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Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery

The

Mysteries of the First Mastodon

Conservator Ariel O'Connor unearths the mysteries behind Charles Willson Peale’s mastodon.

Chiura Obata,

Chiura Obata: Artist Interrupted

In our time of social distancing, Obata's handwritten notes have us thinking about how we communicate with one another, and how important a simple note can be.

What's a mastodon doing at SAAM? Dr. Advait Mahesh Jukar, a Deep Time Fellow and Paleontologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, answers our questions.

Hips Don't Lie: The American Incognitum

Dr. Advait Mahesh Jukar, a Deep Time Fellow and Paleontologist at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, talks with us about mastodons.

Chapter three begins with an image of a black walnut branch and its hanging flowers.

Designing for Humboldt: Five Questions with Karen Siatras

How a graphic designer at SAAM was inspired to incorporate Humboldt's ideas about nature into the exhibition catalogue

Frederic Edwin Church, “Study for “The Heart of the Andes,”” 1858, oil on canvas, 10 1/4 x 18 1/4 in., Olana State Historic Site, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, OL.1981.47.A.B.

A Brush with Nature: Alexander von Humboldt and Frederic Church

Humboldt's ideas on art, nature, and philosophy helped to shape American artists, including the influential Hudson River school painters

Jessie A. Walker,

Animals in Art and At Home

Because at SAAM everything eventually comes back to American art, some of us have been inspired to model our sweet, sassy, bored, annoyed, sleepy, amusing pets after favorite artworks in our collection. We offer them as amusement and inspiration, and as evidence of the creativity and sense of humor we appreciate in each other.

Gather your supplies for flower exploration and natural dye lab. All photos by Gloria Kenyon.

Flower Exploration and Natural Dye Lab

Bring nature indoors in this easy-to-do craft inspired by explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt

William Henry Holmes's

Museum from Home: Crafting Edition

Instructions for an easy cherry blossom craft to make at home

Choose your background. A little bit country...with Albert Bierstadt's

The Art of the Teleconference

Transform your Zoom virtual background or computer desktop into a work of art

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