EXPERIENCE AMERICA at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Baseball at Night, by Morris Kantor 1934, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

In Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian American Art Museum(SAAM) shares a building with the National Portrait Gallery (to be discussed in another post). For museum goers, it’s a two-fer. And it’s free, just like other Smithsonian museums! As in many places elsewhere in Washington, this is a repurposed federal building, originally the national patent office. 

Third Floor Gallery

The four floors are packed with art, displayed in what were once offices and meeting rooms. On the third floor is a long gallery, in all its Victorian splendor, where patent applicants once displayed models of their inventions. Today, portraits of famous sports figures line the upper walls. 

Vaquero by Luis Jimenez. Modeled 1980, cast 1990.

Outside, at the G Street entrance, one is greeted by a large blue horse sculpture. Both entrances to the building lead from the street to a large covered atrium, where there are benches to sit, tables where you can sit and eat snacks from the Courtyard Café, and colorful displays of orchids from the Smithsonian plant collections. 

Orchids in the Atrium of the Museum.

I chose to start in the SAAM gallery at the west end of the first floor, which, is devoted to art from the years of the Great Depression, a time when artists enjoyed public support unlike any time before or since. The title of the exhibit: Experience America.

Entrance to the six rooms of Experience America. Valley Farms by Floss Dickinson, 1934, on left; Baseball at Night by Morris Kantor, 1934 on right.

“Many of the paintings in Experience America were created in 1934 for a pilot program designed to put artists to work; others were produced under the auspices of the WPA, which followed. The thousands of paintings, sculptures, and murals placed in schools, post offices, and other public buildings stand as a testimony to the resilience of Americans during one of the most difficult periods in our history.”

Scenes from American Life: Beach by Gertrude Goodrich, 1941-1947. Mural for Cafeteria of the old Social Security Building.

Although there are a few sculptures in the exhibit, most of the pieces are representational paintings revealing a picture of life in America at that time—from hometown baseball games and barber shop scenes, to farms, city life, and cotton pickers in the South. Here is a sample of paintings in the exhibit.

Ryder's House, by Edward Hopper, 1933.

Orilla Verde at the Rio Grande by Kay Walkingstick, 1935.

Skating in Central Park by Agnes Tait, 1934.

Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City (detail) by Grandma Moses 1946. She lived to be 101 and was 86 when she painted this..

 

In His Barbershop by Ilya Bululowsky 1934.

Sunlight and Shadow by Alan Rohan Crite, 1941.

The Experience America exhibit at SAAM is ongoing. The permanent exhibitions of SAAM feature American art from the time of the Early Republic to Modernism. I did a quick walk through the Folk and Self-Taught Art section, and the Modern and Contemporary Art on the third floor, but ran out of time and energy to see everything. I’ll have to go back to see the rest.

Suburban Post in Winter by William Gropper, 1936-37. Mural study for Freeport, New York, Post Office.