Masterpieces of American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection, 1700–1830

The “Masterpieces of American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection, 1700–1830” is a permanent installation celebrating a generous promised gift to the National Gallery of Art (NGA). One of the largest and most refined assemblages of early American furniture and decorative arts in private hands, it was acquired, over the course of four decades, by George M. and Linda H. Kaufman of Norfolk, Virginia.  In October 2010, it was promised to the National Gallery of Art.

Philadelphia desk and bookcase, ca. 1755-65, with two heavily carved side chairs with hairy ball and claw feet. These high-style chairs were commissioned by John and Elizabeth Cadwalader, ca. 1770, for their home in Philadelphia.

In 1986, the NGA devoted ten rooms (more than 4,000 sq. ft., previously used for temporary exhibitions such as The Treasures of Tutankhamun and American Light: The Luminist Movement, 1850–1875) to an extensive exhibition based exclusively on the Stellar Collection of Early American Furniture, Dutch and American Paintings, and some 100,000 works on paper acquired, with great connoisseurship together, by the Kaufmans.

Impressive specimen-top center table, ca. 1827–1830; whose massive frame was crafted by Philadelphia furniture maker Anthony Quervelle (1789–1856).

The installation will, in addition, also include paintings by celebrated American artists in the Gallery’s collection such as Gilbert Stuart. The new installation, highlighting nearly 100 examples of early American furniture and decorative arts from this distinguished collection, includes some 40 French floral watercolors by Pierre Joseph Redouté plus American, Chinese, and French porcelains. In the emergent American Republic, furniture was an expression of personal and national identity and stylistic influences from Europe were tempered by a vigorous independence and sense of pragmatic functionalism.

The Kaufman gift, dramatically complementing the NGA’s fine holdings of European decorative arts (donated by the Widener family) and major Dutch paintings with equally important American works of art, offers visitors to the nation’s capital an unprecedented opportunity to view some of the finest furniture made by colonial and post-revolutionary American artisans.

The Kaufman Collection of American furniture includes more than 200 objects, many of which were featured in the 1986–1987 “American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection” Gallery exhibition and catalog. The addition of the Kaufman Collection significantly enhanced the NPG’s decorative arts holdings which, although the NGA doesn’t actively collect decorative arts, consists of some 515 objects, including European furniture; tapestries; enamels; ceramics from the 15th and 16th centuries; Medieval treasury objects; a fine selection of 18th-century French furniture; and a large group of Chinese porcelains ( primarily from the Qing Dynasty of the 17th to 19th centuries).

Furniture and decorative arts from the collection have been on loan or appeared in exhibitions at numerous museums throughout the United States such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts; the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in Winterthur, Delaware; the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia; and the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C..  A smaller selection of other decorative arts, including looking glasses, mirrors and clocks, were all in the 1986–1987 exhibition.

Among the items on display are:

• A Boston dressing table with exotic japanned designs (1700–1730)
• A chest-on-chest (1765–1790) with four sculptural carved shells and a history of ownership by Providence merchant John Brown
• A monumental Philadelphia desk-and-bookcase (c. 1765) considered by many scholars to be one of the greatest examples of American case furniture
• An ornately inlaid Federal sideboard (1793–1795) made by Williams and Deming, New York, for Oliver Wolcott, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
• A tea table (1755–1765) with claw and ball feet and pierced talons attributed to John Townsend
• A singular inlaid Pembroke table (1780–1800) that descended in the Pringle family of Charleston.
• Numerous examples of seating furniture from distinguished sets, including two from the famous suite commissioned by Philadelphia merchant John Cadwalader and his wife Elizabeth Lloyd.
• A pair of painted and gilded porcelain “Old Paris” vases (c. 1820) with portraits of Presidents  George Washington and John Adams
• Four rare pieces of Bonnin and Morris porcelain (1770–1772), America’s first porcelain manufactory, made in Philadelphia
• An Amelung glass tumbler with the American eagle, made for the inauguration of President George Washington in 1789.
• Gloucester Sunset (1880), one the most dramatic of a series of watercolors done by the Winslow Homer of sailboats on Gloucester Harbor and  one of the artist’s most vibrant and luminous early watercolors.
• Two major watercolors by Childe Hassam, including Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (Leaning on a Garden Wall) (1890).
• More than 40 stunning watercolors of flowers, vegetables, and plants painted on vellum by French artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840), a favorite of Empress Josephine
• Important watercolors by Francis Augustus Silva, William Trost Richards, and others.
• The celebrated River View (1645), a painting by Salomon van Ruysdael (1600/03–1670), one of the finest and most atmospheric of this Dutch master’s majestic river scenes.
• A Pier in Dordrecht Harbor (early 1640s), a light-filled river scene by Aelbert Cuyp (1620–1691)
• An imposing landscape from the end of the 1640s by Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1628/29–1682) that depicts a weathered brick bridge crossing an inland waterway near a large oak tree.
• A fanciful view of Amsterdam by Jan van der Heyden
• A representation of the marketplace in Haarlem by Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde (1638–1698).
• A trompe l’oeil depiction of a letter rack (1703) by Evert Collier.
• Bearded Man with a Beret (c. 1630), an expressive head study by Jan Lievens.

The Kaufman Collection, comprised of masterpieces from the major centers of furniture making (Boston, Salem, Newport, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Charleston), includes work from many renowned cabinetmaker such as Thomas Affleck, John Goddard, Benjamin Randolph, John and Thomas Seymour, and John Townsend.

Spanning the years from 1690 to 1830, furniture in the Kaufman Collection includes objects in the William and Mary, Queen Anne, Chippendale, and Neo-Classical styles. Most of the 35 paintings in the gift are Dutch, which greatly enhance the Gallery’s collection (particularly landscapes) in terms of quality and significance, plus some from the American and French traditions.

The exhibit was divided into four high-ceilinged areas in a roughly chronological manner, with stylistic and regional subsections.  At the entrance to the installation, from Sixth Street, is the first gallery which incorporated a variety of decorative arts.  It features a monumental Philadelphia Rococo desk and bookcase, flanked by two robustly carved chairs; two recently acquired early looking glasses hung over a marble-topped table; a rare japanned dressing table; plus some of the earliest and most dazzling pieces, which date from around 1700 to 1760.

The second room is a select grouping of furniture that draw attention to the diverse regional characteristics that had developed, by the third quarter of the eighteenth century, in the colonial centers. Featured is a vigorously carved Philadelphia high chest placed opposite an elegant Newport high chest, while the center of the room is dominated by an extraordinary Providence chest-on-chest.

Two projecting cases that display four exceedingly rare American porcelains, made at the American China Manufactory founded by Gousse Bonnin and George Anthony Morris of Philadelphia, divide the Rococo from the Federal alongside an early glass tumbler crafted by John Frederick Amelung (active 1784 to about 1795).  American portraits from the Gallery’s permanent collection hang throughout the space, including seven recently conserved paintings by Gilbert Stuart, seen with exceptional porcelains from the Kaufmans’ collection.

The Federal room is highlighted by a magnificently inlayed, 18^th century New York mahogany sideboard made and labeled by cabinetmakers William Mills and Simeon Deming (active 1793–1798) and masterworks by renowned Boston furniture makers John and Thomas Seymour and Duncan Phyfe.

The fourth room, a striking finale to the installation, features Empire Style objects such as one of the finest specimen marble-top tables, installed on a faux-marble plinth in the center of the room. Ornately painted and archeologically inspired furniture, popular during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, is epitomized by the scrolled Grecian couch attributed to John and Hugh Finlay of Baltimore. Sixteen botanical watercolors by Pierre Joseph Redouté (1759–1840), contributing to the grandeur of this gallery, are double-hung on either side of a pair of exquisite New York girandole mirrors.

The Kaufman Collection – Masterpieces of American Furniture, 1700–1830: G/F West Building, National Gallery of Art Fourth Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Tel: 202-737-4215. Website: www.nga.gov.  Admission is free.

The Smithsonian National Postal Museum, a museum located opposite Union Station in DC’s NoMa neighborhood, was established on November 6, 1990 through a joint agreement between the United States Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution.

Smithsonian National Postal Museum

Opened on July 30, 1993, it is located in the historic historic Beaux Arts-style City Post Office Building, a building that once served as the Main Post Office of Washington, D.C. from 1914 (when it was constructed) until 1986.

Museum entrance along 1st Street

The building, which also serves as the headquarters of the United States Department of Labor‘s Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as a data center for the United States Senate, was designed by the Graham and Burnham architectural firm (the same architectural firm as Union Station), which was led by Ernest Graham following the death of Daniel Burnham in 1912.

Museum lobby.  On the right are the four large video screens

Its historic lobby, restored in 1989, was designed to be active.  It includes a welcome center, and four large video screens with a series of vignettes.

Systems at Work Exhibit recreates the paths of letters, magazines, parcels, and other mail as they travel from sender to recipient over the last 200 years

The museum, honoring and celebrating America’s proud postal history, occupies 100,000 sq. ft. of the building with 35,000 sq. ft. devoted to exhibition space.

Statue of Benjamin Franklin, located in the foyer, done by Lithuanian-born artist William Zorach (ca. 1935)

The  museum’s award winning public spaces, shops and support facilities were designed by the Washington, D.C. firm of Florance Eichbaum Esocoff King Architects while the galleries and inaugural exhibitions were designed by Miles Fridberg Molinaroli, Inc. with Bowie Gridley Architects.

Binding the Nation – Post Secret: The Power of a Postcard (August 3, 2015 – January 1, 2018) – exhibits more than 500 artfully decorated postcards mailed anonymously from around the world

It displays a vast collection of stamps from the National Philatelic Collection, which features more than 5.9 million items (the Smithsonian’s second-largest collection after that of the National Museum of Natural History).  The museum has one of the largest and most significant philatelic and postal history collections in the world and one of the world’s most comprehensive library resources on philately and postal history.

Check out “National Museum of Natural History“

Trailblazing: 100 Years of Our National Parks (June 9, 2016 – March 3, 2019) exhibit chronicles intersections between mail and US national parks

It also houses a 6,000 sq. ft. research library (more than 40,000 books and archival documents), a gift shop, a separate stamp shop and many interactive displays about the history of the United States Postal Service and of mail service around the world.

Pony Express: Romance vs Reality examines fictional and actual stories from the history of the world’s best known mail carriers.

Replica of mud wagon that crisscrossed the western territories

It also has informative exhibits, for all ages, on the Pony Express, the use of railroads with the mail and the preserved remains of Owney (the first unofficial postal mascot).

Railway mail train. The Railway Mail Service revolutionized the way mail was processed by sorting mail aboard moving trains.

Interior of train car. Mail previously untouched in bags on train floors was processed as the train sped toward its destination.

An exhibit on direct marketing, called “What’s in the Mail for You,” produces a souvenir envelope with your name printed on it and a coupon for the gift shop.

The preserved remains of Owney, the first unofficial postal mascot, who died from a bullet wound on June 11, 1897. His harness is weighed down by a number of tags.

Bronze statue of Owney

Visitors here learn the fascinating evolution of how Americans have used the mail to communicate with each other and the world.

Mail-carrying stagecoach from 1851

Guests will take a walk through history and see how mail has been transported, in a variety of eye-catching displays, whether it be early automobiles on dirt roads, stagecoaches chugging across the country, prop-planes in the skies above, or being pulled by real horsepower.

Creating Your Own Stamp Design

Visitors will see the diversity of postage from around the globe and also discover the art of stamp making and design, as well as how to start their own collection.

William H. Gross Stamp Gallery

In 2005, the museum acquired John Lennon‘s childhood stamp collection and, on September 2009, the museum received a US$8 million gift from Pimco investment management firm founder William H. Gross  to help finance the expansion of the museum. Every two years, since 2002, the museum has presented the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Award.

The 12,000 sq. ft. William H. Gross Stamp Gallery, the largest of its kind dedicated to philately, was named in his honor and opened on September 22, 2013. It houses the first American stamps, from 1847, a piece of mail from the 1860 Pony Express with “recovered from a mail stolen by the Indians” written on the envelope, and the 1918 “Inverted Jenny” with its biplane printed upside down — the most famous U.S. stamp-printing error. 

The author (right) at the atrium

The Postal Museum’s atrium, sporting a 90 ft. high ceiling, has vital objects from the postal past hanging overhead such as 3 airmail planes –  a De Havilland DH-4 airmail plane No. 249; a Wiseman-Cooke airplane and the Stinson Reliant SR-10F.

Stinson Reliant SR-10F was used in 1939 to test a unique airmail service for communities that did not have landing fields.

De Havilland DH-4 airmail plane No. 249 was used in the early 1920s to carry mail primarily in the western U.S. Henry Boonstra crashed this aircraft into a snow covered mountain on December 15, 1922.

Wiseman-Cooke airplane. Fred Wiseman took off in his airplane on February 17, 1911, the first heavier-than air flight sanctioned by a U.S. post office

The room is also adorned with a stagecoach from 1851 and a 1932 Ford Model A postal truck. They can also browse through a 1920s-style post office.

Jandy (right) beside a 1931 Ford Model A postal truck

Among its permanent exhibitions are: “Binding the Nation” (opened July 30, 1993), “Systems at Work” (opened December 14, 2011), “Moving the Mail,” “Mail Call” (opened November 10, 2011), “Customers and Communities” (opened July 30, 1993) and “Pony Express: Romance vs. Reality” (opened April 3, 2010).

Modular post office was in operation in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania from 1913 to 1971. Prefabricated panels, produced by the Federal Equipment Company of New York, New York and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, included one with a designated “Money Order” window, another for “Registry” mail and a third for “General Delivery.” The post office door was marked “Postmaster” and “private.” A separate section offered brass drops for letters, papers and packages.

The 1856 British Guiana One-Cent Magenta, dubbed “The World’s Most Famous Stamp,” is on display here through November 2017. 

The 1986 Long Life Vehicle (LLV), a white, boxy postal truck, marked a major change in how postal officials approached buying vehicles

Museum Shop

Smithsonian National Postal Museum: Postal Square Building, 2 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington, D.C. 20002. Tel: (202) 357-2700. Website: www.postalmuseum.si.edu. Open daily (except December 25), 10 AM – 5:30PM. As a Smithsonian museum, admission is free.The library is open to the public by appointment only.

How to Get There: take the Metro‘s Red Line to Union Station and use the Massachusetts Avenue exit.  The museum is across the street. The DC Circulator also connects the museum and Union Station to the National Mall. Street parking is available nearby and all-day paid parking can be had at Union Station (2,000 slots), located right next to the museum. The museum is accessible by wheelchair, with ramps at its 1st Street entrance and North Capitol Street entrance, via the U.S. Post Office.

National Air and Space Museum

The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a must-see for visitors to Washington, DC. Established August 12, 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened at its main building on the National Mall near L’Enfant Plaza in 1976.

It is a center for research into the history and science of aviation, spaceflight, planetary science, terrestrial geology and geophysics. Allow at least 2-3 hours to explore the exhibits.

Continuum of the late Charles O. Perry

Here are some interesting trivia regarding this museum:

• It holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world.
• In 2014, the museum saw approximately 6.7 million visitors, making it the fifth most visited museum in the world.
• It is the largest of 19 museums included in the Smithsonian Institution.

Lockheed F-104A Starfighter at the second floor concourse

The museum features 22 exhibition galleries, displaying hundreds of artifacts. Many of the exhibits are interactive and great for kids. Almost all space and aircraft on display are either originals or the original backup craft.

Boeing Milestones of Flight – the main hall of the museum

Designed by St. Louis-based architect Gyo Obata of HOK , the museum, its mass similar to the National Gallery of Art and using the same pink Tennessee marble, was built by Gilbane Building Company and opened on July 1, 1976 at the height of the United States Bicentennial festivities.

The Mercury Friendship 7 and Gemini IV capsules

It has four simple marble-encased cubes containing the smaller and more theatrical exhibits, connected by three spacious steel-and-glass atria which house the larger exhibits such as missiles, airplanes and spacecraft. The west glass wall of the building, used for the installation of airplanes, also functions as a giant door. On display outside is “Continuum,” a curving metal map of the universe one by the late Charles O. Perry.

Bell X-1

The Boeing Milestones of Flight Gallery, the museum’s main hall, was reopened in July 2016. This expanded exhibition traces the interconnected stories of the world’s most significant aircraft, rockets, and spacecraft in history, milestones which have made our planet smaller and the universe larger, with digital displays and a mobile experience in a new design that stretches from one entrance to the other.

Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis

North American Aviation Inc. X-15A 56-6670 hypersonic research rocketplane

SS-20 and Pershing II ICBM Missiles

They also tell tales of ingenuity and courage, war and peace, politics and power, as well as society and culture.

Bell XP-59A Airacomet

Mock-up of Lunar Module

The displays, taking full advantage of the atrium’s two-storey height, includes the huge Apollo Lunar Module; the Telstar satellite; the model of the “Starship Enterprise” used in the Star Trek television series;, the Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis  (where Charles Lindbergh’s made his solo trip across the Atlantic); the Bell XP-59A Airacomet (the first American jet aircraft); the Bell X-1 (in which Chuck Yeager first broke the mythical “sound barrier”); the North American X-15 (the fastest aircraft ever flown); the Mercury Friendship 7 capsule (flown by John Glenn); the Mariner, Pioneer, and Viking planetary explorers; and SpaceShipOne (the first privately-developed, piloted vehicle to reach space). You can even touch a Moon rock.

The author touching a piece of the Moon

Jandy with the model of the Star Trek Starship Enterprise

The Space Race Gallery tells about that U.S.-Soviet Union space rivalry and its aftermath, from the military origins of the Space Race, through the race to the Moon and the development of reconnaissance satellites, to cooperative ventures between the two former rivals and efforts to maintain a human presence in space.

German V2 Rocket

Yuri Gagarin’s Space Suit

John Glenn’s Space Suit

Hubble Space Telescope

Some of the items on display include a German V-1 “buzz bomb” and V-2 missile, Soviet and U.S. spacecraft and space suits, a Skylab Orbital Workshop, and a full-size test version of the Hubble Space Telescope.

1970 Northrop M2-F3 CN 1

Apollo–Soyuz Test Project

V-1 Buzz Bomb

The Apollo to the Moon Gallery has an unparalleled display of artifacts from the Apollo and earlier missions with displays that range from a huge F-1 rocket engine, a scale model of the Saturn V rocket, spacesuits worn by Apollo astronauts on the Moon to space food and personal items that astronauts took into space.

Saturn V Rocket Engine

Lunar Roving Vehicle

The America by Air Gallery, exploring the history of air transportation in the United States, shows how the federal government has shaped the airline industry, how improvements in technology have revolutionized air travel, and how the flying experience has changed.

The nose section of a DC-7

Boeing 747 Forward Fuselage

Highlights include a Ford 5-AT Tri-Motor, Boeing 247, and Douglas DC-3 airliners; a cockpit simulation of an Airbus A320; and a nose from a Boeing 747 jumbo jet that you can enter.

Ford 5-AT-B Trimotor

Douglas DC-3

Boeing 247-D

The Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery, having to do with people who pushed the existing technological or social limits of flight, contains an impressive, eclectic assortment of aircraft and exhibits, each representing an unprecedented feat, a barrier overcome or a pioneering step.

Douglas World Cruiser Chicago

Fokker T-2

Things to see here include the Fokker T-2 (the airplane that made the first nonstop, coast-to-coast flight across the United States); the Douglas World Cruiser Chicago (which completed the first round-the-world flight); a Lockheed Model 8 Sirius (flown by Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh), a Lockheed Vega (flown by Amelia Earhart); the Explorer II high-altitude balloon gondola; and “Black Wings,” an exhibit on African Americans and aviation.

Lockheed Model 8 Sirius

Explorer II high-altitude balloon gondola

Lockheed Vega 5B of Amelia Earhart

The Explore the Universe Gallery shows how our ideas about the Universe evolved as we developed new astronomical instruments. It presents the Universe as discerned by the naked eye, then shows how the telescope, photography, spectroscopy, and digital technology revolutionized our view. The largest section describes what astronomers today think about the nature of the Universe. Among the many amazing treasures on display are an Islamic astrolabe from 10 centuries ago; the actual telescope tube from William Herschel‘s 20-foot telescope; the observing cage from the Mount Wilson Observatory‘s 100-inch Hooker Telescope; and the backup mirror for the Hubble Space Telescope.

World War II Aviation Gallery

Supermarine Spitfire HF.MK.VIIc

The World War II Aviation Gallery focuses on land-based fighter aviation.  Fortresses Under Fire, a Keith Ferris mural filling an entire wall, features  a B 17 Flying Fortress, with contrails streaming behind it, roaring out of a clear blue sky. 

Mitsubishi A6M5 Reisen (Zero Fighter)

North American P-51D Mustang

The mural serves as a backdrop for five fighter planes – a British Supermarine Spitfire, German Messerschmitt Bf 109, Italian Macchi C.202 Folgore, U.S. North American P-51 Mustang and a Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero.

Messerschmitt Bf 109 G (1)

Aeronautica Macchi C.202 Folgore

Also on exhibit are engines, bombs, armament, ammunition, aircrew and service uniforms from several nations, and personal memorabilia.

Artist Soldiers Exhibit

The Artist Soldiers exhibition, a collaboration between the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and National Museum of American History, examines this form of artistic expression from two complementary perspectives – one from professional artists who were recruited by the U.S. Army and served in the American Expeditionary Force (the first true combat artists) and the other from soldiers who created artwork.

Together, these works of art of soldiers shed light on World War I in a compelling and very human way by first-hand participants.

The Exploring the Planets Gallery takes you on a tour of this remarkable realm, as seen and sensed by the Voyagers and other robotic explorers. Initial sections present some historical highlights and show the various means we use to study other worlds. Sections devoted to each planet form the core of the gallery.

The author with the Blériot XI monoplane

The gaily decorated Early Flight Gallery, celebrating the first decade of flight, evokes the atmosphere of the fictitious Smithsonian Aeronautical Exposition of 1913, an aviation exhibition from that period. The gallery is crammed with fabric-covered aerial vehicles, some fanciful, most real, along with trade show–style exhibits featuring cutting-edge technology of the day.

Swedenborg Flying Machine

The Chanute Gliders

They include a rare 1894 Lilienthal glider; Samuel P. Langley’s Aerodrome #5 and Quarter-Scale Aerodrome (powered, unmanned vehicles that successfully flew in 1896 and 1903); the 1909 Wright Military Flyer (the world’s first military airplane, it is the most original and complete of the museum’s three Wright airplanes); a Curtiss Model D “Headless Pusher,” an Ecker Flying Boat, and a Blériot XI monoplane.

Curtiss D-III Headless Pusher

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) Gallery, made possible through the generosity of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., showcases six modern military UAVs that represent a variety of missions and technologies.

Boeing X-45A

They range from large vehicles that can carry offensive weapons to a miniature system whose components are light and compact enough to be carried in a Marine’s backpack.

AAI RQ-7 Shadow UAV

The Golden Age of Flight Gallery features the 1920s and ’30s, the period between the two world wars that saw airplanes evolve from wood-and-fabric biplanes to streamlined metal monoplanes. The military services embraced air power and aviation came of age. Air races and daring record-setting flights dominated the news and aircraft displayed here include planes used for racing and record setting such as Howard Hughes‘ sleek, record-setting Hughes H-1 Racer, the Wittman Buster midget racer (hanging near the entrance) and the Curtiss J-1 Robin Ole Miss (which stayed aloft for 27 days).  There are also planes for business travel (Beechcraft C17L Staggerwing) and exploration (the Northrop Gamma 2B Polar Star, which traversed Antarctica).

MQ-1L Predator A

The How Things Fly Gallery, devoted to explaining the basic principles that allow aircraft and spacecraft to fly, emphasizes “hands-on,” with dozens of exhibits inviting you to push, pull, press, lift, slide, handle, touch, twist, turn, spin, bend, and balance. Here you can discover for yourself answers to things you’ve always wondered about flight. You can explore the nature of gravity and air; how wings work; supersonic flight; aircraft and rocket propulsion; flying in space; and more.

1903 Wright Flyer

The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age Gallery  celebrates the centennial of the Wright brothers‘ historic flights.  It has, as its centerpiece, the 1903 Wright Flyer, the world’s first successful airplane and historic craft that ushered in the age of flight, displayed on the floor. 

The first part of this exhibition tells the story of how Wilbur and Orville Wright invented the airplane—who they were, how they worked, and what they accomplished.

The second part shows how their monumental achievement affected the world in the decade that followed, when people everywhere became fascinated with flight. The exhibition includes many historic photographs and cultural artifacts, along with instruments and personal items associated with the Wrights.

The Moving Beyond Earth Gallery, an immersive exhibition, places visitors “in orbit” in the shuttle and space-station era to explore recent human spaceflight and future possibilities. An expansive view of the Earth as viewed from the space station drifts over one gallery wall, while a fly-around tour of the International Space Station fills another wall. A presentation stage for live events, broadcasts, and webcasts at the center of the gallery serves as the platform for Space Flight Academy, a group quiz game where visitors can test their space smarts and become “flight ready.”

Time and Navigation Gallery

Lockheed 5C Vega – Winnie Mae

The Time and Navigation Gallery explores how revolutions in timekeeping over three centuries have influenced how we find our way.

Model of USS Enterprise

The Sea-Air Operations Gallery, at the quarterdeck of the mythical aircraft carrier USS Smithsonian, a scaled-down re-creation of a hangar deck bay, has surrounding structures and equipment that are from actual aircraft carriers.

Douglas SBD-6 Dauntless

You can poke around in a ready room, a combined living room and briefing area, or go upstairs and visit the navigation bridge and PriFly, the ship’s air traffic control center. From these two rooms you can watch “cat shots” and “traps” (takeoffs and landings) filmed on a U.S. Navy carrier.

Douglas A-4C Skyhawk

Balconies overlook the four carrier aircraft in the hangar bay – a Boeing F4B-4 biplane, Grumman F4F Wildcat, Douglas SBD-6 Dauntless, and Douglas A-4C Skyhawk. Also here are exhibits on carrier warfare in World War II and on modern carrier aviation.

Boeing F4B-4

The Looking at Earth Gallery, exploring the technology of aerial and space observation and its many uses, displays aircraft and spacecraft and examples of the photographic and imaging devices used on them.

Lockheed U-2C

De Havilland DH-4

Throughout the exhibition are countless images taken from above, some are historic; others show scientific, military, or civil applications; others are simply beautiful. All allow us to examine the familiar from unfamiliar perspectives.

GOES Weather Satellite

Highlights include a De Havilland DH-4 (a World War I aircraft used for aerial observation and photography); a Lockheed U-2 (designed for Cold War aerial surveillance); personal objects of Soviet-captured U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers; and several generations of weather satellites. A “What’s New” section displays frequently updated images of current interest taken of our planet from space.

US Pilot Survival Kit

The Lunar Exploration Vehicles Gallery displays a constellation of vehicles used for lunar exploration. Dominating the space is a real lunar module, the second one built for the Apollo program. The orbital test flight of the first lunar module proved so successful that a second test flight was deemed unnecessary. The lunar module displayed here was used instead for ground testing. Six more like it landed astronauts on the Moon.

Engineering Model of Clementine

A series of unmanned lunar spacecraft preceded the manned missions. These robotic explorers transmitted images of the Moon, inspected its surface, and searched for Apollo landing sites.

Ranger Spacecraft

Examples of the three types of space probes involved in that effort—Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter—hang above the lunar module, along with a more recent lunar explorer: the Moon-mapping spacecraft Clementine.

Lunar Orbiter

The Legend, Memory and the Great War in the Air Gallery reexamines aviation during World War I and contrasts romance with reality, with displays of popular culture showing how some of these myths were passed on.

German Aircraft Factory

Model of the Hindenburg

Other exhibits examine the many new roles aircraft played during the war, from battlefield reconnaissance to strategic bombing.

Pfalz D.XII

Albatross D.Va

Fokker D.VII

The gallery features several rare airplanes such as the German Pfalz D.XII, Albatros D.Va, and Fokker D.VII fighters; a British Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe fighter; and a French SPAD S.XIII fighter and Voisin VIII bomber.

Sopwith 7F.1 Snipe

Voisin Type 8

Spad XIII Smith IV

The Jet Aviation Gallery traces the development of jet technology and features many important turbojet engines introduced over four decades, along with three airplanes that helped usher in the jet age – the German Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a Schwalbe (the world’s first operational jet fighter),  the Lockheed XP-80 “Shooting Star” Lulu Belle (the prototype for the first full-production, operational U.S. jet fighter) and McDonnell FH-1 Phantom (the first jet fighter used by the Navy and Marine Corps).

McDonnell FH-1 Phantom

Lockheed XP-80 “Shooting Star” nicknamed Lulu Belle

Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a nicknamed Schwalbe (German for “Swallow”)

The Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater, with its five-storey-high screen with six-channel digital surround sound, take you on a journey through space or to natural and manmade wonders of the world.

Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket on display outside of the Lockheed Martin IMAX® Theater

The Albert Einstein Planetarium, with its high tech dual digital projection system, Sky Vision, takes you on a 20-minute tour of the universe. The museum’s three-storey gift shop is a great place to find memorable souvenirs and gifts. A food court- style restaurant is open daily from 10 AM to 5PM.

Museum Shop

National Air and Space Museum: 600 Independence Ave. at 6th St. SW, Washington, D.C. 20560, USA.  Tel: +1 202-633-2214. Open aily (except December 25), 10 AM – 5:30 PM. Website: www.airandspace.si.edu.

General Admission: free.  The 4-minute flight simulator rides cost US$6.50 per ride. IMAX movies and the Planetarium each cost US$9 per adult or US$7 per child. Shows often sell out, so purchase your tickets before viewing the rest of the museum. Tickets can be purchased in advance at (877) WDC-IMAX. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, new security measures have been created, with extensive queues  extending outside the building.

How to Get There: The closest Metro stations are Smithsonian and L’Enfant Plaza.

National Museum of The American Indian

From the Botanic Garden, Jandy and I proceeded to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), the first national museum in the country dedicated exclusively to Native Americans.  Part of the Smithsonian Institution, it is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the past, present, and future of Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere, through partnership with Native people and others.

Museum entrance

Aside from this museum,  the National Museum of the American Indian also has two other facilities – the George Gustav Heye Center (a permanent museum in Lower Manhattan, New York City) and the Cultural Resources Center (a research and collections facility in Suitland, Maryland).

Though it was a weekend, there wasn’t a long line of visitors wanting to enter the building (although the museum had 2.4 million visitors in 2004, the year it opened, it has averaged only 1.4 million in the years since due to its exhibits that feel “disjointed and incomplete”) but we were still all subjected to a security check.

Indian canoes at the lobby

The five-storey, 23,000 m² (250,000 sq. ft.) curvilinear building, set in a 17,200 m² (4.25-acre) site, is clad in golden-colored Kasota limestone, designed to evoke natural rock formations shaped by wind and water over thousands of years, and is surrounded by simulated wetlands.

Oculus of the dome

Fifteen years in the making, the museum was inaugurated on September 21, 2004 with an audience of around 20,000 American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, the largest gathering of indigenous people in Washington D.C. to its time.

The museum’s design architects are GBQC Architects of Philadelphia and Severud Associates was the structural engineering firm chosen for this project. Project architects are Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects Ltd. of Seattle and Smith Group of Washington, D.C., in association with Lou Weller (Caddo), the Native American Design Collaborative, and Polshek Partnership Architects of New York City. The landscape architects are Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects Ltd. of Seattle and EDAW, Inc., of Alexandria, Virginia.

ImagiNATIONS Activity Center

Aiming to create a different atmosphere and experience from museums of European and Euro-American culture, Native Americans, in general, have filled the leadership roles in the design and operation of the museum.

Indian Chief motorcycle, 1948 at “Americans” exhibit

Canadian Douglas Cardinal, the museum’s architect and project designer, is Blackfoot.  During construction, disagreements led to Cardinal’s removal from the project, but the building retains his original design intent and, during the museum’s construction, he provided continued input.  Architect John Paul Jones is Cherokee/Choctaw while Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi) also served as design consultant. Donna E. House (Navajo/Oneida) was the botanist who supervised the landscaping.

Our Universes – Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World

The museum’s sweeping curvilinear architecture, its indigenous landscaping, and its exhibitions were also all designed in collaboration with tribes and communities from across the hemisphere, combine to give visitors from around the world the sense and spirit of Native America.

Nation to Nation exhibit

The landscape flows into the building and the theme of organic flow is reflected by the interior of the museum, whose walls are mostly curving surfaces, with almost no sharp corners. The museum’s east-facing entrance, its prism window and its 37 m. (120-ft.) high space for contemporary Native performances are direct results of extensive consultations with Native peoples.

Bald Eagle feather, ca. 2000

The museum’s collection, assembled by George Gustav Heye (1874–1957) during a 54-year period (beginning in 1903, he traveled throughout North and South America collecting Native objects), became part of the Smithsonian in June 1990.

Andrew Jackson’s pistol (ca. 1840)

Approximately 85% of the holdings of the NMAI, it includes more than 800,000 objects (one of the world’s largest and most diverse collections of its kind), as well as a photographic archive of 125,000 images. The collection is divided into the following areas: Amazon; Andes; Arctic/Subarctic; California/Great Basin; Contemporary Art; Mesoamerican/Caribbean; Northwest Coast; Patagonia; Plains/Plateau; Woodlands.

Celebrations

Pana and Qolla

The museum currently has 5 exhibits.  Americans (January 18, 2018–2022), highlighting the ways in which American Indians have been part of the nation’s identity since before the country began, features pervasive, powerful and, at times, demeaning American Indian images (from the Land O’Lakes butter maiden to the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, and from classic Westerns and cartoons to episodes of Seinfeld and South Park), names (from state, city, and street names to the Tomahawk missile) and stories (historical events of Pocahontas’ life, the Trail of Tears, and the Battle of Little Bighorn) that reveal the deep connection between Americans and American Indians as well as how Indians have been embedded, in unexpected ways, in the history, pop culture, contemporary life and identity of the United States.

Inka bowl, tumi (ritual knife), armbands and ornaments with human figure design

The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire (June 26, 2015–June 1, 2020) explores the foundations of the more than 20,000 mile long Inka Road (which stands as one of the monumental engineering achievements in history) in earlier Andean cultures, technologies that made building the road possible, the cosmology and political organization of the Inka world, and the legacy of the Inka Empire during the colonial period and in the present day.

Maya calendar

Crossing mountains and tropical lowlands, rivers and deserts, the Great Inka Road, recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site in 2014, linked Cusco, the administrative capital and spiritual center of the Inka world, to the farthest reaches of its empire and continues to serve contemporary Andean communities across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.

Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band of Cherokee, b. 1957). Pieced Treaty Spider’s Web Treaty basket, 2007. Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations (September 21, 2014–Through 2021), curated by Indian rights activist Suzan Shown Harjo, is built around the 1613 Two Row Wampum Treaty which, as museum reviewer Diana Muir Appelbaum points out, is, in fact, a modern forgery. ” It is the story of that relationship between Indian Nations and the United States, including the history and legacy of U.S.–American Indian diplomacy, from the Colonial Period through the present, as well as about the equally important and influential Native diplomats and leaders of Indian Nations.

Ceremonies of Spring

Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World (September 21, 2004–September 2020) focuses on indigenous cosmologies (world views and philosophies related to the creation and order of the universe) and the spiritual relationship between human kind and the natural world. Organized around the solar year, the exhibition introduces visitors to indigenous peoples from across the Western Hemisphere who continue to express the wisdom of their ancestors in celebration, language, art, spirituality and daily life.

Pueblo plates

The community galleries feature eight cultural philosophies—those of the Pueblo of Santa Clara (Espanola, New Mexico, USA), Anishinaabe (Hollow Water and Sagkeeng Bands, Manitoba, Canada), Lakota (Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, USA), Quechua (Communidad de Phaqchanta, Cuzco, Peru), Hupa (Hoopa Valley, California, USA), Q’eq’chi’ Maya (Cobán, Guatemala), Mapuche (Temuco, Chile), and Yup’ik (Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, USA).

Dance and Drama

The design of these galleries reflects each community’s interpretation of the order of the world.The exhibition also highlights the Denver (Colorado) March Powwow, the North American Indigenous Games, and the Day of the Dead as seasonal celebrations that bring Native peoples together.

Family Meals and Feasting

Preparing and Storing Food

At the ongoing compact exhibition Return to a Native Place: Algonquian Peoples of the Chesapeake educates visitors on the continued Native presence in the region, and provides an overview of the history and events from the 1600s to the present that have impacted the lives of the Nanticoke, Powhatan, and Piscataway tribes.

Harvesting From the Land and the Ocean

Music and Song

You will meet the Native peoples of the Chesapeake Bay region (what is now Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware) through photographs, maps, ceremonial and everyday objects, and interactive displays.

Southeastern Ceramics

Music and Song

The imagiNATIONS Activity Center, a fantastic interactive experience for families, allows visitors to explore genius innovations made by Native tribes, from transportation solutions (snowshoes, skateboards) to tipi-building and basket-weaving.

Native Glass

Potawatomi blouse (ca. 1890, Wisconsin)

The Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe (which translates to “Let’s eat!” in the language of Delaware and Piscataway Natives) is divided into Native regional sections such as the Northern Woodlands, South America, the Northwest Coast, Meso-America, and the Great Plains (the only Native American groups not represented in the café are the south eastern tribes such as the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee and Seminole, many of which supported the United States throughout the tribes’ histories).

Museum Store

National Museum of the American Indian: Fourth Street and Independence Avenue, Southwest, National Mall , Washington D.C.. Tel: 202-633-1000. TTY: 202-633-5285. Email: nmai-groupreservations@si.edu.  Website: www.nmai.si.edu/visit/washington.  Open daily, 10 AM–5:30 PM, closed on December 25. Exhibition spaces and the store begin closing at 5:15 PM. The Mitsitam Cafe is open daily, 11 AM–3 PM (closed on December 25); the Mitsitam Espresso Coffee Bar is open daily, 10 AM–5 PM; while the imagiNATIONS Activity Center is open daily 10 AM–5 PM, closed on Mondays. Admission is free. The building is accessible to people with disabilities. The museum does not have parking. Parking is available by meter on the surrounding streets and in local paid parking garages. Visitors should be prepared for a security check upon entrance to the museum. On busy days, there may be a line to enter the building. The museum offers a range of exhibitions, film and video screenings, school group programs, public programs and living culture presentations throughout the year. 

How To Get There: The National Museum of the American Indian is located between the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum and the U.S. Capitol Building.

Metro: L’Enfant Plaza (Blue/Orange/Green/Yellow lines), exit Maryland Avenue/Smithsonian Museums

Bus: Lines 30, 32, 34–36—Friendship Heights/Southern Avenue. There are 9 bus drop-off only spaces on Maryland Avenue accessible from 3rd Street.