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Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery

Looking at works on paper by Nam June Paik at SAAM.

Museum: A Tale of Art, Life and Everything In Between

I'm throwing this one back five years to one of my favorite stories from one of my favorite poets that was originally posted in 2015. It comes with all good wishes from the blog for a wonderful, story-filled, Happy New Year.

Detail of Bill Traylor’s Untitled (Brown Pig), April 1940, pencil and opaque watercolor on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Margaret Z. Robson Collection, Gift of John E. and Douglas O. Robson, 2016.38.70

Handle with Care: Consolidating Bill Traylor’s Artwork

Paper Conservator Catherine Maynor shares her experience examining and treating Bill Traylor’s artwork.

Matthew Fields (left) assessing a diorama at the University of Delaware in 2017

Conservation: A Tale of Two Summers

Matthew Fields was a recent pre-program intern at the Lunder Conservation Center, as part of the Smithsonian Conservation Internship for Broadening Access (CIBA). He is currently a senior at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, pursuing a BA in art.

Border Quipu/Quipu Fronterizo (detail), 2016-18, by Tanya Aguiñiga. Photo by Libby Weiler.

Renwick Invitational 2018

When you think of the Renwick Gallery, images of a bright floor to ceiling rainbow or faceted moving mushrooms might come to mind. It's true, the Renwick Gallery has been known to offer blockbuster exhibitions, such as No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man, that give you Instagram-worthy photography.

Ernest Lawson's Gold Mining, Cripple Creek

Art Bites: Gold Mining, Cripple Creek

Art Bites is a new series on Eye Level based on lunchtime talks at the museum. They feature the voices of SAAM's research fellows who share their discoveries about artworks from the collection. Michaela Rife was the 2017-2018 Joe and Wanda Corn Predoctoral Fellow at SAAM, where she researched the environmental history of New Deal murals on the American Great Plains. She is a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto and is currently working on her dissertation as a Tyson Scholar of American Art at Crystal Bridges.

Testing out

Testing a New Reality for Museum VR

Beyond the Walls is a virtual reality experiment from SAAM and Intel, building on our use of VR to expand exhibitions such as WONDER and No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man. In Beyond the Walls, visitors are transported into SAAM’s historic building—then to relevant sites outside the museum—for an immersive experience with selected artworks.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (We Will No Longer Be Seen and Not Heard), 1985, 9 prints, photo-offset lithograph and screenprint, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, VR.1986.50A-I

World AIDS Day

A blog post to commemorate World AIDS Day, December 1, 2018

Howard Russell Butler, Desert Landscape (#69), n.d., pastel on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Howard Russell Butler, Jr., 1978.65.4

Road Trip: Painted Deserts

August is for staff Artful Road Trips. Libby shares her journey to Arches National Park, Utah.

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