Monday feels: Mary Jane the baby sloth, born at our
National Zoo in 1964.
Zoo staff, who hand-reared Mary Jane, named the two-toed
sloth long before it was determined that the baby was a male. He’s seen
snuggling at 9 months old in this Smithsonian Institution Archives photo.
These stunning images are a preview of the first special exhibition at our @nmaahc, which explores the stories behind more than 150 photographs and related objects from their collection.
The images, by established and emerging photographers from the 19th century to the present, show a range of American experiences. They challenge you to look beyond the surface to consider their significance in history, their cultural meaning, and your own perspective.
The first Cinco de Mayo celebrations didn’t include
margaritas, because they weren’t invented until the 1940s. By the 1970s, the margarita surpassed the martini as the most popular American cocktail.
This is the first frozen margarita machine, invented at a restaurant owned by Mariano Martinez. When blenders couldn’t keep up with the high demand for margs, he found inspiration in the 7-Eleven Slurpee machine. The original retired when
Martinez’
restaurant moved 34 years later, and now it’s in our National Museum of American History.
Cats didn’t need the internet to achieve feline fame.
Our @archivesofamericanart has a new exhibition, “Before Internet Cats: Feline Finds from the Archives of American Art,” which explores how cats are represented in rare documents like sketches and drawings, letters, and photographs from the 19th century through the early 2000s.
We decided to let the cat out of the bag…er, box with this collage postcard sent from fiber artist Lenore Tawney to filmmaker Maryette Charlton. Tawney’s postcards often featured intricate layers of found media and handwritten notes. Animals, especially cats, were a frequent motif.
While we think the whole exhibition is purrfect (we couldn’t help it), here are some of our favorite pieces from the archives:
Georges Mathieu, a French painter, embellished this oversize letter
to painter Hedda Sterne. It’s among the cat-themed correspondence from Mathieu that are in Sterne’s papers.
Cats often make ideal studio companions. They serve as sympathetic critics and elegant muses.
In this photo, Pozy the cat watches muralist Edna Reindel work in her California studio. (Pozy is also the subject of the wall mural behind them.)
Photos of artists in their studios enhance our understanding of their stories and their working processes.
Reginald Gammon was known for his evocative portraits of prominent African Americans (and not cats) but in the mid-1960s he illustrated a children’s book that chronicles the friendship between a boy and a bespectacled cat.
Thousands of sketches in the Archives of American Art offer insight into artists’ creative processes. A 1948 sketchbook of watercolor studies by muralist and children’s book illustrator Emily Barto highlights the distinct personalities of several felines—here’s one taking a cat nap.
#BeforeInternetCats is on view through Oct. 29 in the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery (the first floor of the National Portrait Gallery). You can also paw your way through the exhibition online.
The
“First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald, was born 100 years ago today.
We’re
celebrating the centennial of her birth and the legendary career that followed
with this portrait on view at our National Portrait Gallery. Dizzy Gillespie, on the right, is all of us as he gazes at Lady Ella in song.
The photographer, William P. Gottlieb,
learned to use a camera so that he could include images in his weekly music
column for TheWashington Post. Today, his photos of jazz
musicians from the 1930s and ’40s are regarded as invaluable visual records of
jazz’s Golden Age.
“On this Earth Day, ‘Earth Optimism’ should be more than a slogan; it should be a rallying cry for people of conscience to work together year-round in order to safeguard this beautiful planet we call home.”
— Smithsonian Secretary David J. Skorton
This weekend, we’re sharing conservation
success stories at our #EarthOptimism Summit, a first-of-its-kind gathering of more than 150 scientists, thought leaders, philanthropists and civic leaders to share and learn from each other’s conservation achievements.
Follow along on
Facebook, Twitter, or the live webcast to learn about how science is working to
solve complex problems around the globe.
Friday plans include a cold beverage? Meet the beer fridge
of 1899.
It’s from a catalog of by L. H. Mace & Co. of New York,
now in our @smithsonianlibraries. Early refrigerators used insulation (with an
inch between two sets of walls) and circulation to move cool air from the ice
chamber throughout the space.
Inside this refrigerator, there were places for kegs to rest
and shelves in the lower part of the refrigerator could be removed, making it
possible to chill two more kegs.
Photo: Photograph of Mae Reeves and a group of women standing on stairs, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from Mae Reeves and her children, Donna Limerick and William Mincey, Jr.
African American women have been wearing fancy hats for generations to church. In 1940, Mae Reeves started Mae’s Millinery Shop in 1940 in Philadelphia, PA with a $500 bank loan. The shop stayed open until 1997 and helped dress some of the most famous African American women in the country, including iconic singers Marian Anderson, Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne.
Reeves was known for making all of her customers feel welcomed and special, whether they were domestic workers, professional women, or socialites from Philadelphia’s affluent suburban Main Line. Customer’s at Mae’s would sit at her dressing table or on her settee, telling stories and sharing their troubles.
Photo: Pink mushroom hat with flowers from Mae’s Millinery Shop, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
In our Power of Place exhibition, we recreated a portion of Reeves’ shop to showcase this African American tradition. Our shop includes its original red-neon sign, sewing machine, antique store furniture and hats.
View artifacts from Mae’s Millinery Shop in our collection: s.si.edu/2oVlbFj
We love this 👒 history (and the word
millinery) from our @nmaahc.
Designed by Lillian Gary Taylor, the Liberty Queen’s Ware
set features a center shield with the American stars and stripes, surrounded by
the flags of the 11 Allied countries.
Women of all social classes were involved in World War I in
a variety of roles—military and civilian, paid and volunteer. Women like
Lillian Gary Taylor often used their wealth and connections to raise money for
the war effort. She sold more than 9,000 pieces, a few of which are now in our National Museum of American History.
Cute cheetah alert! We have a new “pile of cubs” (our favorite kind), as our cheetah biologist put it.
Two large litters were born over the course of a week at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute: 3-year-old Happy gave birth on March 23 and 7-year-old Miti gave birth March 28.
Each cub plays a significant role in improving the health of the population of cheetahs in human care and represents hope for the species overall. Our scientists and keepers will continue to monitor the health and behavior of both moms and cubs by closed-circuit camera, and the cubs will have their first veterinary exam when they are about six weeks old.
Cherry blossoms have always made beautiful backdrops for
photos. 🌸 More than a century ago, three young women dressed in
kimonos pose with parasols under a blooming cherry tree.
This photo (from sometime between 1860 and 1900) is in our @freersackler’s collection. It was included in an album produced by the studio
of Tamamura Kozaburo (1880s–1900s), a successful commercial photography studio
in Japan.
Throwback Thursday to a few weeks ago when “Wind Sculpture VII” was dazzling outside our National Museum of African Art.
Like a ship’s sail, the fiberglass sculpture by Yinka Shonibare MBE appears to blow in the wind. It evokes the sails of ships that crossed the Atlantic and other oceans, connecting nations through the exchange of ideas, products and people—complex histories of not only the slave trade and colonization but also the dynamic contributions of Africans and African heritage worldwide.
At 20 feet tall and nearly 900 pounds, “Wind Sculpture VII” is part of a series of seven individually designed sculptures, and the first artwork permanently installed in front of the museum.
“I never plan my color more than five stripes ahead and
often change my mind before I reach the third stripe.” – Gene Davis, 1971
Start the weekend with some jazzy stripes from Gene Davis.
Davis is primarily known for his bold stripe works, which range from minuscule
micro-paintings to mammoth outdoor street pieces.
This one, “Raspberry Icicle” (1967), stretches almost 10
feet tall and more than 18 feet wide.
Davis often compared himself to a jazz musician who plays by
ear, describing his approach to painting as “playing by eye.”
See 15 classic stripe paintings from the 1960s,
some of which haven’t been seen publicly in decades due to their huge size,
through April 2 in “Gene Davis: Hot Beat” at our @americanartmuseum.
