Smithsonian American Art Museum

Profile

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation's first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people throughout three centuries. The American Art Museum is the home to one of the largest and most inclusive collections of American art in the world. Its artworks reveal key aspects of America's rich artistic and cultural history from the colonial period to today. More than 7,000 artists are represented in the collection, including major masters, such as John Singleton Copley , Gilbert Stuart , Winslow Homer , John Singer Sargent , Childe Hassam , Mary Cassatt , Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper , Jacob Lawrence , Helen Frankenthaler , Christo and Jeanne-Claude , David Hockney , Jenny Holzer , Lee Friedlander , Nam June Paik , Martin Puryear , and Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein . In recent years, the museum has strengthened its commitment to contemporary art through curatorial appointments, endowments, awards, acquisitions and commissions.
The museum has been a leader in identifying significant aspects of American visual culture and actively collecting and exhibiting works of art before many other major public collections. The museum has the largest collection of New Deal art and the finest collections of contemporary craft, American impressionist paintings and masterpieces from the Gilded Age. Other pioneering collections include historic and contemporary folk art; work by African American and Latino artists; photography from its origins in the 19th century to contemporary works; images of western expansion; and realist art from the first half of the 20th century.

represented artists

Berenice Abbott      Ansel Adams      Anni Albers      Josef Albers      Richard Anuszkiewicz      Alexander Archipenko      Charles Arnoldi      Jennifer Bartlett      Romare Bearden      Lynda Benglis      Thomas Hart Benton      George Caleb Bingham      Ronald Bladen      Peter Blume      Deborah Butterfield      Alexander Calder      Mary Cassatt      William Christenberry      Christo & Jeanne-Claude      Thomas Cole      John Singleton Copley      Joseph Cornell      Stuart Davis      Eric Fischl      Helen Frankenthaler      Lee Friedlander      Sam Gilliam      Phillip Guston      Marsden Hartley      Childe Hassam      David Hockney      Jenny Holzer      Winslow Homer      Edward Hopper

Alfred Jensen      Edward Kienholz      Franz Kline      Willem de Kooning      Jacob Lawrence      Les Levine      Roy Lichtenstein      Richard Misrach      Ed Moses      Lee Mullican      Vik Muniz      Elizabeth Murray      Eadweard Muybridge      Louise Nevelson      Isamu Noguchi      Claes Oldenburg      Timothy H. O'Sullivan      Nam June Paik      Irving Penn      Martin Puryear      Robert Rauschenberg      John Singer Sargent      Aaron Siskind      John Sloan      Gary Stephan      Gilbert Stuart      Mark Tansey      Wayne Thiebaud      Anne Truitt      Eugene von Bruenchenhein      Horace Westermann      Jean Xceron