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 362 items.
Page 1 of 37
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
Ricky Skaggs
- Description
- Henry Horenstein photographed Ricky Skaggs (b. 1954) several times as a member of Emmylou Harris's Hot Band and as a memeber of J. D. Crowe & the New South. A multi-talented singer and instrumentalist, Ricky Skaggs's success helped inspire the new traditionalist movement, and was largely responsible for a back-to-basics movement in country music.
- negative
- 1980
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.020
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.020
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
George Jones
- Description
- George Jones (b.1931) is considered by many to be one of the best and most influential vocalists in country music history. His first hit was "Why Baby Why" in the summer of 1955.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1981
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.099
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.099
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
"La Tierra Nueva en Aztlán"
- Description
- The evolving civil rights movement of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s revolutionized the consciousness of young people across the United States. As in African American communities, a new sense of mobilization spread among Mexican Americans. Many adopted a more political identity—chicano and chicana—and explored their history, which was omitted from school textbooks. The Chicano movement sought to remedy the injustices experienced by many Mexican Americans, from substandard education and housing to working conditions. Many symbols and ideas of the Chicano movement were taken from the pre-Hispanic past, especially Aztec history. Aztlán, the original homeland in the Aztec migration stories, has an important place in Chicano mythology. As a symbolic reclamation of their place in American history, Chicanos locate Aztlán in the Southwest United States, in the area conquered during the Mexican-American War. The image shown here, by Manuel Moya, is an ink drawing done on a handkerchief known as a paño. Paños are graphic art works drawn on handkerchiefs by Chicano prisoners in California, Texas, and the Southwest. Titled, La Tierra Nueva en Aztlán, or The New Land in Aztlán, combines the images of the Aztec past with a Pancho Villa-like figure from the Mexican Revolution.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1986
- artist
- Moya, Manuel
- ID Number
- 1991.0431.01
- catalog number
- 1991.0431.01
- accession number
- 1991.0431
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Johnson Mountain Boys
- Description
- The Johnson Mountain Boys was a traditional bluegrass band formed in the Washington, D.C. suburbs in the 1970s. Its members were vocalist, banjoist, and guitarist Dudley Connell, David McLauglin, fiddler Eddie Stubbs, and bassist Larry Robbins. Connell worked for Smithsonian Folkways for a time and Stubbs went on to host the Grand Ole Opry.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1981
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.030
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.030
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
EmmyLou Harris
- Description
- Working on assignment, Henry Horenstein photographed EmmyLou Harris (b. 1947) at her home. In the 1970s, Harris represented the generation of musicians who were influenced by traditional country, rock, and folk music. Over the years, Harris has had a profound impact on contemporary popular and country music.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1980
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.034
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.034
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Kitty Wells
- Description
- The "Queen of Country Music," Kitty Wells, (Ellen Muriel Deason, b. 1918) emerged in 1952 as the first female country vocalist to win and sustain major stardom. Her release, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,"--a lyrical response to Hank Thompson's "The Wild Side of Life"--was a hit. Wells and her husband, Johnny Wright, continued to work a full schedule well into the 1990s.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- negative
- 1983
- 2003
- maker
- Horenstein, Henry
- ID Number
- 2003.0169.073
- accession number
- 2003.0169
- catalog number
- 2003.0169.073
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Call out the Dounuteers * [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
- advertiser
- Doughnut Corporation of America
- Subject
- Mayflower Doughnuts
- Local number
- AC0439-0000053.tif (AC Scan)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
- No Image Available
Albert W. Hampson Commercial Artwork Collection, 1926-1968
- Summary
- Materials documenting the commercial artwork of Albert Hampson, including advertisements, sketches, photographs, color slides, magazine ads, and point of purchase displays
- Cite as
- Albert W. Hampson Commercial Artwork Collection, 1926-1968, Archives Center, National Museum of American History
- Date
- 1926
- 1968
- 1926-1968
- 20th century
- donor
- Hampson, Albert W (artist) 1911-1990
- Local number
- 1996.3060 (NMAH Acc.)
- Data Source
- Archives Center - NMAH
- No Image Available
[Trade catalogs from Bateman Foundry & Machine Co., Inc.]
- Date
- 1900s
- Company Name
- Bateman Foundry & Machine Co., Inc.
- Record ID
- SILNMAHTL_107
- Data source
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries
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