THE SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL ART MUSEUM IN WASHINGTON DC - SON'S PHOTOS

 Our son was in DC and had about a hour to use up, so he came here. He said I could share his photos when I asked. I will have more eventually, as he also went to the Air and Space Museum. Thank you son! 

I have cropped explanations from larger photos, so they are a little bit fuzzy. You should be able to read them better if you enlarge each photo.  There is older and more contemporary art in no particular order.

Son had to contend with reflections in the glass. He told me it was painted by Grandma Moses. I don't know the name of the painting. When I have more time I will go back over these pieces and provide links to each artist.

I have a more detailed description of the following painting at this link, which I shared recently. If you missed it and would like to see, you can click there.

Ginevra de' Benci
Oil on Panel c. 1474-1478
Leonardo da Vinci
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

Son got some close-ups of several of the paintings.

I am not familiar with those at each side of the Jackson Pollock painting, and when I tried to zoom in on their id cards, they were too blurry.

Except for this one.

This very large, 14-foot sculpture is on the roof of the art museum. You can see the Capitol Building in the distance at the edge in the wall on the left. Its sculptor is Katharina Fritsch and you can read all about her work at this website. 

When I saw this sculpture, it rang a bell. Years ago in 2015, we were on vacation spending a few days in London. Sitting on the top of a double-decker tour bus, we were driven by Trafalgar Square and I saw a large blue cockerel at the top of one of the Collums, on the fourth plinth. I might as well slip a 'Word of the Day' in here as I haven't done one for a long time. A plinth (noun) is a square block, especially of stone, on which a column or statue stands. And yes, you may already know this, but I had to refresh my memory and look it up. There is a duplicate of this statue on display at the Walker Art Center's Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, but our friend here is the one I actually saw in London. It debuted in July 2016 on the East Building’s new Roof Terrance, a year after I had first seen it. Small world! A nice feature is that the statue is illuminated nightly so that it can be seen from a distance.

Thanks again son!