Daily Archives: 3 July, 2017

Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture – National Portrait Gallery (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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National Portrait Gallery

The National Portrait Gallery, a historic art museum housed in the historic Old Patent Office Building (as is the Smithsonian American Art Museum), now the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, is part of the Smithsonian Institution.

Today, the National Portrait Gallery continues to narrate the multi-faceted and ever-changing story of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture and, through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, it presents poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives form our national identity.

Check out “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture” and  “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture – Smithsonian American Art Museum”

Abraham Lincoln (Charles Wesley Jarvis, 1861)

Initially restricted to paintings, prints, drawings, and engravings, the collections, over the years, have grown from more than 2,000 items  1981 and, in 1990, the number of images in the museum’s photography collection reached 8,500 objects. As of 2011, the National Portrait Gallery was the only museum in the United States dedicated solely to portraiture.

In 2013, the museum had 65 employees and an annual budget of $9 million.  February 2013, it housed 21,200 works of art, which had been seen 1,069,932 visitors in 2012.  Today, the NPG collection of over 23,000 items, in all media, from daguerreotypes to digital, had grown so large that the exhibit drew its images almost entirely from the museum’s own collection.

Douglas MacArthur (Howard Chandler Christy, c. 1952)

The Hall of Presidents, a hallmark of the NPG’s permanent collection, is the largest and most complete collection in the world, except for the White House collection itself. Containing portraits of nearly all American presidents, the centerpiece of the Hall of Presidents is the famous Lansdowne portrait of George Washington. How the museum obtains presidential images has changed over the years.

From 1962 to 1987, presidential portraits were usually obtained through purchase or donation but, beginning in 1998, NPG began commissioning portraits of presidents, starting with George H. W. Bush, for its “America’s Presidents” exhibition (Gilbert Stuart’s Lansdowne portrait of George Washington is the grand introductory image to this exhibition). In 2000, NPG began commissioning portraits of First Ladies as well, beginning with Hillary Clinton.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (Thomas Edgar Stephens)

Funds for these commissions are privately raised, and each portrait costs about $150,000 to $200,000. It still continues to acquire portraits (including paintings, sculpture, photographs, caricatures, video, and time-based media) of each succeeding president.

The NPG hosts the prestigious Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, a triennial, juried contemporary portrait exhibition widely regarded as the most prestigious portrait competition in the United States.  It also brings commissioned works into the collection. Artists working in the fields of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and other media are allowed to enter.

William T. Sherman (George Peter Alexander Healy, 1866)

Works must be created through a face-to-face encounter with the subject. The winner of this inaugural competition was David Lenz of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He was commissioned to paint a portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver (the founder of the Special Olympics), the first portrait commissioned of an individual who has not served as a President or First Lady.

On the left is a portrait of Stephen Van Rensselaer III (John Wesley Jarvis, 1825-35) while on the right is a portrait of Antonia Pantoja (Manny Vega, marble, glass and stone, 2014)

Dave Woody of Fort Collins, Colorado, the 2009 winner, was commissioned to photograph food pioneer Alice Waters, founder of the Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe, the Edible Schoolyard and champion of the Slow Food movement.

Samuel Francis Du Pont (Daniel Huntington, 1867-68)

During the 2013 competition, the total prize money of $42,000 was awarded to the top eight commended artists, and the winner received $25,000 and a commission to make a portrait for the museum’s permanent collection. The artist and the NPG curators jointly decided the subject of the commission. The 2013 winner was Bo Gehring of Beacon, New York, who was commissioned to direct a close-up video and sound portrait of jazz musician Esperanza Spalding which drew delight and praise from visitors.

Here is the historical timeline of the gallery:

  • In 1962, the National Portrait Gallery was authorized and founded Congress with the mission to acquire and display portraits of individuals who have made significant contributions to the history, development, and culture of the people of the United States.
  • In 1965 (the bicentennial of James Smithson‘s birth), “Nucleus for a National Collection,” the first NPG exhibit, went on display in the Arts and Industries Building.
  • In 1966, the NPG completed the Catalog of American Portraits, the first inventory of portraiture held the Smithsonian. The catalog also documented the physical characteristics of each artwork, and its provenance (author, date, ownership, etc.). That same year, the museum moved into the Old Patent Office Building with the National Fine Arts Collection.
  • In 1968, Gilbert Stuart’s 2.4 5 m. (8  5 ft.) Lansdowne portrait (commissioned in April 1796  Senator William Bingham of Pennsylvania—one of the wealthiest men in America at the time) of George Washington was exhibited  the National Portrait Gallery, and it remained there on indefinite loan.
  • In 1969, the Old Patent Office Building was renovated the architectural firm of Faulkner, Fryer and Vanderpool.
  • In 1971, the NPG began the National Portrait Survey, an attempt to catalog and photograph all portraits in all formats held every public and private collection and museum in the country.
  • On July 4, 1973, “The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution, 1770–1800,” the first exhibit at the museum dedicated solely to African Americans, was opened the NPG.
  • In 1974, Philanthropist Paul Mellon donated 761 portraits  French-American engraver B.J.F. de Saint-Mémin to the museum.
  • In January 1976, Congress passed legislation allowing the NPG to collect portraits in media other than graphic arts, permitting the NPG to begin collecting photographs.
  • In October 1976, the NPG established a Department of Photographs.
  • 1977, the NPG had three curatorial divisions (Painting and sculpture, prints and drawings, and photography).
  • In September 1978, Facing the Light: Historic American Portrait Daguerreotypes,” the gallery’s first photography exhibit, was opened.
  • In February 1977, the museum acquired an 1880 self-portrait  Mary Cassatt, one of only two painted
  • In December 1977, the museum acquired a self-portrait  celebrated early American artist John Singleton Copley. The roundel (a circular canvas), one of only four self-portraits, was donated to the NPG the Cafritz Foundation.
  • In May 1978, Time magazine donated 850 original portraits which had graced its cover between 1928 and 1978.
  • In May 1979, a major exhibit of these Time magazine pieces debuted.
  • In April 1979, the Coolidge family of Boston donated five portraits of presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Adams, and James Madison Gilbert Stuart, known as the Gibbs-Coolidge set, to the NPG.
  • In December 1979, the Henry Cabot Lodge family in Massachusetts donated a bust of Alexander Hamilton  John Trumbull (which may have been sculpted from the portrait which was later used for the $10 bill) and a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Representative Fisher Ames to the museum.
  • In April 1980, Varina Webb Stewart and Joel A.H. Webb, Jefferson Davis‘ great-grandchildren, presented important portraits of Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina Howell Davis, to the NPG.
  • In 1980, the museum obtained, through purchase and loan, a number of works of graphic artist Howard Chandler Christy for exhibit. Works displayed ranged from his “Christy girl” recruiting posters to history-based works such as Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States.
  • On February 7, 1980, the Museum of Fine Arts and NPG agreed to jointly purchase the two famous, unfinished Gilbert Stuart portraits of George and Martha Washington  owned  the Boston Athenaeum, which loaned them to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1876. Under the agreement, the paintings would spend three years at the National Portrait Gallery (beginning in July 1980), and then three years in Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts.
  • In 1981, two major 19th-century photography collections were added the museum. They acquired the Frederick Hill Meserve Collection of 5,419 glass negatives produced  the studio of famed Civil War photograph Mathew Brady and his assistants and, using historically accurate chemicals, paper, and techniques, prints were made of the negatives and the prints placed on rotating display.  Later, they purchased, from the Meserve family, 5,400 Civil War-era glass negatives produced  photographer Alexander Gardner including the famous “cracked-plate” portrait of Abraham Lincoln (taken in February 1865), the last photographic portrait of Lincoln taken before his death in April 1865.
  • In 1982, the museum purchased, for $1 million, a Gilbert Stuart portrait of Thomas Jefferson, to a private collector. A portion of the purchase price came from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Jefferson’s historic plantation home of Monticello. The two parties agreed have the portrait spend time at both locations.
  • In 1984, museum purchased an Edgar Degas portrait of his friend, Mary Cassatt, for $1.3 million.
  • On December 31, 1984, a thief pried open a display case and stole four handwritten documents accompanying several portraits of Civil War generals. One of the documents was written and signed President Abraham Lincoln. The remaining three were written and signed  Civil War generals Ulysses S. Grant, George Meade, and George Armstrong Custer.
  • On February 8, 1985, all four documents were recovered when police arrested Norman James Chandler, a part-time mechanic’s assistant from Maryland, for the theft. Chandler quickly pleaded guilty. He was sentenced in April 1985 to two years in jail (with all but six months suspended) and two years of probation, and required to pay a $2,000 fine.
  • In 1985, the the NPG acquired their first nude work – a self-portrait painting Alice Neel painted when was 80 years old.
  • In 1987, noted photographer Irving Penn donated 120 platinum prints of fashion and celebrity portraits he produced over the past 50 years.
  • In 1990, the first daguerreotype (an early photographic process) of African American abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass (one of only four daguerreotypes of Douglass known to exist) was acquired.
  • In 1996, the NPG obtained, for $115,000, the earliest known daguerreotype portrait of abolitionist John Brown (created  African-American photographer Augustus Washington), whose 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry helped to spark the Civil War.
  • In January 2000, the NPG closed for a renovation of the Old Patent Office Building. Intended to take two years and cost $42 million, the renovation took seven years and cost $283 million.
  • In the fall of 2000, Neil Primrose, 7th Earl of Rosebery, offered to sell The Lansdowne portrait given as a gift to British Prime Minister William Petty FitzMaurice (the 2nd Earl of Shelburne, and later became the first Marquess of Lansdowne, hence the name of the portrait). Lansdowne died in 1805, and in 1890 the painting was purchased  the 5th Earl of Rosebery.
  • On March 13, 2001, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation donated $30 million to buy the Lansdowne portrait. The $30 million donation included $6 million to put the portrait on a national tour for three years (the NPG was closed for renovations until 2006), and $4 million to construct a new display area (named for media baron Donald W. Reynolds, who created the foundation) in the Old Patent Office Building to display it.
  • In 2006, the NPG hosted the first Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition (named after long time docent and volunteer Virginia Outwin Boochever),. It drew more than 4000 entries, from which 51 finalists were chosen.
  • After the 2008 presidential election, Obama supporter Tony Podesta and his wife, Heather, donated graphic artist Shepard Fairey‘s ubiquitous “Hope” poster of Barack Obama to the National Portrait Gallery.
  • In November 2010, the NPG hosted “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” a major new exhibit, from October 30, 2010, to February 13, 2011, of 105 pieces curated  David C. Ward and Jonathan Katz. The exhibit focused on depictions of homosexual love through history, and was the first exhibit hosted a museum of national stature to address the topic and was also the largest and most expensive exhibit in the NPG’s history. Included in the in the exhibit was a four-minute, edited version of “A Fire in My Belly,” a short silent film  artist David Wojnarowicz. Eleven seconds of the video depicted a crucifix covered in ants.
  • In 2012, the NPG sponsored “Poetic Likeness: Modern American Poets,” a new temporary exhibit which focused on images of great American poets.

The museum’s more notable art pieces include:

Among the museum’s more prominent collections are:

  • Alexander Gardner (photography)
  • Howard Chandler Christy (graphic arts)
  • Irving Penn (photography)
  • Mathew Brady (photography)
  • Time magazine covers (graphic arts)

The Great Hall

Although most of the interior has been altered for use as a museum, parts of the Old Patent Office interior are still visible.   From Robert Mills’ graceful double curved cantilevered stone staircases, one then enters the Model Hall on the building’s third floor and, turning right, leads one down the Great Hall and into more of the Patent Office’s galleries.

The painting Grant and His Generals” (Ole Peter Hansen Balling) above the graceful double curved cantilevered stone staircases

After a fire in 1877 destroyed the third floor of the building, the Great Hall, the reception area where President Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln greeted guests attending the second inaugural ball, was remodeled by Adolf Cluss and his partner, architect Paul Schulze. The resulting interior space, a dramatic riot of color, was originally called the Model Hall. It is accentuated with late-nineteenth-century architectural highlights and has a hand-laid encaustice tille floor, curving double staircase, soaring vaulted ceilings and lit by stained glass windows.

The hall celebrates great American scientists and four of them (Benjamin Franklin, Robert Fulton, Thomas Jefferson, and Eli Whitney) are represented on large medallions in the corners of the Hall.   It seats 300 (seated dinner) and  366 (Reception) people, respectively.

The enclosed, 28,000-sq. ft. Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard, one of the largest and most magnificent event spaces in Washington, DC., was opened to the public on November 18, 2007 and was named after Washington philanthropists and art collectors Robert and Arlene Kogod.  With an elegant glass canopy, the courtyard, designed  world-renowned architects at Foster + Partners in London, provides a distinctive, contemporary accent to the museums’ Greek Revival building.

Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard

The wavy glass-and-steel roof, appearing to float over the courtyard, lets in natural light but protects visitors from the elements. So that the weight of the roof does not affect the historic building, the double-glazed glass panels, set in a grid, are completely supported  eight anodized aluminum-clad columns located around the perimeter of the courtyard.

Michael Jackson (Andy Warhol, 1984)

The courtyard’s interior design, created  internationally acclaimed landscape designer Kathryn Gustafson of Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd., features four water scrims (each one-quarter inch deep and allowed to traverse the entire length of the courtyard); ficus and black olive trees; a variety of shrubs and ferns as well as plantings in white marble containers on a black granite floor.

Today, the Kogod Courtyard is a popular meeting place in DC. There is plenty of seating, free wifi, and a cafe with snacks for museum visitors open from 11:30 AM until 6:30 PM. It was named one of the “new seven wonders of the architecture world”  Condé Nast Traveler magazine.

National Portrait Gallery: Victor Bldg., 750 Ninth Street NW Suite 41, Washington, D.C. 20001.  Tel: (202) 633-8300. Open Wednesday–Sunday, 11:30 AM – 7 PM.

Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture – Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM), formerly called the Smithsonian Art Collection, National Gallery of Art (not to be confused with the current National Gallery of Art), National Collection of Fine Arts, and National Museum of American Art, is a part of the Smithsonian Institution.

The museum adopted its current name in October 2000.  Together with the Renwick Gallery, its branch museum, SAAM holds one of the world’s largest and most inclusive collections of art (from the Colonial period to the present) made in the United States.

Most exhibitions in the museum take place in the old Patent Office Building (shared with the National Portrait Gallery), the museum’s main building which contains expanded permanent-collection galleries and public spaces.  The craft-focused exhibitions are shown in the Renwick Gallery.

SAAM, describing itself as being “dedicated to collecting, understanding, and enjoying American art,” celebrates the extraordinary creativity of artists whose works reflect the American experience and global connections.

Through its national education program, the museum provides electronic resources to schools and the public, maintaining seven online research databases with more than 500,000 records, including the Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture that document more than 400,000 artworks in public and private collections worldwide.

Since 1951, the museum has maintained a traveling exhibition program and, as of 2013, more than 2.5 million visitors have seen the exhibitions.

Adoration of St. Joan of Arc – a fire-etched wood relief by J. William Fosdick in 1910 to appeal to wealthy industrialists who favored richly designed interiors and uplifting art. Fosdick tapped into the fantasy of a more spiritual past and, when it was exhibited, it was praised for craftsmanship that rivaled a Medieval masterwork.

The collection, first on display in the original Smithsonian Building (now nicknamed the “Castle”), was begun in 1829 and grew as the Smithsonian buildings grew, with the collection housed in one or more Smithsonian buildings on the National Mall.

“America Receiving the Nine Muses,” by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, was painted on an imposing, gilded Steinway piano and presented to Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in 1903. Painted on the piano’s lid, it merged the Classical theme of the Muses, with America as the new standard bearer of Western culture, and is decked out in symbols of Americana, from eagles to garlands to the coats-of-arms of the first thirteen states.

By the 1920s, space had become critical and, in order to display its collection of fine art, The Smithsonian renovated the Old Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C.’s downtown cultural district.  In 1968, in its current location, the Smithsonian American Art Museum was opened to the public.

Check out “Smithsonian Castle”

“Preamble,” a show of American ingenuity by Mike Wilkins created in 1959 to mark the Constitution’s bicentennial, is a 1,000-piece puzzle using a collection of vanity license plates, from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, to phonetically spell out the preamble to the US Constitution in abbreviated script.

Now the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s main building, it is now a National Historic Landmark. An example of Greek Revival architecture, it was designed by architects Robert Mills and Thomas U. Walter.

Yielding to the Ancestors while holding the Hands of (Lonnie Holly, 1992)

The building was restored during the 1990s and, during the 2000-2006 renovation, many of the building’s exceptional architectural features were restored including  the porticos modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, a curving double staircase, colonnades, vaulted galleries, large windows and skylights as long as a city block.

The Libyan Sibyl, by William Wetmore Story, (1861-68, marble), was inspired by events leading up to the Civil War. Described by Story as “my anti-slavery sermon in stone,” it depicts the Libyan Sibyl, the eldest of the legendary prophetesses of antiquity, as she foresees the terrible fate of the African people.

During the renovation, the Lunder Conservation Center, the Luce Foundation Center for American Art, the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium and the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard were also added to the building.

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, a complex work of art created by James Hampton over a period of 14 years (1950-64), is an array based on several religious visions that prompted him to prepare for Christ’s return to earth. The ​“third heaven” is based on scriptures citing it as the ​“heaven of heavens” — God’s realm.

The renovation of the building was completed on July 1, 2006 and, in 2008, the American Alliance of Museums awarded reaccreditation to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Falling Gladiator, by William Rimmer, was based on a sculpture, from ancient Greece and Rome, of a mortally wounded man. This subject echoed the suffering of the United States on the eve of the Civil War. When the artist began work in January of 1861, six states had seceded from the Union, and the attack on Fort Sumter was just three months away.

The museum has a broad variety of American art, with more than 7,000 artists represented, and covers all regions and art movements found in the United States.

Washinton Resigning his Commission (Ferdinand Pettricj, c. 1841)

SAAM contains the world’s largest collection of New Deal art; a collection of contemporary craft, American impressionist paintings, and masterpieces from the Gilded Age; photography, modern folk art, works by African American and Latino artists, images of western expansion, and realist art from the first half of the twentieth century.

Among the Sierra Nevada, California (Albert Bierstadt, 1868, oil on canvas)

Among the significant artists represented in its collection are Nam June Paik, Jenny Holzer, David Hockney, Georgia O’Keeffe, John Singer Sargent, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Albert Bierstadt, Frances Farrand Dodge, Edmonia Lewis, Thomas Moran, James Gill, Edward Hopper, John William “Uncle Jack” Dey, Karen LaMonte and Winslow Homer.

An Eclogue (Kenyon Cox, 1890, oil on canvas)

The museum has two innovative public spaces, both opened in July 2000. The 20,400 sq. ft. Luce Foundation Center, on the third and fourth floors of American Art Museum, is the fourth center to bear the Luce Family name and the first visible art storage  study center Washington, D.C..

Luce Foundation Center

It allows visitors and patrons to browse more than 3,300 works of various niche art, usually not part of a main exhibition or gala special, in 64 secure glass cases which quadruples the number of artworks from the permanent collection on public view.

 

It features paintings densely hung on screens; sculptures; crafts and objects by folk and self-taught artists arranged on shelves. Large-scale sculptures are installed on the first floor. The center has John Gellatly’s European collection of decorative arts.

The Lunder Conservation Center is the first art conservation facility to allow the public permanent behind-the-scenes views of the preservation work of museums. Through floor-to-ceiling glass walls, conservation staff is visible to the public, allowing visitors to see, firsthand, all the techniques which conservators use to examine, treat, and preserve artworks.

The center has five conservation laboratories and studios equipped to treat paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, sculptures, folk art objects, contemporary crafts, decorative arts, and frames, using various specialized and esoteric tools, such as hygrothermographs, to maintain optimal temperature and humidity to preserve works of art.

The Center Staff from both the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery work in the Lunder Center.

The Vine (Harriett Whitney Frishmuth, 1921-23)

Smithsonian American Art Museum: 8th & F Streets NW, Washington, D.C.. Coordinates: 38°53′52″N 77°01′24″W.

Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, actually a collection of institutions housed in the historic, gloriously renovated Old Patent Office Building, served as one of the earliest United States Patent Office buildings.  Here, Neo-Classicism meets 21st-century exuberance.

The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture

Covering an entire city block defined by F and G Streets and 7th and 9th Streets NW, just south of  Chinatown in downtown Washington, it now houses two Smithsonian Institution museums – the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The building’s Greek Rival-stye facade

It also houses the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery of the Archives of American Art; an art conservation facility (Lunder Conservation Center); an enclosed, 28,000-sq. ft. courtyard (Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard); a 20,400 sq. ft. open storage facility (Luce Foundation Center); a new 356-seat underground auditorium (Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium) and other operations within the Old Patent Office complex. By the end of 2007, more than 786,000 people had visited the two museums and, 10 years later, during the time of my visit, 1.3 million people have visited the place.

Check out “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art – National Portrait Gallery” and Portraiture and “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture – Smithsonian American Art Museum”

Before it became what it is today, through the Civil War and into the post-war period, the building was once home to many early government departments. It was used as a hospital, and The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the General Land Office, and the Bureau of Pensions jointly occupied the building with the Patent Office.

National Portrait Gallery

Both Clara Barton and American poet Walt Whitman worked as nurses there during the American Civil War. From 1854 to 1857, Barton worked in the building as a clerk to the Patent Commissioner, the first woman federal employee to receive equal pay. From January 24 to June 30, 1865, Waltman, who frequented “that noblest of Washington buildings” and read to wounded men, worked in Bureau of Indian Affairs before being fired for having a copy of Leaves of Grass in his desk.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Here is the historical timeline of the building:

  • In 1836, construction of the building was started.
  • In 1851, architect Robert Mills was summarily dismissed as Congressional committees questioned his competence and his insistence on design changes that inserted unnecessary supporting columns and tie-rods. Construction continued under the direction of Thomas U. Walter, one of Mills’ harshest critics
  • During the Civil War, the building was turned into military barracks, hospital, and morgue. Wounded soldiers lay on cots in second-floor galleries, among glass cases holding models of inventions that had been submitted with patent applications.
  • In 1865, the building was completed
  • In March 1965, it was chosen as the venue for Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball.
  • In 1877, the building’s west wing suffered a fire, destroying some 87,000 patent models
  • From 1877–1885, it was restored by Adolf Cluss in the style he termed “modern Renaissance.”
  • In 1887, the Bureau of Pension moved to the new  Pension Bureau Building.
  • In 1898, the General Land Office and the Bureau of Indian Affairs vacated the building.
  • In 1932 the United States Civil Service Commission and the Government Accounting Office occupied the building after the Patent Office vacated it.
  • In 1942, the Government Accounting Office vacated the structure after its new headquarters nearby was complete.
  • In 1952, legislation to tear down the building and sell the land so a private parking garage could be built on the centrally located site was introduced in Congress in the waning days of the 82nd United States Congress but did not pass.
  • On March 21, 1958, Congress unanimously passed legislation authorizing the transfer of the building to the Smithsonian for a national art museum. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the legislation a few days later. Congress appropriated $33.5 million for the renovation.
  • In 1962, Congress passed legislation establishing the National Portrait Gallery
  • In November 1963, the Civil Service Commission moved out of the structure.
  • Starting in 1964, the Faulkner, Kingsbury & Stenhouse firm of architects supervised the renovation of the interior as museum space.
  • In November 1964, preparations for the buildings renovation began
  • On January 12, 1965, the building was designated as a S. National Historic Landmark.
  • By May 1965, the Grunley, Walsh Construction Co. began demolition of non-historic interior structures.
  • On October 15, 1966, it was added to S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP reference No. 66000902).
  • By April 1968, the $6 million renovation was complete
  • In January 1968, the National Museum of American Art (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) and the National Portrait Gallery opened. The north wing housed the art museum and the south wing housed the portrait gallery. Office space and a cafe occupied the east wing. The center courtyard had outdoor eating space for the cafe and several large trees.
  • In 1970, the renovation won the American Institute of Architects National Honor Award.
  • In 1995, the Smithsonian revealed that the building was in serious disrepair. The roof leaked, netting had to be placed in some galleries to catch falling ceiling plaster, window frames were rotting, the floor tiles in the Great Hall were crumbling, and the exterior facade was so degraded it was shedding fist-sized pieces of rock.
  • In January 1997, the Smithsonian announced that the building would close in January 2000 for a two-year, $42 million renovation (the estimated cost of the renovation then grew, initially in 2000 to $110-120 million). Hartman-Cox Architects was hired to oversee the conservation and repair. To be restored were the porticos modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, a curving double staircase, colonnades, vaulted galleries, large windows, and skylights as long as a city block.
  • Just three years later, as the renovation was about to begin, the cost of repairs had risen to $110 million to $120 million.
  • Prior to the building’s closure in January 2000, a decision was reached to allot about one-third of the building’s total space to the National Portrait Gallery while simultaneously eliminating the informal north–south division between the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Smithsonian resolved the dispute practically – Art that best fit an exhibition space got it. Modern art, which often tends toward large canvases, was installed on the high-ceilinged third floor.
  • By March 2001, as the cost of the renovation rose to $180 million, Nan Tucker McEvoy (a California newspaper heiress and arts patron) donated $10 million for the renovation.
  • Later in 2001, the Henry Luce Foundation gave another $10 million.
  • In June 2001, reconstruction costs were estimated at $214 million.
  • In July 2001, the reopening was pushed back even further to July 2006.
  • In 2003, the government increased its contribution to $166 million and more than $40 million in private funds had been raised.
  • In August 2003, Congress approved a major change to the renovation design – adding a glass roof to the open courtyard in the center of the Old Patent Office Building.
  • In March 2004, the Smithsonian announced that architect Norman Foster of Foster and Partners would design the glass canopy.
  • In early November 2004, the National Capital Planning Commission(NCPC), which has statutory authority to approve all buildings and renovations in the D.C. metropolitan area, approved the preliminary design for the glass canopy.  That same month, real estate development executive Robert Kogod and his wife, Arlene (heiress to Charles E. Smith Construction fortune) donated $25 million to complete the canopy. By then, costs had risen to $298 million. $60 million in private funds still needed to be raised.
  • In January 2005, the United States Commission of Fine Arts, an advisory commission on design, approved the canopy.
  • In April 2005, the Smithsonian said that the canopy would not be ready by the time the museum reopened in July 2006, and would be installed in 2007.
  • On June 2, 2005, the the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) reversed its preliminary approval of the canopy
  • On August 4, 2005, the Smithsonian brought five alternatives to the NCPC.
  • On September 8, 2005, the NCPC reversed itself yet again, and approved one of the revised designs. The delay cost the Smithsonian $10 million.
  • In October 2005, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation made a $45 million donation to the NPG to finish both the building renovation and the canopy. The Smithsonian agreed to call the two museums, the conservation center, courtyard, storage facility, and other operations within the Old Patent Office complex the “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture” in appreciation for the gift.
  • On July 1, 2006, after undergoing extensive renovations, the building and the Smithsonian American Art Museum was reopened. The total cost of the building’s renovation was $283 million.
  • In just two months, attendance at the renovated building rose significantly to 214,495.
  • On October 7, 1968, the National Portrait Gallery opened to the public.
  • In September 2007, video security cameras were hastily installed to stop vandalism as some patrons spit on art they did not like, while others kissed or touched some paintings.

Luce Foundation Center

The massive building, designed in the Greek Revival style by architect Robert Mills and Thomas U. Walter, took 31 years to complete. Mills spanned the interior spaces with masonry vaulting without the use of wooden beams. Skylights and interior light courts filled the spaces with daylight. It has a sandstone and marble façade, and a central portico modeled after the the Parthenon of Athens, a departure in Washington where previously ambitious public buildings had been based on Roman and Renaissance precedents.

The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture: 8th and F St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001.  Tel: 202.633.1000 (recorded information/live voice).  E-mail:  info@si.edu.  Website:   www.si.edu/visit.  Coordinates: 38.89778°N 77.022936°W

Enid A. Haupt Garden (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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Parterre of the Enid A. Haupt Garden

The 1.7-hectare (4.2 acre) Enid A. Haupt Garden, a public garden in the Smithsonian complex, adjacent to the Smithsonian Castle (formally the Smithsonian Institution Building) on the National Mall, replaced an existing Victorian Garden which had been built to celebrate the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976.

Check out “Smithsonian Castle”

Designed to be a modern representation of American Victorian gardens as they appeared in the mid to late 19th century, it was opened on May 21, 1987 as part of the redesigned Castle quadrangle and was named after Enid A. Haupt who provided the $3 million endowment which financed its construction and maintenance.

More broadly, the quadrangle redesign project and the Smithsonian Gardens  were part of the vision of S. Dillon Ripley, the eighth Secretary of the Smithsonian, who felt that the museum experience should extend beyond the museums’ buildings into the outdoor spaces.

The gardens landscape design features the collaborative efforts of architect Jean Paul Carlhian (principal in the Boston firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott), Lester Collins (Sasaki Associates Inc. of Watertown, Massachusetts) and James R. Buckler (founding director of the Smithsonian’s Office of Horticulture).

The symmetrically patterned and carefully manicured parterre (French for “on the ground”), behind the Smithsonian Castle in the south yard, is the central feature of the garden.  Measuring 44 m. (144 ft.) long by 20 m. (66 ft.) wide, it is flanked by the Moongate Garden to the west and the Fountain Garden to the east.

Monkey Puzzle Tree (Araucana araucaria)

The formal parterre, an ornamental garden type originating in 16th century Renaissance Italy and typically associated with the elaborate designs of the Victorian era, predates the creation of the Enid A. Haupt Garden and was inspired by a design from the 1876 Centennial Exposition Horticultural Hall in Philadelphia.  When the Enid A. Haupt Garden was created, this parterre was saved and incorporated into the new formal garden. It complements the ornate architecture of the adjacent Smithsonian Castle.

Bismarck Palm (Bismarckia nobilis)

With a changing palette of colors, shapes and textures, the layers of colorful, low-growing plants, meticulously laid out in symmetrical patterns,  make up the design of the parterre that are changed every six months, typically in September and May. They fill out the series of diamonds, fleurs-de-lis, and scallops or swags. Within a circle in the northeast portion of the parterre is the Andrew Jackson Downing Urn.

Horizontal sundial

Other notable design features include saucer and tulip magnolias, brick walkways, and historical cast-iron garden furnishings from the Smithsonian Gardens‘ Garden Furniture Collection.  A 12 square, horizontal sundial, sitting just outside the south door of the Smithsonian Castle, was built in 1994 by David Todd (a clock expert at the National Museum of American History) and David Shayt.  Calibrated for the longitude and latitude of its location, it is subdivided into 15 minute increments and has a compass rose. Its dial sits atop a rectangular granitepedestal.

Check out “National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center“

Moongate Garden

The Moongate Garden, designed by architect Jean Paul Carlhian, was inspired by the gardens and architecture of the Temple of Heaven (Beijing, China) which was designed using a geometrical, axial layout, centered on the cardinal points of the compass. It was meant to take its visitors to a relaxing place surrounded by water where they may absorb the cool air emanating from the water.

Check out “The Temple of Heaven“

Granite and water (the dominant feature in the garden) are used abundantly in this garden. In Chinese culture, rocks (thought to symbolize the body of the earth) and water (symbolizing the spirit of earth) symbolizes the basic constituents of nature. Water gives off shimmering light effects in the sunlight and reflects the glow of the moon at night while its reflection gives the garden the appearance of being larger than it actually is.

Its overall circular pool design was meant to remind us of the windows in the National Museum of African Art (a technique that Carlhian also applied to the Fountain Garden). To align important features of the Arts and Industries Building with the Freer Gallery of Art, Carlhian utilized his so-called “pinwheel treatment,” with the path leading into the Moongate Garden entering at the southwest corner and exiting at the northeast corner.

The Moongate Garden has two 9-ft. high pink granite moon gates on either side of a pool that is paved with half-round pieces of granite, strategically placed to frame important features of the surrounding landscape. Two more gates, laid flat, provide seating in opposite corners.

Renwick Gate

The Fountain Garden, beside the entrance to the National Museum of African Art, was also designed by Jean Paul Carlhian and was modeled after the Court of the Lions at Alhambra, a 13th-century Moorish palace and fortress in  Granada,  Andalusia, Spain.

As with most Islamic gardens, the Fountain Garden is geometrically symmetrical and suggests a walled paradise, an important concept in early Persian and Islamic garden design. It includes a central fountain and water channels (those on top of the low walls around the central fountain were designed to represent the four rivers of paradise described in the Koran). The bubbling center jet of the central fountain symbolizes paradise/eternity itself. A chadar (“veil”) of cascading water, at the garden’s north end, streams down a tile wall.

Enid A. Haupt Garden: 1037-1057 Independence Avenue SW and L’Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, D.C.  Tel: 202.633.2220.  E-mail: gardens@si.edu.  Open daily, 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM.  Admission is free.  Coordinates: 38°53′17″N 77°01′34″W.

National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center (Washington D.C., USA)

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National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center

The National Museum of American History (NMAH): Kenneth E. Behring Center, a museum that is part of the Smithsonian Institution, collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific and military history. The first of the National Mall’s post-war Brutalist behemoths. It consists of three H-shaped floors with a central axis leading to exhibition space on either side.

The south facade of the museum

Opened in 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology, it was one of the last structures designed by the renowned architectural firm McKim Mead & White, the firm that initiated the Classical Revival on the Mall with its 1910 Beaux Arts National Museum of Natural History. In 1980, the museum was renamed the National Museum of American History to represent its mission of the collection, care, study, and interpretation of objects that reflect the experience of the American people.

1 West

From September 5, 2006 to November 21, 2008, the museum was closed when it underwent an US$85 million renovation.   Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, led by Gary Haney, provided the architecture and interior design services for the renovation.

Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology

Major changes made include a new, five-storey, skylit atriums surrounded by displays of artifacts that showcase the breadth of the museum’s collection; a new, grand staircase that links the museum’s first and second floors; a new welcome center; the addition of six landmark objects to orient visitors; new galleries such as the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Hall of Invention; and an environmentally controlled chamber to protect the original Star-Spangled Banner.

Archive Center

In 2012, the museum began a US$37 million renovation of the west wing; adding new exhibition spaces, public plazas, an education center, panoramic windows overlooking the National Mall on all three floors and new interactive features to the exhibits. On July 1, 2015, the first floor of the west wing reopened and, in 2016 and 2017 respectively,  the second and third floors of the west wing were reopened.

Linda and Pete Clausen Hall of Democracy

Visitors can enter the vast NMAH building either from the on-grade National Mall entrance or from the below-grade Constitution Avenue entrance (a walled terrace bridges the differing heights), both minuscule apertures that are not fitting entrances that furnish a sense of grandeur or importance to a museum built to tell America’s story.  At its National Mall entrance is Infinity, a 7.3 m. (24-ft.) tall abstract sculpture (one of the first abstract sculptures displayed at a major public building in Washington D.C.) dedicated in 1967. Designed by José de Rivera and created by Roy Gussow, the sculpture is a 4.9 m. (16-ft.) long, polished stainless steel ribbon on top of a granite tower.

Alexander Calder’s steel sculpture Gwenfritz.  In the background is the National Museum of African American History and Culture

We entered the museum via the latter. Here, on the west side, is Alexander Calder‘s sculpture, Gwenfritz, a 35-ton steel abstract stabile (named after its socialite patron Gwendolyn Cafritz) installed in a fountain and dedicated to the museum on June 2, 1969. The long entrance hall, like many other areas of the building, is poorly illuminated and dispiriting. During our visit, the west side of the second floor was undergoing refurbishment through the end of 2017, and the west side of third floor until 2018.

Artifact walls line the first and second floor center core, with dimly lit 84 m. (275 ft.) of glass-fronted cases, each crammed with hundreds of random objects, big and small, are organized around themes that include arts; popular culture; business, work and economy; home and family; community; land and natural resources; peopling America; politics and reform; science; medicine; technology; and the United States’ role in the world.

A landmark object highlights the theme of each wing of the museum’s three exhibition floors. These include the John Bull locomotive, the Greensboro, Woolworth’s North Carolina lunch counter (where four legends from North Carolina A&T State University staged a sit-in in 1961 to protest segregation), a one of a kind draft wheel and, from pre-existing exhibits, the 1865 Vassar Telescope, a Red Cross ambulance and a car from Disneyland‘s Dumbo Flying Elephant ride.

John Bull Locomotive of 1831

The first floor contains a café, the main museum store, the Constitution Avenue lobby (1 Center) as well as a space for temporary exhibits. 1 East, the first floor’s East Wing, houses the General Motors Hall of Transportation which has series of two transportation-related exhibits that are roughly related – “America on the Move” (opened November 22, 2003) and its companion exhibition, “On the Water: Stories from Maritime America” (opened on May 20, 2009).  One of the best parts of the museum, the John Bull locomotive is the signature artifact.

America on the Move: On the Interstate – 1967 Pontiac Grand Prix convertible and 1986 Dodge Caravan

“America on the Move,” designed by the Museum Design Associates of Cambridge, Mass.; AMAZE Design of Boston; and the Smith Group, of Washington, D.C., encompasses nearly 26,000 sq. ft. on the first floor of the museum, and includes 340 objects and 19 historic settings in chronological order.

Roadside Communities: Tourist cabin at Ring’s Rest (Muirkirk, Maryland).  On the left is a 1934 Ford Deluxe Roadster

City and Suburb: Fageol Twin Coach “Old Look” Liquefied-Propane Gas-Powered Bus, 1950 (2)

It takes visitors on a fascinating journey, from the coming of the railroad to a California town in 1876 to the role of the streetcar and the automobile in creating suburbs to the global economy of Los Angeles in 1999, as they travel back in time and experience transportation, through multimedia technology and environment, as it changed America, seeing historic artifacts as they once were, a vital part of the nation’s transportation system and of the business, social, and cultural history of the country.

1926 Ford Model T Roadster on its side on a Turn Auto

A Streetcar City: Electric streetcar, 1898

The Smithsonian’s popular and voluminous collection of the many and varied forms of rare, fascinating, and important transportation is showcased in historic settings brought to life by large mural backdrops, 73 cast figures and soundscapes.

On the School Bus: 36-passenger Dodge school bus, 1936

The People’s Highway: Route 66

It  includes the horse-drawn cart, early automobiles, the electric car, buses, a Chicago Transit Authority “L” car,  a massive 199-ton, 92-foot-long “1401” Southern Railway locomotive and a gigantic 1930’s steam engine plus a 40-foot stretch of the famed Route 66.

On the Water:  Stories from Maritime America

The brilliantly conceived and beautifully executed “On the Water: Stories from Maritime America,” a pleasing and instructive museum experience on the left side of the entrance of General Motors Hall of Transportation, leads the visitor through 7 topical/chronological sections that span American maritime history from 1450 to the present.

Ocean Crossings

It explores the many ways in which Americans, from Colonial times to the present, have pursued commerce at sea and on America’s extensive coastal and inland waterways through impressive artifacts, flawless audiovisual aids, instructive texts, and a powerful aesthetic.

Web of Connections

The 8,500 sq. ft. exhibit seamlessly carries the visitor through topics as diverse as commercial fishing, passenger liners, the slave trade, container ships, and the contributions of the merchant marine to victory in World War II.

Tobacco ship Brilliant

On display are rigged ship models (including a large model of the tobacco ship Brilliant) representing the web of vessels that transported sugar, tobacco and slaves; a wooden snuff box carved into the shape of a potbellied man (with one eye bulging, the other missing) that connects vast trade systems to everyday consumer habits; a real-life steam engine room; a Fresnel lighthouse lens that lit waters 17 miles afar; a tucked-away safety vest invention that appears to be a twin mattress folded, diaper-like, under the wearer’s torso; and the first sliver of gold found at Sutter’s Mill that precipitated the California Gold Rush.

Lighting a Revolution

The “Lighting a Revolution” exhibition, opened at 1 East to commemorate the centennial of Thomas Edison’s light bulb, considers experiments with electricity before Edison’s, the “Invention Factory” at Menlo Park, how Edison created a market for his product, and the impact of electricity in factories, on city streets, and in the home.

The exhibition features a bulb from a public demonstration of Edison’s light in Menlo Park during Christmas week, 1879; and early electrical appliances for the home, some of which caught on, such as electric fans, and some which did not, namely the electric marshmallow toaster.

Lemelson Hall of Invention and Innovation

The large but sparsely furnished “Lemelson Hall of Invention and Innovation,” opened July 1, 2015, features “Places of Invention,” Draper Spark!Lab and “Inventive Minds.”  “Places of Invention” is centered on the theme of innovation, where the museum is transforming how its audiences will experience history.

Inventive Minds

“Inventive Minds,” a small gallery, introduces visitors to the work of the Lemelson Center, particularly its efforts to document diverse American inventors.  Draper Spark!Lab, a hands-on exhibit, has the Vassar Telescope as its signature artifact.

Places of Invention

The exhibition features 37 objects illustrating the inventions at the heart of each case study. Highlighted objects include a Technicolor camera used to film The Wizard of Oz; a turntable used by Grandmaster Flash; the prototype of the first computer mouse invented by Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute (on loan from SRI International); 1886 Columbia Light Roadster men’s high-wheel bicycle; an example of the Medtronic 5800 Model External Pacemaker invented by Earl Bakken; and several prototypes representing cutting-edge clean energy inventions coming out of Fort Collins.

In addition, there are five interactive stations set up on tables where visitors can participate in fun, hands-on learning experiences such as designing their own eight-bit icon (Silicon Valley section) or learning and practicing their DJ “scratching” skills (The Bronx section). However, objects such as a jukebox, a Howdy Doody puppet and a pink Patsy Cline costume do not necessarily bring the word “invention” to mind.

Vault door marking the entrance to the Gallery of Numismatics

The Gallery of Numismatics, opened July 1, 2015 at 1 West, delves into the world-class National Numismatic Collection (NNC), one of the Smithsonian’s oldest and most treasured collections (with more than 1.6 million objects), to uncover stories related to the origins, innovations, messages, artistry and allure of money.

Collecting Money and the World’s Gold

Entered via a vault door, it showcases more than 400 objects from the NNC, some of which are among the rarest in the world. The exhibition, thematically organized into five sections, allows visitors to learn about the origins of money, new monetary technologies, the political and cultural messages money conveys, numismatic art and design, and the practice of collecting money.

Origins – 168 pound stone ring from Yap Island

Featured American objects includes a storied 1933 Double Eagle, a personal check signed by Pres. James Madison in 1813, a 1934 US$100,000 note and a Depression-era $1 clam shell. International artifacts include a 168-pound stone ring used to make payments on Island of Yap, a 465 B.C.; a decadrachma coin from Syracuse, Sicily; a 14th-century Ming Note from China and a 1762 8 Real Coin from Mexico (also known as a Spanish piece of eight).  The gallery will also showcase the famous Josiah K. Lilly Jr. collection of gold coins and the Grand Duke Georgii Mikhailovich collection of Russian coins (thought to be the finest outside of Russia).

Stories on Money

“Stories on Money,” a numismatic exhibition housed in a small room, comprehensibly traces the historical and aesthetic evolution of US banknotes and coinage through a skillfully culled collection.

Female Figures on Money

“Food: Transforming the American Table, 1950-2000,” a 3,800 sq. ft. exhibition opened last November 20, 2012 in 1 East, is a creative blend of objects, graphics, video and an interactive, communal table that highlights how American eating and shopping habits have changed during those five decades.

Julia Child’s Home Kitchen

Julia Child‘s Home Kitchen, the opening story of the museum’s first major exhibition on food history, contains the tools, appliances, equipment, and furnishings arranged exactly as they were when Julia donated it to the museum. New and Improved!” explores the innovations behind some of the major changes in food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption since the 1950s.

Wine at the Table: Innovations at the Vineyard and the Winery

At Wine for the Table, discover how new technologies, innovators, and changing attitudes led to the tremendous growth and expansion of wine and winemaking, an important story in postwar America, in all 50 states by 2000.

The large, communal table in the center of the exhibition

At Open Table, the public is invited take a seat at a large, communal table, in the center of the exhibition, and engage in conversation about a wide range of food-related issues and topics, sharing their own thoughts and experiences about food and change in America.

American Enterprise

The 8,000 sq. ft. American Enterprise, opened last July 1, 2015 at 1 West, focuses on the role of business and innovation from the mid-1700s to the present.  It chronicles the tumultuous interaction of capitalism and democracy that resulted in the continual remaking of American business—and American life.

Westinghouse Compound Engine

Visitors are immersed in the dramatic arc of labor, power, wealth, success, and failure in America. It traces the development of the United States from a small dependent agricultural nation to one of the world’s largest economies through the following 4 chronological eras: the Merchant Era (1770s – 1850s), the Corporate Era (1860s – 1930s), Consumer Era (1940s – 1970s), and the Global Era (1980s – 2010s). On display are John Deere’s plow, Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, Barbara McClintock’s microscope, Stanley Cohen’s recombinant DNA research notebook, Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephones, Alfred Bloomingdale’s personal credit cards, a New York Stock Exchange booth from 1929, an early Monopoly board game and one of Michael Dell’s early computers.

The second floor of the museum, whose lobby leads out to Madison Drive and the National Mall, houses the museum’s new welcome center and a store. 2 West, the west wing of the second floor, has the George Washington statue (created in 1840 for the centennial of Washington’s birthday) as its signature artifact. The Wallace H. Coulter Unity Square, at 2 West, is the floor’s new program space dedicated to immersive activities and performances that richly illustrate America’s participatory democracy. At the center of Unity Square, is the Greensboro lunch counter, a small section of the original F.W. Woolworth’s Lunch Counter from Greensboro, N.C. 2 East, at the east wing of the second floor, has exhibitions that consider American ideals.

The Star Spangled Banner Exhibit

The original, newly conserved Star Spangled Banner Flag, in 2 East, the center of the second floor, is displayed in a dimly lit room, at the heart of the museum, with a climate-controlled environment to help preserve its color and fabric..  During the War of 1812, it was the same flag seen by Francis Scott Key come morning, after a long nighttime battle, above Fort McHenry, outside Baltimore, Maryland, signifying that the U.S. defenses had held.

Check out “Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine – Birthplace of the Star-Spangled Banner“

This marked the penultimate major battle in the war, which ended a few weeks later. It inspired him to write the poem which is now the U.S. national anthem. In the days and years after the battle, the flag was flown in all kinds of weather, and parts were snipped off as souvenirs. Just across the room from the flag is an interactive display by Potion Design featuring a full-size, digital reproduction of the flag that allows patrons to learn more about it by touching different areas on the flag.

LEGO Statue of Liberty

The 9 ft. tall Statue of Liberty, at 2 West, is made of sand green LEGO bricks and weighing 125 pounds without its steel support.

George Washington Statue (Horatio Greenough, 1841)

The 12-ton marble George Washington Statue, atop a granite pedestal and base, was created in 1841 (on the occasion of the centennial of the first president’s birthday) by Horatio Greenough.  Envisioned to be a symbolic representation of Washington as a great exemplar of liberty, it depicts Washington wearing a chest-baring toga.

Within These Walls Exhibit

The 4,200 sq. ft. Within These Walls Exhibit, opened last May 16 2017 in 2 West, tells the stories of five families who lived in Ipswich, Massachusetts, about 30 miles north of Boston, over the years and made history in their kitchens and parlors, through everyday choices and personal acts of courage and sacrifice. Through their lives, the exhibition explores some of the important ways ordinary people have been part of the great changes and events in American history.

The partially reconstructed Georgian-style, two-and-a-half-story timber-framed house, built around 1700

At the center of the gallery is the largest artifact in the museum, a partially reconstructed Georgian-style, two-and-a-half-story timber-framed house, built around 1700, that stood for 200 years at 16 Elm Street and was saved from demolition by an Ipswich citizen and then brought to the Smithsonian Institution.

The exhibition also features an 18th-century tea table; an anti-slavery almanac and the Wedgwood Anti-Slavery medallion; a Philco radio from the 1930s; and World War II-era cookbooks, posters, rationing coupons and a proximity fuse used to detonate bombs and artillery shells.

The American Presidency – A Glorious Burden

3 Center, the center of the third floor, presents The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden, which explores the personal and public lives, ceremonial and executive actions of the 43 men who have held that office and had a huge impact on the course of history in the past 200 years. Composed of 11 thematic sections, the exhibition addresses such topics as inaugural celebrations, presidential roles, life at the White House, limits of presidential power, assassinations and mourning, the influence of the media, and life after the presidency.

Hat worn by Lincoln to Ford’s Theater on the night of his assasination

The role of the presidency in American culture is brought to life by more than 900 objects, including national treasures from the Smithsonian’s vast presidential collections.

The horse-drawn carriage that carried Ulysses S. Grant in his second inaugural parade in 1873

They include Abraham Lincoln‘s life mask; a Lewis and Clark Expedition compass; the horse-drawn carriage that carried Ulysses S. Grant in his second inaugural parade in 1873; a radio microphone used by Franklin D. Roosevelt to give his fireside chats during World War II; an early teddy bear (named after Theodore Roosevelt) and Bill Clinton‘s saxophone.

The First Ladies of America

The First Ladies of America, a popular permanent exhibit also at 3 center, encourages visitors to consider the contributions and changing role played by the first lady and American women over the past 200 years by exploring the unofficial but important position of First Lady and the ways that different women have shaped the role to make their own contributions to the presidential administrations and the nation.

White House China Collection

The exhibition features, as a mark of changing times, more than two dozen gowns from the Smithsonian’s almost 100-year old First Ladies Collection.  It includes those worn by Frances Cleveland, Lou Hoover, Jacqueline Kennedy, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama.  A section, entitled “Changing Times, Changing First Ladies,” highlights the roles played by Dolly Madison, Mary Lincoln, Edith Roosevelt, and Lady Bird Johnson and their contributions to their husband’s administrations.

Martha Washington’s Silk Gown, 1780s

National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center: 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW,  National Mall,  Washington, D.C. Admission is free. Open daily (except December 25), 10 AM – 5:30 PM.