free Public Programs
Artist Jean Shin, Friday, May 1, at 7 p.m.
Tied, Balanced, Altered and Unraveled: Family Tour, Saturdays, May 16, June 20, and July 18 at 1 p.m.
Start with the Arts Family Festival, Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, 11:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Gallery Talk with Carol Wilson, assistant chair for in-gallery education programs, Thursday, June 25, at 6 p.m.
Conservation Discussion with Jean Shin, Joanna Marsh and Hugh Shockey, Tuesday, July 7, at 6 p.m.

Recent News Stories
The New York Times, "Because Everyone Deserves a Trophy" by Hilarie Sheets
National Public Radio, Morning Edition, "Jean Shin, Turning Trash into Artistic Treasure" by Susan Stamberg
The Washington Post, "Common Threads: A Celebration of Castoffs" by Michael O'Sullivan

Credit
The Smithsonian American Art Museum wishes to thank the Diane and Norman Bernstein Foundation, Inc., Janice Kim and Anthony Otten, Nion McEvoy, and Nick and Holly Ruffin for their generous support of the exhibition.

1934: A New Deal for Artists
Now through Jan. 3, 2010

In 1934, Americans grappled with an economic situation that feels all too familiar today. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration created the Public Works of Art Program—the first federal government program to support the arts nationally. Federal officials in the 1930s understood how essential art was to sustaining America's spirit. Artists from across the United States who participated in the program, which lasted only six months from mid-December 1933 to June 1934, were encouraged to depict "the American Scene." The Public Works of Art Program not only paid artists to embellish public buildings, but also provided them with a sense of pride in serving their country. They painted regional, recognizable subjects—ranging from portraits to cityscapes and images of city life to landscapes and depictions of rural life—that reminded the public of quintessential American values such as hard work, community and optimism.

1934: A New Deal for Artists celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Public Works of Art Program by drawing on the Smithsonian American Art Museum's unparalleled collection of vibrant artworks created for the program. The paintings in this exhibition are a lasting visual record of America at a specific moment in time. George Gurney, deputy chief curator, organized the exhibition with Ann Prentice Wagner, curatorial associate.

Publication
A catalogue, fully illustrated in color and co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and D Giles Ltd. in London, is forthcoming in July 2009. It will feature an essay by Roger Kennedy, historian and director emeritus of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History; individual entries for each artwork by Ann Prentice Wagner; and an introduction by the museum's director Elizabeth Broun. The book will be available online and in the museum store for $49.95 (softcover $34).

A preview of Elizabeth Broun's introduction is now online or download Roger Kennedy's essay "Coaxing the Soul of America Back to Life" (PDF, 64K).

Flickr Group
The Museum has created a Flickr group to share the nearly 400 artworks and related objects dated 1934 from its collection. New images are added each week. The group contains a set with the paintings on view in the exhibition, and images added by the public who join the group. Check out the growing list of images, comment on your favorites, or add your own images to the group!

Picturing the 1930s
This educational Web site, created by the Museum in collaboration with the University of Virginia, allows online visitors to explore the 1930s through paintings, artist memorabilia, historical documents, newsreels, period photographs, music, and video in a virtual, 3-D movie theater. Visitors to the site can use these materials to create a documentary video and submit it to the virtual theater. New content will debut throughout the spring for each of the eight theme rooms—The Country, The Depression, Industry, Labor, American People, Leisure, The City, and The New Deal.

The Museum's blog Eye Level
Read exhibition-related blog posts including, 1934 All Over Again, Ray Strong Paints the Golden Gate Bridge, and On "1934," a Poem by Philip Levine.

Programs
March 19, 2009; Gallery Talk with Ann Prentice Wagner
April 30, 2009; 1934 Film Series: Bound for Glory
May 9, 2009; Family Day: Remembering the 1930s
May 9, 2009; 1934 Film Series: Annie
May 21, 2009; 1934 Film Series: The Grapes of Wrath
June 16, 2009; Coaxing the Soul of America Back to Life with Roger Kennedy
June 25, 2009; 1934 Film Series: It Happened One Night
July 9, 2009; Gallery Talk with George Gurney
July 16, 2009; 1934 Film Series: Imitation of Life
August 13, 2009; 1934 Film Series: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Recent News Stories
National Public Radio, Morning Edition, "'1934': Reflecting On America's First Big Art Buy" by Elizabeth Blair
The Washington Post, "American Scenes Tempered by Tough Times" by Michael O'Sullivan
WAMU 88.5, Metro Connection, interview with Elizabeth Broun
Washington Times, "ART: Creativity during hard times" by Deborah Dietsch
BBC World News America, interview with Elizabeth Broun
Smithsonian magazine (online), " What’s the Deal about New Deal Art?" by David Taylor
Smithsonian magazine, " 1934: Picturing Hard Times" by Jerry Adler

National Tour
The exhibition will begin a three-year national tour in 2010. Confirmed venues include the Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (January 30, 2010 – April 25, 2010); the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Fort Wayne, Indiana (May 21, 2010 – August 22, 2010); The Mennello Museum of American Art in Orlando, Florida (February 3, 2011 – May 1, 2011); the Oklahoma City Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (May 26, 2011 – August 21, 2011); the Muskegon Museum of Art in Muskegon, Michigan (February 16, 2012 – May 6, 2012); and the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine (October 25, 2012 – January 20, 2013).

The Honor of Your Company Is Requested: President Lincoln's Inaugural Ball
Now through Jan. 18, 2010

Travel back 143 years to the revelry of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball. This small, focused exhibition celebrates the president's second inaugural ball, held on March 6, 1865 in what is now the museum's historic home. The ball took place as Lincoln's second term began, with the Civil War in its final stages, and only six weeks before Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theater nearby. The exhibition, which relates the ball to the building and its history, features ephemera from the inaugural ball, including the invitation and menu as well as engravings illustrating the night's events and other artifacts. From pomp and politics to feasting and fights over food, this was one night destined for the history books. Charles Robertson, author of the recent book Temple of Invention: History of a National Landmark and a specialist in American decorative arts, is the guest curator of the exhibition.

Credit
The exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with support from the Ford Motor Company Fund.

Earl Cunningham’s America

Earl Cunningham’s America examines the paintings of Earl Cunningham (1893–1977), one of the foremost folk artists of the twentieth century. This retrospective presents the artist as a folk modernist who used flat space and brilliant color to create sophisticated compositions with complex meanings about the nature of American life. The exhibition and the fully-illustrated catalogue trace the story of Cunningham’s life and place his work in the context of the folk art revival that brought Edward Hicks, Grandma Moses, Horace Pippin and other folk masters to national attention. Virginia Mecklenburg, senior curator at the museum, organized the exhibition.

Tour
The exhibition travels to the American Folk Art Museum in New York City (March 4, 2008 – August 31, 2008); the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York (September 26, 2008 – December 31, 2008); and The Mennello Museum of American Art in Orlando, Florida (March 6, 2009 – August 2, 2009).

Publication
The catalogue is written by Mecklenburg, with essays by Wendell D. Garrett, senior vice president for American decorative arts at Sotheby's in New York City; and Carolyn J. Weekley, the Juli Grainger Director of Museums at Colonial Williamsburg. It is available for $45 in the museum's store and online.

Credit
Earl Cunningham's America is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition is made possible by generous support from Darden Restaurants Foundation; the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation; the Arts and Cultural Affairs Office of Orange County, Fla.; CNL Financial Group; Bright House Networks; Lockheed Martin; and Friends of The Mennello Museum of American Art. The exhibition's tour is supported in part by the C. F. Foundation, Atlanta.

Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum features forty-three key paintings and sculptures by thirty-one of the most celebrated artists who came to maturity in the 1950s. Through three broadly-conceived themes that span two decades of creative genius —"Significant Gestures," "Optics and Order" and "New Images of Man"—Modern Masters examines the complex and heterogeneous nature of American abstract art in the mid-twentieth century. Featured artists include Jim Dine, David Driskell, Sam Francis, Philip Guston, Grace Hartigan, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Louise Nevelson, Anne Truitt and Esteban Vicente.

Tour
The exhibition debuts at The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami (November 29, 2008 – March 1, 2009); the exhibition then travels to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pennsylvania (June 14, 2009 – September 6, 2009), the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio (July 23, 2010 – October 10, 2010), the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia (November 13, 2010 – February 5, 2011), the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennesee (March 19, 2011 – June 19, 2011) and the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (October 7, 2011 – January 1, 2012).

Publication
Modern Masters: American Abstraction at Midcentury, the beautifully illustrated catalogue co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and D Giles Limited (London), was written by Virginia M. Mecklenburg with contributions by Tiffany D. Farrell. The book features an essay and biographical information on the 31 artists whose work is included in the exhibition. It is available in the museum's store and online.

Credit
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is grateful to our generous contributors for their support of Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund provided support for the publication. The C. F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum's traveling exhibition program Treasures to Go. Members of the Smithsonian Council for American Art contribute to the museum's national programs.

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Upcoming Exhibitions

2009

Staged Stories: Renwick Craft Invitational 2009 (Renwick)

What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect

2010

Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O'Sullivan

The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 (Renwick)

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76, A Documentation Exhibition

A Revolution in Wood: Turned Wood from the Charles and Fleur Bresler Collection (Renwick)

Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow

2011

To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America

2012

Better Angels of Our Nature: Art During the Civil War and Reconstruction

Staged Stories: Renwick Craft Invitational 2009 (Renwick)

August 7, 2009 through January 3, 2010

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. The exhibition will feature the work of ceramic artist Christyl Boger, fiber artist Mark Newport, glass artist Mary Van Cline and ceramic artist SunKoo Yuh. The artists were chosen by Kate Bonansinga, director of the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso; Jane Milosch, Renwick Gallery curator; and Paul J. Smith, director emeritus of the Museum of Arts & Design. Bonansinga is the guest curator for the exhibition.

Boger (b. 1959), an assistant professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, creates large-scale gilded ceramic figurines that incorporate contemporary props. Newport (b. 1964), artist-in-residence and head of the fiber department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, examines issues of masculinity through knitted superhero costumes. Van Cline (b. 1954), who lives and works in Seattle, uses plate glass and pâte de verre to construct sculptural pieces that often incorporate black-and-white photographs. Yuh (b. 1960), an associate professor at the University of Georgia in Athens, creates densely layered ceramic sculptures that explore complex issues of family, faith and community with Eastern and Western imagery.

Credit
The Ryna and Melvin Cohen Family Foundation generously supports Staged Stories: Renwick Craft Invitational 2009.

What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect

October 2, 2009 through January 24, 2010

William Wiley (b. 1937) has stood the test of time in the face of changing styles, successive movements, critical theories and passing fashion. His self-deprecating humor and sense of the absurd make his art accessible to even those who do not comprehend his more ambiguous ideas, allusions, narratives, private symbols and layers of meaning. Puns are fun, and they make more palatable his deadly serious commentary on war, pollution, global warming, racial tension and other threats to contemporary civilization. What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect, the first full-scale look at Wiley's career since 1979, will feature approximately 80 works from the late 1960s to the present, borrowed from public and private collections as well as from the artist. It will provide a serious overview of Wiley's career while exploring important themes and ideas expressed in his work. Joann Moser, senior curator for graphic arts, is the curator of the exhibition.

After closing in Washington, D.C., the exhibition will travel to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California (March 17, 2010 — June 20, 2010).

Credit
Generous support for What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect was provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the John and Maxine Belger Family Foundation, Gretchen and John Berggruen, the Charles Cowles Charitable Trust, Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins, Electric Works, Sakurako and William Fisher, the Lipman Family Foundation, James and Marsha Mateyka, Arnold and Oriana McKinnon, Rita J. Pynoos, Betty and Jack Schafer, Laura and Joe Sweeney, Roselyne C. Swig, and the Tides Foundation: Art 4 Moore Fund. The exhibition is organized and circulated by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The C.F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum's traveling exhibition program, Treasures to Go.

Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

January 29 through August 8, 2010

Graphic Masters III: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the third in a series of special installations, celebrates the extraordinary variety and accomplishment of American artists' works on paper. These exceptional watercolors, pastels, and drawings from the 1960s to the 1990s reveal the central importance of works on paper for American artists, both as studies for creations in other media and as finished works of art. Rarely seen works from the museum's permanent collection by artists such as Robert Arneson, Jennifer Bartlett, Philip Guston, Luis Jiménez and Wayne Thiebaud are featured in the exhibition. Joann Moser, senior curator for graphic arts, selected the artworks in the exhibition.

Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O'Sullivan

February 12 through May 9, 2010

Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840–1882) was a photographer for two of the most ambitious geographical surveys of the nineteenth century. He traversed the mountain and desert regions of the western United States under the command of Clarence King and Lt. George M. Wheeler for six seasons between 1867 and 1874. O'Sullivan developed a forthright and rigorous style in response to the landscapes of the American West, and returned to Washington, D.C. with hundreds of photographs that revealed an artist whose reach far surpassed the demands of practical documentation. He created a body of work that was without precedent in its visual and emotional complexity, while simultaneously meeting the needs of scientific investigation and western expansion. This exhibition—a collaboration between the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Library of Congress—offers a critical reevaluation of his images and the conditions under which they were made, as well as an examination of their continued importance in the photographic canon. Of all his colleagues, O'Sullivan has maintained the strongest influence on contemporary practice, and observations about his images by six contemporary landscape photographers—Thomas Joshua Cooper, Eric Paddock, Edward Ranney, Mark Ruwedel, Martin Stupich and Terry Toedtemeier—contribute to the exhibition and catalog.

Framing the West is the first major exhibition devoted to this remarkable photographer in almost three decades and features more than eighty photographs and stereographs by O'Sullivan, including a notable group of King Survey photographs from the Library of Congress that rarely have been on public display since 1876.

Toby Jurovics, curator for photography, is the exhibition curator.

The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 (Renwick)

March 5, 2010 through January 30, 2011

The Art of Gaman will showcase arts and crafts made by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II. While incarcerated, the internees tried to gaman, a Japanese word that means to bear the seemingly unbearable with dignity and patience. Housed in tar-paper covered barracks furnished with nothing more than metal cots, the internees used scraps and found materials to create furniture, toys and games, musical instruments, pendants and pins, purses, and ornamental displays. These objects became essential both for simple creature comforts and emotional survival. This exhibition presents an opportunity to educate a new generation of Americans about the internment experience and will provide a historical context through archival photographs and artifacts. The exhibition, organized by San Francisco-based author and guest curator Delphine Hirasuna, with the cooperation of the Japanese American Citizens League, will feature more than 100 objects, many of which are on loan from former internees or their families. The exhibition is based on Hirasuna's 2005 book The Art of Gaman.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76, A Documentation Exhibition

April 2 through September 26, 2010

The most lyrical and spectacular of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's epic projects was the Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76, a white fabric and steel-pole fence, 24 1/2 miles long and 18 feet high, across the properties of fifty-nine ranchers in Sonoma and Marin Counties north of San Francisco. The project attracted far wider public involvement than any previous work of art, including eighteen public hearings, three sessions in the Superior Court of California and the first environmental impact report ever done for a work of art. Paid for entirely by the artists, the Running Fence existed for only two weeks. It survives today as a memory and through the artwork and documentation by the artists—drawings, collages, photographs, film and components. This collection of artwork, including nearly fifty major preparatory drawings and collages by Christo, and documentation was acquired in 2008 from the artists by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The exhibition celebrates this significant acquisition and presents an opportunity to re-assess after thirty years the impact of one of the artists' best-known projects. In addition, the exhibition will introduce the Running Fence to a new generation that has grown up since its creation. The exhibition will trace Christo and Jeanne-Claude's imaginative process through Christo's early preparatory drawings and collages that preceded the final installation in California, and reveal how imagination and reality coincided by comparing these works with photographs of the completed project.

A Revolution in Wood: Turned Wood from the Charles and Fleur Bresler Collection (Renwick)

September 24, 2010 through January 30, 2011

A Revolution in Wood celebrates the extraordinary recent gift of turned wood objects from collectors Fleur and Charles Bresler. The Bresler collection has a noticeably distinct aesthetic that emphasizes sculptural qualities and decorative motifs integrated into the whole form. The craftsmanship is exquisite and finely detailed. Wood turning has gained recognition as an art form since World War II. The exhibition will highlight contemporary wood turning's growing sophistication, and will feature sixty-six objects from the 1980s and 1990s, including a number of artworks that will be on public display for the first time.

Nicholas Bell, curator at the Renwick Gallery, is organizing the exhibition.

Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow

November 19, 2010 through May 8, 2011

Alexis Rockman (b. 1962) has been depicting the natural world with virtuosity and wit for more than two decades. His extensive body of work combines art history, science, and popular culture to address a wide range of subjects from evolutionary biology and genetic engineering to deforestation and global climate change. Each exquisitely rendered painting is an amalgam of historical research, scientific observation and unbridled imagination. Rockman's sources include botanical illustrations, museum dioramas, nineteenth-century landscape painting, science fiction films, and firsthand field study. From these diverse explorations, he has built a universe of species and scenarios that confound basic perceptions of the living world. His vivid images transport the viewer to a place that is at once bountiful and besieged, where long-extinct creatures inhabit the ruins of modern monuments and household pets drift among the cosmos. This ability to straddle the boundary between empirical fact and plausible fiction has garnered the attention of scientists and art critics alike.

Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow is the first major survey of the artist's work and will feature approximately 80 paintings and works on paper from private and public collections. The exhibition will trace Rockman's artistic development from the mid-1980s to the present. The exhibition is being organized by Joanna Marsh, The James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art.

To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America

March 11 through September 5, 2011

During the turbulent 1940s, artist George Ault (1891-1948) created precise yet eerie pictures—works of art that have come to be seen, following his death, as some of the most original paintings made in America in those years. Surrealistic and highly personal, these works are nonetheless grounded in a sense of place. Some of Ault's greatest paintings—such as January Full Moon and the five pictures he made of the junction of Russell's Corners in Woodstock, New York—stand out as poignant, melancholy meditations on lonely spots. The quietude and darkness of his paintings have won Ault the admiration of many critics and museum-goers over the years.

To Make a World is the first major exhibition of Ault's work since 1988. It will present him as a crucial figure in a decade that continues to fascinate Americans to this day. The exhibition will include approximately 50 paintings, drawings, and photographs by Ault and his contemporaries, including the well-known artists Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth as well as recently rediscovered painters Edward Biberman and Dee Dee Plummer.

Alexander Nemerov, chair of the history of art department at Yale University, is the guest curator of the exhibition.

Better Angels of Our Nature: Art During the Civil War and Reconstruction

2012 — 2013

Better Angels of Our Nature will explore the impact of the Civil War and its aftermath on the visual arts in America using some of the finest artworks made during this period by leading figures such as Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, Hiram Powers, and John Rogers. Although the exhibition will include photographs by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan, the focus will be on how artists addressed the metaphorical war, dealing allegorically or elliptically with the issues of internal warfare, the future of the union, abolition and race relations, and the post-war search for a new American identity. These artists' solutions resulted in some of the most compelling landscapes and genre paintings of the mid-nineteenth century, often containing layers of meaning beyond their war-related allusions. Eleanor Jones Harvey, chief curator, is organizing the exhibition.

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Traveling Exhibitions

Earl Cunningham’s America

Earl Cunningham’s America examines the paintings of Earl Cunningham (1893–1977), one of the foremost folk artists of the twentieth century. This retrospective presents the artist as a folk modernist who used flat space and brilliant color to create sophisticated compositions with complex meanings about the nature of American life. The exhibition and the fully-illustrated catalogue trace the story of Cunningham’s life and place his work in the context of the folk art revival that brought Edward Hicks, Grandma Moses, Horace Pippin and other folk masters to national attention. Virginia Mecklenburg, senior curator at the museum, organized the exhibition.

Tour
The exhibition travels to the American Folk Art Museum in New York City (March 4, 2008 – August 31, 2008); the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York (September 26, 2008 – December 31, 2008); and The Mennello Museum of American Art in Orlando, Florida (March 6, 2009 – August 2, 2009).

Publication
The catalogue is written by Mecklenburg, with essays by Wendell D. Garrett, senior vice president for American decorative arts at Sotheby's in New York City; and Carolyn J. Weekley, the Juli Grainger Director of Museums at Colonial Williamsburg. It is available for $45 in the museum's store and online.

Credit
Earl Cunningham's America is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The exhibition is made possible by generous support from Darden Restaurants Foundation; the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation; the Arts and Cultural Affairs Office of Orange County, Fla.; CNL Financial Group; Bright House Networks; Lockheed Martin; and Friends of The Mennello Museum of American Art. The exhibition's tour is supported in part by the C. F. Foundation, Atlanta.

Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum features forty-three key paintings and sculptures by thirty-one of the most celebrated artists who came to maturity in the 1950s. Through three broadly-conceived themes that span two decades of creative genius —"Significant Gestures," "Optics and Order" and "New Images of Man"—Modern Masters examines the complex and heterogeneous nature of American abstract art in the mid-twentieth century. Featured artists include Jim Dine, David Driskell, Sam Francis, Philip Guston, Grace Hartigan, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Louise Nevelson, Anne Truitt and Esteban Vicente.

Tour
The exhibition debuts at The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami (November 29, 2008 – March 1, 2009); the exhibition then travels to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pennsylvania (June 14, 2009 – September 6, 2009), the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio (July 23, 2010 – October 10, 2010), the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia (November 13, 2010 – February 5, 2011), the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennesee (March 19, 2011 – June 19, 2011) and the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (October 7, 2011 – January 1, 2012).

Publication
Modern Masters: American Abstraction at Midcentury, the beautifully illustrated catalogue co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and D Giles Limited (London), was written by Virginia M. Mecklenburg with contributions by Tiffany D. Farrell. The book features an essay and biographical information on the 31 artists whose work is included in the exhibition. It is available in the museum's store and online.

Credit
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is grateful to our generous contributors for their support of Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund provided support for the publication. The C. F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum's traveling exhibition program Treasures to Go. Members of the Smithsonian Council for American Art contribute to the museum's national programs.

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Pictured first : Stuart Davis, Impression of the New York World's Fair (mural study, Communications Building, World's Fair, Flushing, New York), 1938, gouache on paperboard, sheet: 14 3/4 x 22 1/8 in. (37.5 x 55.9 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the United States Information Agency through the General Services Administration

Pictured second : Frederick J. Waugh, The Knight of the Holy Grail, ca. 1912, oil on canvas, 94 7/8 x 125 3/4 in. (241.0 x 319.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans

Pictured third : Jean Shin, Chance City, 2001/2009, $32,404 worth of discarded "Scratch & Win" losing lottery tickets (no adhesive), Installation at Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2009. Photo by Ken Rahaim

Pictured fourth : Ross Dickinson, Valley Farms, 1934, oil on canvas, 39 7/8 x 50 1/8 in. (101.4 x 127.3 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the U.S. Department of Labor

Pictured fifth : Lincoln's inaugural ball, March 6, 1865, Illustration from Illustrated London News, April 8, 1865, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Pictured sixth : Earl Cunningham, Blue Sail Fleet Returns, after 1949, oil on fiberboard, 16 1/2 x 36 1/4 in. (41.8 x 92.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Mennello

Pictured seventh : Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park, No. 6, 1968, oil on canvas, 92 x 72 in. (233.7 x 182.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Arthur J. Levin in memory of his beloved wife Edith

Pictured eighth : Clockwise from left: Mark Newport, Batman 2 (detail), 2005, acrylic yarn and buttons, Courtesy of Greg Kucera Gallery; Mary Van Cline, Cycles of Relationship of Time, 2000, photosensitive glass, pâte de verre and bronze patina, Private collection. Photo by Rob Vinnedge; Christyl Boger, Waterwings, 2007, glazed white earthenware with gold luster, Courtesy of Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson; SunKoo Yuh, Can You Hear Me?, 2007, glazed porcelain, Collection of the artist.

Pictured ninth : William T. Wiley, Portrait of Radon, 1982, watercolor and felt-tipped pen and ink on paper, sheet: 22 1/4 x 29 7/8 in. (56.5 x 75.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase

Pictured tenth : Philip Guston, Hovering, 1976, brush and ink on paper, sheet: 18 1/8 x 24 in. (46.1 x 61.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Ruth and Jacob Kainen

Pictured eleventh : Timothy H. O'Sullivan, Cañon de Chelle, Walls of the Grand Cañon about 1200 Feet in Height (Wheeler Survey), 1873, albumen print on paper mounted on paperboard, sheet and image: 8 x 10 7/8 in. (20.3 x 27.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Charles Isaacs Collection made possible in part by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment

Pictured twelfth : Christo, Running Fence (Project for Sonoma and Marin Counties, California), 1975, pencil, fabric, staples, pastel, charcoal, wax crayon, black and white photograph, technical data, tape on paperboard, 22 x 28 in. (55.9 x 71.1 cm) frame: 22 1/4 x 28 1/4 in. (56.5 x 71.8 cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment

Pictured thirteenth : Frank E. Cummings III, On the Edge Naturally, 1990, lathe turned, carved, and inlaid Mexican kingwood burl, 18k gold, and Mother-of-pearl, 12 1/4 x 6 1/8 x 7 1/4 in. (31.1 x 15.6 x 18.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur and Charles Bresler

Pictured #tombcount#th : Alexis Rockman, The Pelican, 2006, oil on wood, 56 x 44 in., Courtesy of the artist and Waqas Wajahat, New York

Pictured #tombcount#th : George Ault, Bright Light at Russell's Corners, 1946, oil on canvas, 19 5/8 x 25 in. (49.9 x 63.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Lawrence

Pictured #tombcount#th : Earl Cunningham, Blue Sail Fleet Returns, after 1949, oil on fiberboard, 16 1/2 x 36 1/4 in. (41.8 x 92.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Mennello

Pictured bottom : Richard Diebenkorn, Ocean Park, No. 6, 1968, oil on canvas, 92 x 72 in. (233.7 x 182.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Arthur J. Levin in memory of his beloved wife Edith