Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Smithsonian American Art Museum organized the nationally traveling exhibition “Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.”


Venues

Patricia and Philip Frost Art Museum; Florida International University, Miami.
November 29, 2008- March 1, 2009

Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
June 14-September 6, 2009

Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.
October 10-January 2, 2010

Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia.
November 13- February 5, 2011

Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee.
March 19 -June 19, 2011

Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
October 7- January 1, 2012


The exhibition featured 43 key paintings and sculptures by 31 of the most celebrated artists who came to maturity in the 1950s. “Modern Masters” examines the complex and varied nature of American abstract art in the mid-20th century through three broadly conceived themes that span two decades of creative genius—“Significant Gestures,” “Optics and Order” and “New Images of Man.”

“The exhibition introduces the richness and complexity of American art in the years following World War II. We are thrilled that the deep holdings of the Smithsonian American Art Museum allow us to share important works by leading abstract painters and sculptors with audiences throughout the country.” said Virginia Mecklenburg, senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum who organized the exhibition.

The decades following World War II were stimulating times for American art. While some vanguard artists began to paint or sculpt in the 1930s as beneficiaries of WPA-era government support, other immigrant artists fled to the United States as Nazi power grew in Germany. A few artists were highly educated; others left school at an early age to pursue their art. Working in New York, California, the South and abroad, these artists blended knowledge gleaned from the old masters and modernists Picasso and Matisse with philosophy and ancient mythology to create abstract compositions that addressed current social concerns and personal history. Some mixed hardware-store paint with expensive artist colors and bits of paper torn from magazines, linking their work with contemporary life.

Aided in their efforts by a group of young dealers, prominent critics and influential editors, abstract artists gained credibility. Abstraction was no longer dismissed as irrelevant or incomprehensible, but instead became a widely discussed national style. Weekly magazines such as Life, Time and Newsweek brought images of contemporary abstraction to households throughout the country while New York museums toured exhibitions to the capitals of Europe. Galleries discovered new markets in the country’s growing middle-class, and newspapers celebrated American culture as an equal partner with technology in catapulting the United States to preeminence on the world stage.

By the late 1950s, Sam Francis, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline and other painters and sculptors who embraced abstraction early in the decade enjoyed success, celebrity and international acclaim.

“Significant Gestures” explores the autographic mark, executed in sweeping strokes of brilliant color that became the expressive vehicle for Francis, Hofmann and Kline as well as Michael Goldberg and Joan Mitchell. These artists and others, affected by World War II, became known as abstract expressionists. For each artist, the natural world, recent discoveries in physics and the built environment provided motifs for powerful canvases of color and light.

“Optics and Order” examines the artists who investigated ideas such as the exploration of mathematical proportion and carefully balanced color. This section, which highlights Josef Albers, also features Ad Reinhardt, who developed visual vocabularies that used rectilinear shapes to meld intellectual idea with emotional content, and artworks by like-minded artists Ilya Bolotowsky, Louise Nevelson and Esteban Vicente. A sculpture by Anne Truitt, whose majestic columns transform childhood memories of Maryland’s Eastern Shore into totemic structures, is included in this section as well.

“New Images of Man” includes works by Romare Bearden, Jim Dine, David Driskell, Grace Hartigan, Nathan Oliveira, Larry Rivers and several others, each of whom searched their surroundings and personal lives for vignettes emblematic of larger, universal concerns. Issues such as tragedy, interpersonal communication and racial relations guided the creation of these artists’ pieces.

Catalogue



Modern Masters: American Abstraction at Midcentury, the fully illustrated catalog copublished by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and D Giles Limited (London), is written by Mecklenburg with contributions by Tiffany Farrell. The book features an essay and biographical information on the 31 artists whose work is included in the exhibition.

From a review: (images added)

At Dayton Art Institute, I gladly reacquainted myself with Reinhardt’s austere, sublime black squares touched slightly by blue or plum in



“Abstract Painting No. 4” (1961)

and wanted to say, “It’s been too long” to Gottlieb’s magisterial



“Three Discs” (1960)....

New to me was the earliest work in the show, Reinhardt’s bright and jazzy — who knew? —



untitled, high-colored abstraction of 1940.

It came into the collection after I was back in Ohio, as did Hans Hofmann’s “Fermented Soil” (1965),



Hans Hofmann; Fermented Soil, 1965; Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc.

perhaps my favorite piece in the exhibition, with its rough surface, strong color and complicated interactions.

The exhibition is helpfully organized into three sections. “Significant Gestures” includes that master of the gesture, Kline, and others. “Optics and Order” highlights several artists, including Albers, all of whom endlessly explore the effect of colors on each other. A late-ish (1978) contribution to this field by Ilya Bolotowsky,



“Tondo Variation in Red,”

looks fresh as if made yesterday, although the same artist’s “Architectural Variations” (1949) seems oddly dated.

Cincinnati’s Jim Dine turns up in the final section, “New Images of Man,” which recognizes that figural art never really went away.



Dine’s “The Valiant Red Car”

is close to billboard size and rewards attention.

Nearby is one of my surprises of the show,



Nathan Oliveira’s “Nineteen Twenty-Nine” (1961),

an arresting portrait of his mother perfectly hung, almost by itself, with perfect lighting to bring out the textured surface.

Images from the Exhibition



Franz Kline, Untitled, 1961, acrylic, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Vincent Melzac Collection through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program



Hartigan Modern Cycle 1980

Master Mentor Master: Thomas Cole & Frederic Church

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site will host the exhibition Master Mentor Master:Thomas Cole & Frederic Church from April 30 to Nov. 2, 2014. This newly organized exhibition tells the story of one of the most influential teacher-student relationships in the history of American art – that between the founder of the Hudson River School of painting, Thomas Cole (1801-1848) and his student and successor, Frederic Church (1826-1900).

Master Mentor Master: Thomas Cole & Frederic Church will be the first exhibition to explore this seminal moment in American art through the lens of the evolving relationship between Thomas Cole and Frederic Church. Their student-teacher arrangement grew into a life-long friendship between the two families, and later, the two historic sites that bridge the east and west sides of the Hudson River. Church, who became one of the most celebrated artists of the 19th century and later built Olana, was first introduced to the Hudson River Valley as an 18–year-old when he came to live and study with Cole at the property known as Cedar Grove in Catskill, New York, from 1844 to 1846. Church’s paintings from this two-year period show the artist learning from Cole while developing his own emerging style and unparalleled mastery of landscape painting.

A selection of very early works made by Church during his time as a student of Cole’s will be on view, including views of the landscapes that surround Cedar Grove and Olana. The Thomas Cole National Historic Site has also worked closely with curators and staff at the Olana State Historic Site on this special exhibition, and will present a unique selection of rarely shown oils on paper and sketches from the Olana collection.

Accompanying the show will be an exhibition catalogue about the Cole-Church relationship, illustrated in full color, which will include the artworks in the show plus many additional paintings and drawings. Also included will be stories that bring the student-teacher relationship to life and an essay by Dr. Wilmerding about this formative two year period that first brought Church to the Hudson Valley.

John Wilmerding is the Sarofim Professor of American Art, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He has been a visiting curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and served as Senior Curator and Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, where he was former chairman of the board of trustees. He is currently a trustee of the Guggenheim Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art. President Obama appointed him to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.

Master Mentor Master: Thomas Cole & Frederic Church is the 11th annual presentation of 19th century landscape paintings at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, an exhibition program that explores the influence of Thomas Cole on American culture through a generation of artists known as the Hudson River School. Exhibitions and related programs enable visitors to see first-hand some of the magnificent examples of the style of painting that Cole is credited with launching, and to experience the paintings in a residential setting as they would have been experienced in the period in which they were made.

The Thomas Cole National Historic Site preserves and interprets the home and studios of Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of painting, the nation's first art movement. Cole's profound influence on America's cultural landscape inspires us to engage broad audiences through educational programs that are relevant today. The Thomas Cole Historic Site is an independent non-profit organization and an affiliate of the National Park Service.

Directions: The Thomas Cole Historic Site is located in the scenic Hudson River Valley, at 218 Spring Street in Catskill, New York. Located near the western entrance to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, with easy access from the New York State Thruway exit 21 or Amtrak train service in Hudson, detailed directions and more information can be found at www.thomascole.org.



Hooker and Company Journeying through the Wilderness from Plymouth to Hartford, in 1636, 1846, oil on canvas, Frederic Edwin Church. Courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut



Frederic E. Church, Scene on Catskill Creek, 1847, oil on canvas, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD



Frederic E. Church, Sunrise, 1847, oil on paper. Olana State Historic Site, Hudson, NY OL.1978.11



Frederic E. Church, Morning, Looking East over the Hudson Valley from Catskill Mountains, 1848, Oil on canvas, Albany Institute of History and Art (Albany, New York, United States)

In the City: Urban Views 1900-1940, Masterpieces from the Whitney Museum of American Art

Venues

New York State Museum, Albany May 21 - July 11, 1999

Asheville Art Museum Asheville, NC through Oct. 31 1999

Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach CA through January 23, 2000

Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, November 9, 2000 - January 14, 2001



The dramatic loneliness of an Edward Hopper cityscape and the frantic pace of a John Sloan street corner were among the realistic images displayed as part of In the City: Urban Views 1900-1940 Masterpieces from the Whitney Museum of Art.

The turbulence of World War I and the Great Depression fueled American artists as they depicted city life in the first 40 years of this century.

Many of the works in the latest exhibition of the series featured the Ashcan School led by Robert Henri. As their figurehead, Henri, encouraged these artists - including Sloan, Everett Shinn and George Luks - to paint urban life as they saw it and to break with the sentimental idealism of academic art.

These artists were the first in this country to draw their inspiration from modern city life in all its manifestations, not only the fashionable but the seamy side as well. Many got their start as newspaper artists, who would make hurried sketches on deadline to accompany a story in the next day's paper. They would be dispatched to a fire or riot scene, where they would take notes -- mentally and on paper -- hurry back to the newsroom and complete an illustration.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney built her collection by supporting these artists who responded to and recorded urban life. In 1914 she established the Whitney Studio, her first art gallery that soon became an important gathering place for artists. Hopper, Reginald Marsh and Sloan had their first solo exhibitions there. In 1931, Mrs. Whitney opened the Whitney Museum of American Art to exhibit work by living artists. Her founding collection of 700 works served as the focus of the Whitney Museum in the 1930s and 1940s.



From a review of the Asheville show: (images, links added)

The third room displays grim, Depression-era scenes of unemployment lines and political unrest -- most strikingly,



Isaac Soyer's "Employment Agency,"

and



Glenn Coleman's "Election Night Bonfire."

The fourth gallery looks ahead to a world more familiar to us in subsequent decades, charting both the city's changing physical environment and the move away from what had been, up till then, mostly realist art.




Louis Guglielmi's stark, surrealist-inspired "Terror in Brooklyn"

and the bold graphics and stylized figures of



Jacob Lawrence's "Tombstones"

herald fundamental aesthetic change.

At the same time, the exhibit traces the metamorphosis of several individual artists' styles, particularly Edward Hopper: Six very different Hopper works are featured, including



"Soir Bleu" (1914),

a startling depiction -- influenced by the time Hopper spent in France -- of a group of Parisians drinking at an outdoor cafe. There's a vaguely sinister feel to the piece, reinforced by the solemn clown smoking a cigarette near the composition's center. The work's flatness, both in style and tone, creates a kind of "dead" sensation that belies its brilliant blue background. One of Hopper's favorite pieces, "Soir Bleu" was soundly trounced by critics at its first New York showing in 1915; he never exhibited it again before donating it to the Whitney.

That same flatness also looks ahead to Hopper's more famous later work -- such as the haunted landscape of



"Apartment Houses, Harlem River" (1930),

a vaguely eerie study, done in muted blues, greens and grays, of a row of almost identical apartment buildings along the river. The muted lights that appear in a few windows are the only evidence of human life....



Everett Shinn's "Under the Elevated" (believed to be circa 1912)

is a prime example of the Ashcan School approach to art. The work depicts a gloomy winter street scene: Dark, run-down shops (like the Smoke & Chew) and flophouses (Rover's Hotel) provide a backdrop for a dark mass of almost faceless people, painted mostly in shades of black, huddled in one corner. Muted street lamps provide the only light, and the cold is almost palpable.



John Sloan's "Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street" (1928)

presents a vastly different picture, in keeping with the spirit of the time. Instead of darkness, we're met with the blazing lights of the el at the top of the canvas. Below, brightly lit shops replace the gloomy buildings of "Under the Elevated," and the raucous Jazz Age sensibility is captured in groups of flappers and elegantly dressed men and women cavorting on the street.



Reginald Marsh's "Why Not Use the 'L'" (1930)

captures the miserable tone of life after the stock-market crash of 1929, but with wry humor and irony. Beneath a sign advertising the joys of riding the "open-air elevated" sit three figures -- dead-tired, numb and desperate -- clearly not enjoying the ride. A newspaper casually tossed on the floor screams the headline, "Does the sex urge explain Judge Crater's strange disappearance?"



And Francis Criss' "Sixth Avenue El" (1937)

also anticipates the move toward abstraction. Here, both the el and the city beneath it dissolve in a geometric hodgepodge of flat shapes, marked by deeply textured paint in plain primary and secondary colors..

{Editor: see more outstanding El images here}




Mabel Dwight's "Aquarium" and



"The Clinch, Movie Theatre" (both 1928)

depict leisure pursuits available to the masses.

Quiet studies of women in repose, such as



Thomas Dewing's formal, portrait-like "Lady in a Green Dress" and



Edward Hopper's "Summer Interior"

-- a beautiful work done in acid greens and rusts, featuring a partially nude woman lounging on the floor of her simple but comfortably appointed room -- capture the sedentary pastimes of the upper classes...

Reginald Marsh.. gives us



"Ten Cents a Dance" (1933) and

"Minsky's Chorus" (1935).

"Ten Cents" is a voluptuous group portrait: Women dressed in form-fitting, jewel-toned dresses stare with fixed smirks at an invisible audience; a whiff of something sexual permeates the piece...



"Minsky's Chorus" is a lush, sensual, slightly sullied study of burlesque dancers. A gaggle of scantily clad women fill a stage -- their seductive gyrations almost tangible. The scene is awash in slightly faded golds, punctuated by the bright-red garters and feather headpieces of the dancers. Two leering men lounge in one corner, while musicians in the pit fill the foreground.

Excellent article on the exhibition

More images from the exhibition:



Maurice Prendergast, Central Park, 1901,1901, watercolor on paper, 15 1/16 x 22 1/8 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum;



Robert Henri, Blackwell's Island, East River, 1900, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum;



William Glackens,Parade, Washington Square, 1912, oil on canvas, 26 31 inches, Collection
of Whitney Museum



John Sloan, Backyards, Greenwich Village, 1914, oil on canvas, 26 x 32 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum



Everett Shinn, Girl Dancing, 1905, watercolor and conte crayon on cardboard, 5 3/4 x 7 13/16 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum



Abraham Walkowitz, Cityscape, c. 1915, oil on canvas, 25 x 18 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum



Stuart Davis, The Back Room, oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 37 1/2 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum



Guy Pene Du Bois, Café Monnot, c. 1928-29, oil on canvas, 22 x 18 1/2 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum



Raphael Soyer, Office Girls, 1936, oil on canvas, 26 x 24 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum



Philip Evergood, Through the Mill, 1940, oil on canvas, 36 x 52 inches, Collection of Whitney Museum

African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond

“African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond” presents a selection of works by 43 black artists who lived through the tremendous changes of the 20th century. In paintings, sculpture, prints and photographs, the featured artists embrace themes both universal and specific to the African American experience, including the exploration of identity, the struggle for equality, the power of music and the beauties and hardships of life in rural and urban America.

“African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond” was on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from April 27 through Sept. 3, 2013. The exhibition was organized by Virginia Mecklenburg, senior curator of painting and sculpture at the museum. It will travel to additional venues through 2014 following its presentation in Washington, D.C.

“This exhibition allows us to understand profound change through the eyes of artists,” said Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “These works by African American artists are vital to understanding the complex American experience.”

The 100 works on view are drawn entirely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s rich collection of African American art, the largest and finest in the United States. More than half of the works featured are being exhibited by the museum for the first time, including paintings by Benny Andrews, Loïs Mailou Jones and Jacob Lawrence, as well as photographs by Roy DeCarava, Gordon Parks and Marilyn Nance. Ten of the artworks were acquired within the past five years. More than half of the objects in the exhibition are photographs from the museum’s permanent collection. Individual object labels connect the artworks with the artistic and social factors that shaped their creation.

The 20th century was a time of great change in America. Many of the social, political and cultural movements that came to define the era, such as the jazz age, the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement, were rooted in African American communities. Black artists explored their identity in this quickly changing world through a variety of media and in styles as varied as postmodernism, documentary realism, expressionism and abstraction.

“Visitors will be struck not only by the power of these artworks, but also by the variety of the pieces on display,” said Mecklenburg. “So many new movements and styles grew out of the tumult of the 20th century, and these works reflect that diversity.”

In paintings, prints and sculpture, artists such as William H. Johnson and Andrews speak to the dignity and resilience of those who work the land. Romare Bearden recasts Christian themes in terms of the black experience. Jones, Sargent Johnson and Melvin Edwards address African heritage, while Alma Thomas explores the beauty of the natural world through color and abstract forms.

Studio portraits by James VanDerZee document the rise of the black middle class in the 1920s, while powerful black-and-white photographs by DeCarava, Nance, Parks, Robert McNeill, Roland Freeman and Tony Gleaton chronicle everyday life from the 1930s through the final decades of the 20th century.

“Each of the artists included in this exhibition made a compelling contribution to the artistic landscape of 20th century America, and we are delighted to feature their work in the museum’s galleries,” said Mecklenburg.

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalog, with an essay written by distinguished scholar Richard J. Powell, the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University. The book also includes entries about each artist by Mecklenburg; Theresa Slowik, chief of publications at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; and Battle. The catalog was co-published by the museum with Skira Rizzoli in New York.

National Tour

The exhibition will travel through 2014 to additional cities in the United States following its presentation in Washington, D.C. Confirmed venues include

Muscarelle Museum of Art at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. (Sept. 28 – Jan. 6, 2013)

Mennello Museum of American Art in Orlando, Fla. (Feb. 1, 2013 – April 28, 2013)

Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. (June 1, 2013 – Sept. 2, 2013)

the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tenn. (Feb. 14, 2014 – May 25, 2014)

and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Calif. (June 28, 2014 – Sept. 21, 2014).


Also see: African American Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Workss included in the exhibition:



1. Benny Andrews, Portrait of Black Madonna, 1987 , oil and collage on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Andrews Humphrey Family Foundation, © Estate of Benny Andrews/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY



2. John Biggers, Shotgun, Third Ward #1, 1966, tempera and oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by Anacostia Museum, Smithsonian Institution



3. Frederick Brown, John Henry, 1979, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Gerald L. Pearson, © 1979 Frederick J. Brown



4. Allan Rohan Crite, School's Out, 1936, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from The Museum of Modern Art

5. Roy DeCarava, Lingerie, New York, 1950/printed 1981, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by Henry L. Milmore, © 1981 Roy DeCarava

6. Beauford Delaney, Can Fire in the Park, 1946, Smithsonian American Art Museum

7. Thornton Dial, Sr., Top of the Line (Steel), 1992, mixed media: enamel, unbraided canvas roping, and metal, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift from the collection of Ron and June Shelp

8. Melvin Edwards, Tambo, 1993, welded steel, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program © 1993 Melvin Edwards

9. Roland L. Freeman, Dancing at Jazz Alley. Chicago, Illinois, June 1974, from the series, Southern Roads/ City Pavements, 1974/ Printed 1982, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of George H. Dalsheimer, © 1974 Roland L. Freeman

10. Sam Gilliam, The Petition, 1990, mixed media, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the James F. Dicke Family, © 1990 Sam Gilliam

11. Felrath Hines, Red Stripe with Green Background, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum © 1986 Dorothy C Fisher

12. Earlie Hudnall, Jr., Hip Hop, 1993, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum © 1993 Earlie Hudnall, Jr.

13. Richard Hunt, “The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism, is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it out to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.” -Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance, 1852. From the series Great Ideas,1975, chromed and welded steel, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America

14. Malvin Gray Johnson, Self-Portrait, 1934, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation

15. Sargent Johnson, Mask, 1930-1935, copper on wood base, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of International Business Machines Corporation



16. William H. Johnson, Sowing, 1940, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation



17. Loïs Mailou Jones, Moon Masque, 1971, oil and collage, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of the artist



18. Jacob Lawrence, Bar and Grill, 1941, gouache, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Henry Ward Ranger through the National Academy of Design



19. Norman Lewis, Evening Rendezvous, 1962, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase

20. Robert McNeill, New Car (South Richmond, Virginia), from the project The Negro in Virginia, 1938, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, © 1938 Robert McNeill

21. Robert McNeill, Make A Wish (Bronx Slave Market, 170th Street, New York), 1938, gelatin silver, Smithsonian American Art Museum, © 1938 Robert McNeill



22. Keith Morrison, Zombie Jamboree, 1988, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund and the Director’s Discretionary Fund

23. Marilyn Nance, Baptism, 1986, gelatin silver print, Smitsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program, © 1986 Marilyn Nance

24. Gordon Parks, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, © 1950 Gordon Parks

25. James A. Porter, Still Life with Peonies, 1949, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program

26. John Scott, Thornbush Blues Totem, 1990, painted steel, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase



27. Charles Searles, Celebration, 1975, acrylic, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration, Art-in-Architecture Program

28. Renée Stout, The Colonel’s Cabinet, 1991-1994, mixed media: carpet, chair, painting, and cabinet with found and handmade objects, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, © 1994 Renée Stout

29. Alma Thomas, Light Blue Nursery, 1968, acrylic, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Artist