Stories for March 2017

Ryders on the Storm: Celebrating the Art of Albert Pinkham Ryder

March 28, 2017

Before Betsy Broun retired from the helm of the Smithsonian American Art Museum last fall, she gave a talk where she revealed her top ten works (ok, seventeen works) of art in the collection, beginning with Albert Pinkham Ryder's Jonah. Ryder, who died one hundred years ago today, was an artist close to Broun's heart and the subject of a book she published in 1989.

The Renwick Gallery and the Space in Between

March 23, 2017

For more than a year, Janet Echelman's woven sculpture 1.8 Renwick has beckoned people into the Grand Salon. Suspended high above, the billowing nets transform the space. At once an artwork and an experience, people walk around the room as colors projected on the hand-knotted nets shift, or stretch out on the floor for a new view and a moment of peace.

Art Conservation: Stretching a Very Large Gene Davis Painting

March 21, 2017

As often as art conservators do a standard treatment on a work of art in our collection, there is always an opportunity to learn a new approach to solving a challenging task. In the case of Gene Davis: Hot Beat (closing April 2, 2017), paintings conservator Amber Kerr coordinated with staff members from our design and registrar teams to manage the conservation treatments for several extremely large canvas paintings. Each had been rolled in storage for years.

Martha Graham and Isamu Noguchi: Cave of the Heart Dance Performance

March 15, 2017

Over the course of half a century, Noguchi and Graham closely collaborated on numerous set designs for her groundbreaking modern dances. They held each other in the highest regard—Noguchi once said, "I felt that I was an extension of Martha and that she was an extension of me," while Graham described sharing "an unspoken language" with the sculptor.

Movies at SAAM Continues This Spring

March 9, 2017

From March to May, "Movies at SAAM" will screen five eye-opening films about American art. All films will be shown on selected Saturdays at the museum's McEvoy Auditorium, beginning at 3 p.m.