| Plan your visit to SAAM and its Renwick Gallery this winter. |
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Fill your soul with art this holiday season at the Smithsonian American Art Museum! Experience the powerful art on view in our current exhibitions. Explore the collection at your own pace with one of SAAM’s free audio guides or design your own self-guided tour tailored to your interests. Then relax in the beautifully decorated Kogod Courtyard. It’s the perfect place to meet a friend for coffee, explore with family, or just take a break for yourself. |
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On View at SAAM
8th and G Streets, NW
Washington, DC 20004 |
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| | Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea
On view through January 15, 2024 Examine the American West from the perspectives of 48 modern and contemporary artists who offer a broader and more inclusive view of this region, which too often has been dominated by romanticized myths and Euro-American historical accounts. Learn about Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea. |
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| | Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies
On view through January 28, 2024 Explore the powerful resonances between recent video art and popular music. Leading contemporary artists draw on the vast cultural influence of American music. Whether turning to early spirituals, jazz and mid-century musicals, or movie soundtracks and hip-hop, each artist deeply considers the traditions, methods, and purpose of music in daily life. Learn about Musical Thinking: New Video Art and Sonic Strategies. |
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| | Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas
On view through June 2, 2024 Filled with exuberant abstractions featuring a dazzling interplay of pattern and hue, Composing Color offers an intimate view of Alma Thomas’ evolving artistic practices during her most prolific period from 1959 to her death in 1978. Learn about Composing Color: Paintings by Alma Thomas. |
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| | Carrie Mae Weems: Looking Forward, Looking Back
On view through July 7, 2024 This focused exhibition pairs two projects by Carrie Mae Weems—a major multimedia installation and a series of photographs—that revisit moments from history. Learn about Carrie Mae Weems: Looking Forward, Looking Back. |
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| | Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour — Frederick Douglass
On view through December 6, 2026 A presentation of Isaac Julien’s tour de force moving image installation that interweaves period reenactments across five screens to create a vivid picture of nineteenth-century activist, writer, orator, and philosopher Frederick Douglass. Learn about Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour — Frederick Douglass. |
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| | American Voices and Visions: Modern and Contemporary Art
Ongoing SAAM’s reopened and reimagined modern and contemporary galleries feature a new installation that freshly examines the explosion of possibility in American art between the 1940s and today. Nearly 100 works by artists using new materials and techniques — and inspired by the social, cultural, and technological changes around them — are on view. Learn about American Voices and Visions: Modern and Contemporary Art. |
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On View at the Renwick Gallery
Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006 |
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| | Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023
On view through March 31, 2024 Focusing on fresh and nuanced visions by six Native American or Alaska Native artists who express the honors and burdens that connect people to one another. Joe Feddersen (Arrow Lakes/Okanagan), Lily Hope (Tlingit), Ursala Hudson (Tlingit), Erica Lord (Athabaskan/Iñupiat), Geo Neptune (Passamaquoddy) and Maggie Thompson (Fond du Lac Ojibwe) analyze the present moment by evoking historical practices and potential futures. Learn about Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023. |
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| | Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery
Ongoing SAAM’s branch location for contemporary craft, the Renwick Gallery, showcases the dynamic landscape of American craft today. Currently on view are more than 100 works in a range of mediums from fiber and ceramics to glass, metal, wood, and mixed media. These objects deepen the history of the studio craft movement while also introducing contemporary artworks that push the boundaries of what we interpret the handmade to be in the twenty-first century. Learn about Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery. |
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The Smithsonian American Art Museum is able to create and share experiences like these thanks to funding from generous supporters like you.
Thank you for ensuring that American art is available to all. Donate to support SAAM. |
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Image Credits:
Angel Rodríguez-Díaz, The Protagonist of an Endless Story, 1993, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible in part by the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, 1996.19. © 1993, Angel Rodriguez-Diaz
Cauleen Smith, Sojourner, 2018, digital video, color, sound, 22:41 minutes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the SJ Weiler Fund, 2020.54.1, © 2020, Cauleen Smith
J. P. Ball, Unidentified sitter, 1858-60, ninth plate daguerreotype with applied color; half-cased, Smithsonian American Art Museum, the L. J. West Collection of Early African American Photography, Museum purchase made possible through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Alma Thomas, The Eclipse, 1970, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1978.40.3
Carrie Mae Weems, Lincoln, Lonnie, and Me - A Story in 5 Parts, 2012, video installation and mixed media, color, sound; 18:29 minutes, dimensions variable, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the American Women’s History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, 2023.9A-G, © Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Installation view, Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, September 24– December 15, 2019. © Isaac Julien, Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro. Image Courtesy of SCAD
Nam June Paik, Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, 1995, fifty-one channel video installation (including one closed-circuit television feed), custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood; color, sound, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 2002.23, © Nam June Paik Estate
Lily Hope, Memorial Beats, 2021, thigh-spun merino and cedar bark with copper, headphones, and audio files, 16 x 4 x 10 in., The Hope Family Trust. Photo by Sydney Akagi.
Roberto Lugo, Juicy, 2021, glazed stoneware with enamel paint and luster, 19 7/8 x 13 3/8 x 9 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the James Renwick Alliance in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Renwick Gallery and the 40th anniversary of the Alliance. © 2020, Roberto Lugo, Image by Dominic Episcopo courtesy of Wexler Gallery |
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