Click here for a short history
of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Negative number: 94-4416 The Smithsonian American Art Museum in the Old Patent Office Building, at 8th Street and G Street, N.W.

Negative number: 23758 The Chapel of the Smithsonian Institution Building with art exhibits as seen from the south end, c. 1921. Glass cases display Graphic Arts exhibit, and Horatio Greenough's statue of George Washington sits at the end of the room.

Negative number: 94-9280 Opening reception for an Exhibit of 29 paintings of Gaucho life in Argentina by Cesareo Bernaldo de Quiros at the National Gallery, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in the Museum of Natural History, 13 January 1933.

Negative number: 50063 Entrance to "George Catlin's Indian Gallery," an exhibition of the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum, during the summer of 1965 in the Natural History Museum. The gallery displayed Catlin's paintings of American Indians and the frontier.

Negative number: 95-20292 An exhibition of drawings by Jasper Johns presented by the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in 1966 in the Museum of Natural History building.

Negative number: 92-1776 The Lincoln Gallery of the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1968. Photo by Martin Curry.

Negative number: 92-1777 National Collection of Fine Arts, now the Smithsonian American Art Museum, courtyard entrance, looking toward Grantie Gallery, 1968. Photo by Martin Curry.

Negative number: 92-9305-27a People enjoying lunch on a beautiful day in the courtyard of the American Art and Portrait Galleries building, 1992. Photo by Hugh Talman.

Negative number: 85-10538-15a Restoration of the Renwick Galley, part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1986. The building, designed by James Renwick, Jr., was built between 1859 and 1861 to house the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The art gallery moved to its present building in 1899. The building was then occupied by the U.S. Court of Claims until 1964. On June 23, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson approved the use of the building as a Smithsonian gallery of arts, crafts, and design. Photo by Dane Penland.

Negative number: 72-4230 The Grand Salon of the Renwick Gallery, part of the National Museum of American Art, 1972.

Negative number: 72-3478 The interior of the Renwick Gallery showing the hallway and staircase, 1972.

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