Communications

Tools of communication have transformed American society time and again over the past two centuries. The Museum has preserved many instruments of these changes, from printing presses to personal digital assistants.

The collections include hundreds of artifacts from the printing trade and related fields, including papermaking equipment, wood and metal type collections, bookbinding tools, and typesetting machines. Benjamin Franklin is said to have used one of the printing presses in the collection in 1726.

More than 7,000 objects chart the evolution of electronic communications, including the original telegraph of Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell's early telephones. Radios, televisions, tape recorders, and the tools of the computer age are part of the collections, along with wireless phones and a satellite tracking system.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1915
ID Number
GA.12472.01
catalog number
12472
accession number
66548
Minna Citron (1896-1991) was an American printmaker, whose style dramatically transformed from representational to abstract art in the 1940s.
Description (Brief)
Minna Citron (1896-1991) was an American printmaker, whose style dramatically transformed from representational to abstract art in the 1940s. She became a member of Atelier 17, a renowned avant-garde print studio in New York, and was known for her experimental printmaking techniques.
"Slip Stream" is an etching and aquatint printed in 1956. The creation of "Slip Stream" and similar prints, collectively known as the series "The Uncharted Course," grew out of Citron's interest in the relationship between spontaneity and control. She embraced the inherent mishaps of printmaking and found inspiration in the accidental forms they produced. This is an example of the second state of the etching in green.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1956
original artist
Citron, Minna
ID Number
GA.21150
catalog number
21150
accession number
240678
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.28
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.28
"The Green Calash" is a soft ground color etching and aquatint by Ellen Day Hale (1855–1940), produced in 1925 after her 1904 painting. The print is a three-quarter-view portrait of a young woman seated with her hands resting together in her lap.
Description
"The Green Calash" is a soft ground color etching and aquatint by Ellen Day Hale (1855–1940), produced in 1925 after her 1904 painting. The print is a three-quarter-view portrait of a young woman seated with her hands resting together in her lap. She is wearing a large green bonnet or hood called a calash because of its resemblance to the folding top of an 18th-century carriage known as a calash.
"The Green Calash" was shown at the Smithsonian as part of a print exhibition in November 1936. Other exhibitors were Gabrielle DeVeaux Clements, Margaret Hoyt, and Lesley Jackson. Clements and Hale experimented extensively with color printmaking throughout their careers. They were especially inspired by French artist René Ligeron's 1924 treatise on color intaglio, which Hale translated into English for the Smithsonian exhibition. Clements wrote to curator R.P. Tolman that she and Hale had "been working on an interesting line of experiments in printing etchings in color" and that they had "lately gained better control of the medium, and greater simplicity."
The 1936 exhibition came near the end of Hale's and Clements's careers. By that time they had been producing prints for more than sixty years. Their work was included in the first exhibition of etchings exclusively by women at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1887. Curator Sylvester R. Koehler included more than 400 etchings by twenty-five artists in a very successful exhibition titled Women Etchers of America. In 1888 the Union League Club in New York exhibited the same works, plus about 100 more by eleven additional women. A traveling exhibition celebrating the centennial of these two ground-breaking shows, American Women of the Etching Revival, was organized by the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia in 1988. The NMAH lent works by Hale, Clements, and other women printmakers, and the Museum showed the exhibition in Washington in 1989.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1925
ID Number
GA.17165
catalog number
17165
accession number
142035
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.31
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.31
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.27
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.27
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.30
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.30
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.23
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.23
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.33
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.33
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
ca 1929
ca 1935
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.44
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.44
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
ca 1929
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.36
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.36
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.32
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.32
Le Soldat et la Fillette Qui Rit is the only painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) that Jules Jacquemart etched. His first attempt to etch a painting in 1861 was a failure, as apparently he had been unable to work directly from the subject.
Description
Le Soldat et la Fillette Qui Rit is the only painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) that Jules Jacquemart etched. His first attempt to etch a painting in 1861 was a failure, as apparently he had been unable to work directly from the subject. Not until five years later in 1866 did he make a second attempt at etching a painting, this print after Vermeer. It was considered to be one of the best reproductive etchings of the time. The Vermeer painting now hangs in the Frick Collection, New York. But when Jacquemart etched it for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, it was in the collection of Léopold Double, a French artillery officer, bibliophile, and art collector.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1866
original artist
Vermeer, Jan
graphic artist
Jacquemart, Jules
printer
Delâtre
publisher
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
ID Number
GA.14601
catalog number
14601
accession number
94830
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
c. 1850
date made
ca 1800
graphic artist
Melish, John
ID Number
1985.0303.05
accession number
1985.0303
catalog number
1985.0303.05
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Colescott, Warrington
ID Number
1985.0759.12
accession number
1985.0759
catalog number
85.0759.12
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1879
graphic artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
original artist
Fortuny y Carbo, Mariano
ID Number
GA.14445
accession number
94830
catalog number
14445
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
engraver
Rembrandt van Rijn
ID Number
GA.01459
catalog number
01459
accession number
20802
Title attribution from the British Museum online catalogue. Signed in the plate " DvB in." [invenit]. Vinckboons's original drawing is in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg.Currently not on view
Description
Title attribution from the British Museum online catalogue. Signed in the plate " DvB in." [invenit]. Vinckboons's original drawing is in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
17th century
graphic artist
Visscher, Nicolaes Jansz
original artist
Vinckboons, David
ID Number
1978.0534.05
accession number
1978.0534
catalog number
1978.0534.05
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
ca 1929
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.39
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.39
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
depicted (sitter)
del Sarto, Andrea
engraver
Monzies, Louis
printer
Salmon, A.
ID Number
2014.0250.49
accession number
2014.0250
catalog number
2014.0250.49
"The Red Shawl" is a soft ground color etching and aquatint by May Gearhart (1872–1951). Although she created landscape prints like her sister Frances, May Gearhart also made prints of figure subjects.
Description
"The Red Shawl" is a soft ground color etching and aquatint by May Gearhart (1872–1951). Although she created landscape prints like her sister Frances, May Gearhart also made prints of figure subjects. "The Red Shawl" is an image inspired by one of her trips to Mexico.
In the print, a woman shown in profile holds a small bouquet of flowers while walking along a cobblestone sidewalk next to a white building. Her layered clothing, Gearhart's skillful use of color, and the deep shadows give the impression of a cold, but sunny morning. The woman is wearing a full, plaid, violet skirt and a red shawl. Her slightly bowed head is covered by a yellow kerchief and her face is shadowed.
Gearhart achieved a watercolor effect by thinning oil-based inks. This tiny print is very loosely rendered, a characteristic of the soft ground technique. Although the process of printmaking usually involves creating a set of identical images, Gearhart often printed in small editions, using different shades of ink for each print to produce unique impressions.
The Gearhart sisters both taught school, and they worked closely with two brothers, Benjamin and Howell Brown, to establish and support printmaking organizations in California. The Gearharts and the Browns exhibited their prints at the Smithsonian in the 1920s, and they all made generous donations of their work.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
[1920]
graphic artist
Gearhart, May
ID Number
GA.13357
catalog number
13357
accession number
70154
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.25
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.25
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1930
ca 1928
ca 1931
ca 1927
ca 1933
ca 1932
ca 1936
ca 1929
ca 1935
graphic artist
Totten, Ralph J.
ID Number
2013.0196.45
accession number
2013.0196
catalog number
2013.0196.45
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Huet, Jean-Baptiste Marie
ID Number
2014.0250.44
accession number
2014.0250
catalog number
2014.0250.44

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