Art - Overview
The National Museum of American History is not an art museum. But works of art fill its collections and testify to the vital place of art in everyday American life. The ceramics collections hold hundreds of examples of American and European art glass and pottery. Fashion sketches, illustrations, and prints are part of the costume collections. Donations from ethnic and cultural communities include many homemade religious ornaments, paintings, and figures. The Harry T Peters "America on Stone" collection alone comprises some 1,700 color prints of scenes from the 1800s. The National Quilt Collection is art on fabric. And the tools of artists and artisans are part of the Museum's collections, too, in the form of printing plates, woodblock tools, photographic equipment, and potters' stamps, kilns, and wheels.
"Art - Overview" showing 366 items.
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Misc 1941[from enclosure] [black-and-white cellulose acetate photonegative]
- Summary
- Display of illustrations, small statues and small objects. "Agfa Safety Film" edge imprint
- Cite as
- Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1941
- 1940-1950
- photographers
- Scurlock Studio (Washington, D.C.)
- film manufacturer
- Agfa
- Local number
- Box 618.04.122
- AC0618.004.0002129.tif (AC Scan)
- No Scurlock number
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Porter Drawing [from enclosure] [black-and-white cellulose acetate photonegative]
- Summary
- Illustration of a either a cheetah or a leopard. No ink on negative. No visible edge imprint
- Cite as
- Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1930
- 1960
- N.d
- 20th century
- 1930-1960
- photographers
- Scurlock Studio (Washington, D.C.)
- artist
- Porter, James A. (James Amos) 1905-
- film manufacturer
- Eastman Kodak Co
- Local number
- Box 618.04.126
- AC0618.004.0002259.tif (AC Scan)
- 24493 (Scurlock No.)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Night of the Dead
- Description
- Though anchored in local Roman Catholic traditions, many of the religious beliefs and symbols of Mexican Americans have roots in indigenous notions about the soul and our universe. Between October 31st and November 2nd, Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated with family, decorating home altars and visiting the graves of loved ones. A holiday with much regional and individual variation, it is traditionally an occasion to commemorate parents and grandparents with altars of marigolds, candles, alcohol, skeleton-shaped sweets, and other foods and personal objects favored by the dearly departed. Day of the Dead celebrations were reinvented across many Mexican American communities beginning in the 1970s, as the Chicano movement promoted and readapted Mexican cultural practices. Many artists since then have seized on the visual power of the altar as a conduit for personal and public memory. In the United States, Day of the Dead altars can be found interrogating life and critiquing politics in public places. Contemporary Day of the Dead celebrations have memorialized those who have died from AIDS, gang violence, the civil wars in Central America, and crossing the border. This lithograph, titled Night of the Dead, was originally drawn in ink by Alan Crane in 1958. Alan Horton Crane (1901–1969) was a Brooklyn-born illustrator best known for his landscapes and genre scenes of life in Mexico and New England. This image is part of a series of prints by Alan Crane housed in the Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1958
- maker
- Crane, Alan
- ID Number
- GA*23836
- catalog number
- 23836
- accession number
- 306563
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
[Dr. Mordecai Johnson and Eleanor Roosevelt] [cellulose acetate photonegative]
- Summary
- Photograph taken at a Howard University art exhibition reception. Dr. Johnson holds a publcation entitled "Negro Art in Chicago."
- Date
- 1940
- 1950
- photographers
- Scurlock Studio (Washington, D.C.)
- Subject
- Johnson, Mordecai W (Mordecai Wyatt) 1890-1976
- Roosevelt, Eleanor 1884-1962
- Local number
- AC0618.004.0000036.tif (AC Scan)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Radio Trouble? Tung-Sol Vibration-Tested Radio Tubes [color advertisement]
- Notes
- In Box 7, Folder 3
- Summary
- Image of woman with fingers in her ears, drawn from a black and white photograph
- Cite as
- Albert W. Hampson Commercial Artwork Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1940
- 1950
- [ca. 1940-1950]
- 1940-1950
- artist
- Hampson, Albert W
- Local number
- AC0561-0000002.tif (AC Scan)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Adiós Espalda Mojada
- Description
- For centuries in both Mexico and the United States, racism has organized society and regulated the work and aspirations of Europeans, Africans, Native peoples, and their mixed descendants. Though inhabiting segregated spaces, Mexican American communities expanded by the 1960s, stretching from the Yakima Valley of Washington to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and into the Midwest, particularly Chicago. The people living in these towns and cities represented a mix of multigenerational U.S. citizens, new residents, and temporary Mexican workers. While their experiences varied, all these communities were shaped by a legacy of discrimination in school, housing, and employment. Economic exploitation, in the form of race-based wages and substandard working conditions, particularly in fields, mines, and factories, were their daily realities. Despite the participation of Mexican American soldiers in all major U.S. conflicts since the Civil War, and the contribution of Mexican workers to the American agricultural and mining economy (and the vast economy of the West generally), the citizenship and human rights of their communities were contested and continue to be today. This lithograph, titled Goodbye Wetback, was designed by artist B. Barrios and printed by Lynton Kistler in 1951 in Los Angeles. It depicts a rural Mexican family confronting, with a mix of fear and stoicism, the racist encounter implied in the title. Kistler printed the work of many artists, some of whom specifically depicted Latino, Native American, and East Asian subjects. Over 2,700 of his prints are housed in the Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History.
- ADD MORE SUBJECTS LIKE LATINO, IMMIGRATION, PREJUDICE
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1951
- Associated Date
- 1951
- printer
- Kistler, Lynton R.
- graphic artist
- Barrios, B.
- ID Number
- 1978.0650.0968
- accession number
- 1978.0650
- catalog number
- 1978.0650.0968
- 78.0650.0968
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Work and Rest
- Description
- The Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History houses an extensive series of prints by archeologist and artist Jean Charlot (1898–1979), and prominent Los Angeles printer Lynton Kistler (1897–1993). Charlot, the French-born artist of this print, spent his early career during the 1920s in Mexico City. As an assistant to the socialist painter Diego Rivera, he studied muralism, a Mexican artistic movement that was revived throughout Latino communities in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. This lithograph, titled Work and Rest contrasts the labor of an indigenous woman, grinding corn on a metate, with the slumber of her baby. Printed by Lynton Kistler in Los Angeles in 1956, it presents an image of a Mexican woman living outside the industrial age. This notion of "Old Mexico" unblemished by modernity appealed to many artists concerned in the early 20th century with the mechanization and materialism of American culture. It was also a vision that was packaged as an exotic getaway for many American tourists. It is worth contrasting the quaint appeal of an indigenous woman laboring over her tortillas with the actual industrialization of the tortilla industry. By 1956, this woman would likely have bought her tortillas in small stacks from the local tortillería, saving about six hours of processing, grinding, and cooking tortilla flour.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1956
- graphic artist
- Charlot, Jean
- printer
- Kistler, Lynton R.
- ID Number
- GA*23355.05
- catalog number
- 23355.05
- accession number
- 299563
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Thomas Garvin Korean War Scrapbook, 1951-1953
- Notes
- Garvin was a fighter pilot during the Korean War and also edited an Air Force magazine called "Air Scoop"
- Summary
- One scrapbook of illustrated envelopes drawn in ink by Thomas Garvin during his service in the Korean War
- Cite as
- Thomas Garvin Korean War Scrapbook, 1951-1953, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Gift of Gail Vines
- Date
- 1950
- 1950-1953
- 1951-1953
- 1930-1970
- 1900-1950
- artist
- Garvin, Thomas
- donor
- Vines, Gail
- Local number
- 2001.3029 (NMAH Acc.)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
Mural Painting, The Currents
- Description
- These ten painted aluminum panels comprised a wall mural aboard the ocean liner SS United States. Called “The Currents,” the mural depicts the Atlantic Ocean with the direction of the ocean’s currents rendered in stylized, dimensional arrows. The continents are applied to the panels in gold leaf, while the ocean is painted in various shades of blue and green. Aboard the ship this mural was located on the starboard side of the first class observation lounge. “The Currents” and a companion mural called “The Winds” were painted by artist Raymond John Wendell.
- Designed by naval architect William Francis Gibbs, the SS United States was created out of an unusually close connection to the federal government. During the Second World War, the U.S. Navy recognized that converted ocean liners were effective transports for conveying troops to far-flung war zones. After the war ended, the government pursued the building of a technologically advanced passenger vessel that could be converted to carry troops in the event of another global conflict. With significant federal funding and support, the SS United States was built and launched in 1952. Although it was never converted for wartime use, many of its design details remained classified into the 1970s.
- One of the most unusual features of the ship was the tremendous amount of aluminum and the lack of wood Gibbs specified for its construction. Determined to build a ship that was not only fast, but ultra-safe, Gibbs was especially concerned with fire prevention after several wartime catastrophes. One that haunted him was the story of the luxury liner RMS Empress of Britain that was attacked by a German bomber while transporting hundreds of soldiers on October 26, 1940. Sixty-four troops were killed in the resulting blaze, which was fueled by the ship’s lavish wood carvings, staircases, and paneled rooms.
- Two thousand tons of aluminum were used in the construction and outfitting of the SS United States, making the ship lighter and more fire-resistant than any vessel afloat. The furniture and artwork, including these panels, were all made of aluminum. Publicists for the ship claimed that the only wood on board was to be found in the galley’s chopping blocks and in the piano. Gibbs even tried to reduce this miniscule amount of wood, but Steinway & Sons allegedly refused to build an aluminum piano. To this day, the SS United States is considered the fastest and one of the safest ships ever put to sea.
- date made
- 1952
- SS United States built and launched
- 1952
- naval architect of SS United States
- Gibbs, William Francis
- painter
- Wendell, Raymond John
- ID Number
- TR*336767.154
- catalog number
- 336767.154
- accession number
- 1978.2219
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Call out the Donuteers * [sic] [advertisement]
- Summary
- Advertisement consists of cartoon panels indicating how doughnuts helped boost morale during World War II, both on the warfront and home front
- Cite as
- Sally L. Steinberg Collection of Doughnut Ephemera, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1941
- 1945
- Item undated
- 20th century
- 1900-1950
- donor
- Steinberg, Sally L (Sally Levitt)
- advertiser
- Doughnut Corporation of America
- Subject
- Mayflower Doughnuts
- Local number
- AC0439-0000053.tif (AC Scan)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
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