On Christmas Day, 1937, an unexpected letter dropped on President Franklin Roosevelt's desk.
A written offer to give the country an immense art collection. But not just that… it also offered to build the huge gallery needed to display it. And the plans to accomplish it.
Less than 5 years later, the National Gallery of…
Dorothea Lange: Seeing People takes a black-and-white look at people in tough circumstances.
Viewing weathered faces, primarily from the United States, reveals the images of God in the diverse faces of humanity.
Many of her most famous works are government propaganda, revealed or concealed as the government saw fit for a time. Even her most…
Last week, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery opened a new exhibition- “1898: US Imperial Visions and Revisions”.
Entry into Guanica Bay by the Smithsonian
This exhibition explores the United States move from Republic to Empire through many people throughout the pivotal year of 1998.
From Feb 15th, 1898, with the explosion of the USS Maine in…
The National Gallery of Art was America's most popular art museum last year. It beat its main competitor, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, for the first time since 2008.
The National Gallery surpassed the Met with 3.3 million visits compared to 3.2 million visits at the Met's main building.
Photo by Alvesgaspar
These statistics…
"Philip Guston Now" at the National Gallery of Art explores the works of this modern artist.
It's not an exhibition I recommend for families. But I would recommend it for fathers.
Philip lost his father to suicide when he was 10. Guston's artworks reference this tragedy repeatedly for over 40 years. His father's absence is…
You have one last chance to see this huge retrospective art show at the National Gallery of Art.
My first impression of this exhibition was surprise and delight at the vibrant, attention-grabbing colors. The series of paintings telling a complete story draw me in, my eye going from one scene to another.
Virgin Reading (c.…
This new exhibition "Watergate: Portraiture and Intrigue" reminds us that it's always the cover-up that gets you.
A political crime was committed at the Watergate. The President's aides tried to cover it up. It brought down the President of the United States of America.
Fifty years later, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery opens this show…
At the heart of the National Portrait Gallery's second floor resides the "America's Presidents" exhibit. It contains a variety of artwork, from oil paintings to photographs to sculptures. Each one shows a president in a unique and different light.
This is the only complete collection of presidential portraits outside of the White House and a…
The Monuments Men Foundation donated the diary of S. Lane Faison, Jr. to the National Archives this week. This continues the piecemeal reconstruction of records related to the immense theft of art in Europe by the Nazi during WWII.
Now 74 years after the meticulous kept Nazi records fell in Allied hands, the records are…
Like the artist herself, the exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture is small and unassuming. There are only thirteen painting on three walls, even though Clementine painted thousands in her lifetime. The point, however, is not to flood you with information and art, but to allow the simple life in…