The National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum are housed in a 19th-century National Historic Landmark building located in the vibrant Penn Quarter neighborhood. The building also houses two innovative public spaces—the Luce Foundation Center for American Art, where visitors can browse works of art in a visible storage facility, and the Lunder Conservation Center.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the nation’s people from the Colonial period to today. The museum is a center for the study, enjoyment and preservation of the country’s rich artistic and cultural heritage.

Luce Foundation Center for American Art

This public space is imaginatively designed to serve as a study center and a visible art storage facility. More than 3,300 artworks from the museum’s collections—including paintings, sculptures, craft and folk art objects—are on display in a three-story, skylit space. Programs, such as scavenger hunts, audio tours, sketching workshops, the “Art + Coffee” tour and free Wi-Fi, are available in the Luce Center.

For Families

At the third-floor information desk, pick up the Luce Foundation Center’s scavenger hunt and follow clues to discover artworks or to play a new text-message mystery game, “The Case of the Missing Artwork.” At the information desks on the main floor, ask about free programs such as Art à la Cart, artist demonstrations, performances and a monthly Family Day.

First Floor

Galleries on the first floor display artworks that embrace the democratic spirit, including photography and folk art. Paintings by Edward Hopper entice visitors to the “American Experience” introductory galleries near the lobby. These galleries, filled with landscapes including 19th-century and 20th-century paintings and sculpture, explore the defining role of land in the American imagination. Fifty images selected from photographer Lee Friedlander’s series The American Monument (1963-2001), an invaluable exploration and commemoration of the nation’s public sculpture, are also on display.

In the adjoining “Folk Art” galleries is James Hampton’s The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, a visionary and intensely religious work made from salvaged furniture and other found items.

Second Floor

“American Art Through 1940” links artworks, such as Frederic Auguste Bartholdi’s model for the Statue of Liberty and John Singer Sargent’s Gilded Age portraits, to American historical periods, dating from the founding of the Colonies to the New Deal era.

See the monumental paintings of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon by Thomas Moran (1837-1926) that inspired Congress to create the country’s first national park at Yellowstone in 1872.

Third Floor

Modern and contemporary artworks are located on the top floor. Visit the “Lincoln Gallery” to see Jenny Holzer’s stunning column of light and text titled For SAAM and David Hockney’s Snails Space With Vari-Lites, “Painting as Performance” and Nam June Paik’s Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii.

Special Exhibitions

“Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Remembering the Running Fence” (April 2-Sept. 26). Learn how the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, against nearly insurmountable odds, created this temporary artwork, a 24.5-mile-long, 18-foot-high fabric and steel pole fence, and experience the excitement that lives on in the memories of the people who saw it.

“Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg” (July 2-Jan. 2, 2011). The first major exhibition to explore in-depth the connections between Norman Rockwell’s images of American life and the movies. Two of America’s best-known modern filmmakers recognized a kindred spirit in Rockwell and formed significant collections of his work. In their work, Lucas, Spielberg and Rockwell perpetuate ideas about love of country, personal honor and the value of family. More than 50 rarely seen Rockwell paintings and drawings from these two private collections are on view.

“John Gossage: The Pond” (Aug. 27-Jan. 17, 2011). John Gossage photographed a small, unnamed pond between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore from 1981 to 1985 for his work The Pond. The title is intended to evoke Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.

“Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow” (Nov. 19-May 8, 2011). Rockman’s witty depictions of the natural world are an amalgam of historical research, scientific observation and an unbridled imagination.

Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard

The light-filled courtyard with its wavy glass canopy is a downtown oasis that features interior landscaping, a cafe and free Wi-Fi access.

Lunder Conservation Center

The two museums share the conservation center, located on the third- and fourth-floor mezzanines. The center offers a unique, behind-the-scenes view through floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the techniques that American Art and Portrait Gallery conservators use to examine, treat and preserve paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and other works of art. Ask at the information desks about weekly behind-the-scenes tours and other special programs.

Fun for students: goSmithsonian.com/SIConnections

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