John Singleton Copley’s Mrs. George Watson Somewhere between the letters PhD and CSI lives the amazing work of painting conservators. Part researcher and part detective, they study paintings with state-of-the-art tools that help them see through layers of paint and varnish and enable them to conserve works of art whose colors may have gradually shiftedRead… Read more »
A montage of the various activities that took place at GameFest (click on montage for larger image). The opening weekend for The Art of Video Games exhibition was, in one word, AWESOME. Were you there? You should have been! Over twenty-two thousand people visited the museum over the three days, enjoying the exhibition as wellRead… Read more »
Alli Jessing, Joint Programs Coordinator for the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, fills us in on our upcoming lecture series, American Pictures. Speakers at this year’s American Pictures lecture series (clockwise from upper left): James McBride (photo courtesy of the author), Maira Kalman (photo by Rick Meyerowitz), Tony Horwitz (photo by RandiRead… Read more »
Victoria Lichtendorf joined American Art in 2009 as the Clarice Smith Education Manager. Working with Clarice Smith Education team member, Adrienne Gayoso, she has the great pleasure of collaborating with an outstanding group of teachers from across the United States during summer institutes and throughout the school year. Victoria tells us about teacher Steve RayburnRead… Read more »
Family poses with the *real* Pac-Man! And that tyke doesn’t seem very impressed (but his parents sure do). GameFest continues this evening and all day tomorrow, from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Original post
The Triforce Quartet plays well-known music from various video games. Original post
Tommy Tallarico, founder of Video Games Live, reacts to seeing himself at the Smithsonian! Original post
GameFest attendee dressed as Chun Li from the video game Street Fighter II. The Street Fighter series released by Capcom in 1987 is one of the best-selling video game series of all time. The character of Chun-Li is notable for being the first female playable character in a fighting video game. Original post
Exhibition-goers walk past Nam June Paik’s Electronic Superhighway (second photo). The American Art Museum will be highlighting the work of video art pioneer Paik with a show of his work in December 2012. While GameFest is taking place in both our Kogod Courtyard and McEvoy Auditorium, people are also taking in The Art of VideoRead… Read more »
Video game fans are legendary. The audience shows its excitement at hearing Hideo Kojima speak (inset, with The Art of Video Games curator Chris Melissinos). Kojima, known for blending narrative, character development and great graphics, is best known for the Metal Gear series. Original post