The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

located in Washington, D.C. that displays

American craft American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and

decorative arts ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usua ...

from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...

building that was opened in 1859 on

Pennsylvania Avenue Pennsylvania Avenue is a diagonal street in Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Maryland, that connects the White House and the United States Capitol and then crosses the city to Maryland. In Maryland it is also Maryland Route 4 (MD 4 ...

and originally housed the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Desig ...

(now one block from the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

and across the street from the

Old Executive Office Building The Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB)—formerly known as the Old Executive Office Building (OEOB), and originally as the State, War, and Navy Building—is a U.S. government building situated just west of the White House in the U.S. c ...

). When it was built in 1859, it was known as "the American

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...

History

The Renwick Gallery building was originally built to be Washington, D.C.'s first art

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...

and to house William Wilson Corcoran's collection of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an art. The building was designed by

James Renwick, Jr. James Renwick Jr. (born November 11, 1818, Bloomingdale, in Upper Manhattan, New York City – June 23, 1895, New York City) was an American architect in the 19th century. ''The Encyclopedia of American Architecture'' calls him "one of the mos ...

and finally completed in 1874. It is located at 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Renwick designed it after the Louvre's

Tuileries The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from ...

addition. At the time of its construction, it was known as "the American Louvre". The building was near completion when the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

broke out and was seized by the U.S. Army in August 1861 as a temporary military warehouse for the records and uniforms for the Quarter Master General's Corps. In 1864, General

Montgomery C. Meigs Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (; May 3, 1816 – January 2, 1892) was a career United States Army officer and civil engineer, who served as Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army during and after the American Civil War. Meigs strongly opposed sec ...

converted the building into his headquarters office. On May 10, 1869, the building was returned to Corcoran, and, on January 19, 1874, the

opened to the public. The gallery quickly outgrew the space and relocated to a new building nearby in 1897. Starting in 1899, the building housed the federal Court of Claims. By the 1950s, in need of more space, the Court of Claims proposed to demolish the building, however, it was saved from demolition by First Lady

Jacqueline Kennedy Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A p ...

in 1963. In 1965,

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

and Secretary of the Smithsonian

S. Dillon Ripley S is the nineteenth letter of the English alphabet. S may also refer to: History * an Anglo-Saxon charter's number in Peter Sawyer's, catalogue Language and linguistics * Long s (ſ), a form of the lower-case letter s formerly used where "s ...

, proposed that the building be turned over to the Smithsonian."Architectural History of the Renwick Gallery"
In 1965, President Johnson signed an executive order transferring the Renwick building to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

for use as a "

gallery Gallery or The Gallery may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Art gallery ** Contemporary art gallery Music * Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s Albums * ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album * ''Gallery'' (Gr ...

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

craft A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...

and

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

." After a renovation under the direction of

Lloyd E. Herman Lloyd Eldred Herman (1936-2023) was an American arts administrator, curator, writer, museum planner and acknowledged expert on contemporary craft. He was known for being the founding Director of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art ...

it opened in 1972 as the home of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's contemporary craft program. The Renwick Gallery is now a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, housing the museum's collection of decorative art and crafts.

Closure for 2013–2015 renovation

Renwick Gallery closed December 9, 2013, in order to permit a major renovation of the historic structure. The building was slightly damaged during the 2011 Washington D.C. earthquake, and the construction process required reworking of the original infrastructure. The museum reopened on November 13, 2015 with an exhibition entitled Wonder featuring site-specific installation by nine artists. The architectural renovation was led by Westlake Reed Leskosky, a

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S ...

–based architecture and engineering firm and construction was overseen by Consigli Construction Co. of

Milford, Massachusetts Milford is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 30,379 according to the 2020 census. First settled in 1662 and incorporated in 1780, Milford became a booming industrial and quarrying community in the 19th c ...

. Fundraising for the renovation began in 2013, and was completed in June 2014 when local financier and philanthropist David Rubenstein donated $5.4 million toward the project. Smithsonian officials renamed the gallery's Grand Salon in Rubenstein's honor. The renovation included replacing all

HVAC Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. ...

, electrical, plumbing, and fire-suppression systems; upgrades to security, phone, and data systems (including

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

installation throughout the building); restoring the original window configuration; restoring two vaulted ceilings on the second floor; reconfiguring the basement for staff offices and workshops; and adding

LED lighting An LED lamp or LED light bulb is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps and can be significantly more efficient than mos ...

throughout the building. The Renwick's Grand Salon was also renovated to create a more contemporary event space. Applied Minds was chosen to create potential concepts for the Grand Salon. The four other firms which competed for the renovation job and made it to the final round but were not selected were Marlon Blackwell Architect, Studio Odile Decq, Vinci Hamp Architects, and Westlake Reed Leskosky (now

DLR Group DLR Group is an employee-owned integrated design firm providing architecture, engineering, planning, and interior design. Their brand promise is to elevate the human experience through design. A self-described advocate for sustainable design, the ...

Reopening

The Renwick Gallery opened its doors after renovation on Friday, November 13, 2015. Admission is free. The gallery is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The first-floor gallery typically featured temporary exhibits that rotated about twice a year. One commentator said, the crafts displayed "are high art, not everyday objects." Historically, the second floor ''Grand Salon'' has been one of the most famous art-filled rooms in Washington. For much of the museum's history, it was hung with 70 paintings by 51 American artists, most of them artworks created between 1840 and 1930, including landscapes, sentimental portraits, and classical themes, as well as portraits of tribal Native Americans by

George Catlin George Catlin (July 26, 1796 – December 23, 1872) was an American adventurer, lawyer, painter, author, and traveler, who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Traveling to the American West five times during the 18 ...

. Since November 2015, the paintings are no longer on display, and the formal curtains, red carpeting, and red velvet furniture have all been removed. A number of the paintings were moved to the

Exhibitions

In 2012, the Renwick Gallery hosted an exhibition called "40 Under 40: Craft Futures", which featured 40 artists in "boundary-pushing interpretations of glass, fiber, ceramic, wood and other materials challenge the traditional process-oriented notion of the craft medium by incorporating performance, interactivity and politics." The gallery's visitors have almost doubled due to the popularity of the "Wonder" exhibition. In November 2015, "Wonder" opened in celebration of the completion of a two-year renovation of the Renwick Gallery. The exhibition featured nine major contemporary artists invited to install site-specific works on the theme of wonder in the nine exhibition spaces of the gallery. The artists chosen were Jennifer Angus,

Chakaia Booker Chakaia Booker (born 1953 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American sculptor known for creating monumental, abstract works for both the gallery and outdoor public spaces. Booker’s works are contained in more than 40 public collections and have been ...

Gabriel Dawe Gabriel Dawe (born 1973) is a Mexican-born artist living in Dallas, Texas, whose work is based on investigations of the visible spectrum of light. He has gained renown for his large-scale Plexus series of installations of sewing thread, though he al ...

Tara Donovan Tara Donovan (born 1969 in Flushing, Queens, in New York City)) is an American sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her large-scale installations, sculptures, drawings, and prints utilize everyday objects to explore the transformati ...

, Patrick Dougherty,

Janet Echelman Janet Echelman (born March 19, 1966) is an American sculptor and fiber artist. Her sculptures have been displayed as public art, often as site-specific installations. Works include: '' 1.26'', which has been exhibited on five continents; '' He ...

, John Grade,

Maya Lin Maya Ying Lin (born October 5, 1959) is an American designer and sculptor. In 1981, while an undergraduate at Yale University, she achieved national recognition when she won a national design competition for the planned Vietnam Veterans Memoria ...

, and

Leo Villareal Leo Villareal (born 1967) is an American artist. His work combines LED lights and encoded computer programming to create illuminated displays. He is living and working in New York City. Early life and education Villareal was born in 1967 in A ...

. The artists were given freedom to create their installations. Angus' piece, "In the Midnight Garden," featured over 5,000 bugs – beetles, moths, and cicadas – in various patterns in a pink room. Booker's "Anonymous Donor" was made up of old tires and stainless steel. Dawe's "Plexus A1" weaved a rainbow into the middle of one of the Renwick's rooms. Donovan made her installation out of thousands of index cards. Dougherty made his installation, "Shindig," out of willow branches. Echelman based her piece off of images from the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditi ...

that showed the impact of waves during the

2011 Japan tsunami Eleven or 11 may refer to: *11 (number), the natural number following 10 and preceding 12 * one of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011, or any year ending in 11 Literature * ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn *''El ...

. Grade reassembled a mold of a hemlock tree over a century year old. The piece is called "Middle Fork." Lin chose to map out the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / ...

using marbles. Villareal's LED chandelier hangs from the top of the Renwick ceiling. Since January 2016, over 176,000 people have visited the gallery. The "Wonder" exhibition is popular on social media, and the Renwick has been tagged over 20,000 times on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

by users. Wonder closed after eight months and drew 732,000 viewers. It was criticized for being inconsistent with the Renwick's commitment to American craft. The Renwick Craft Invitational is a biennial assessment of contemporary fine craft. The 2016 exhibition featured works by Steven Young Lee, Kristen Morgin, Jennifer Trask, and Norwood Viviano. ''Disrupting Craft: Renwick Invitational 2018'' featured works by Tanya Aguiñiga,

Sharif Bey Sharif Bey (born 1974, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is an African American artist, ceramicist and professor. He produces both functional pottery and ceramic and mixed- media sculpture, using a variety of forms and textures. His body of work r ...

, Dustin Farnsworth, and

Stephanie Syjuco Stephanie Syjuco (born 1974, in Manila, Philippines), is a Filipino-American conceptual artist and educator. She currently lives and works in San Francisco Career Syjuco's artwork explores the friction between the authentic and the counterfei ...

. Since 2011, the Renwick has hosted a quarterly "Handi-hour," a crafting-themed happy hour event, inspired by the DIY movement. In addition to craft activities for patrons, the 21+ event features craft beers selected by Greg Engert of the ChurchKey restaurant and pub in Washington, D.C. In 2019 the Renwick hosted an

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...

exhibition by

glass artist Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement. Though usage varies, the term is properly res ...

Ginny Ruffner Ginny Ruffner (born 1952) is a pioneering American glass artist based in Seattle, Washington. She is known for her use of the lampworking (or flameworking) technique and for her use of borosilicate glass in her painted glass sculptures. Many of ...

and digital collaborator Grant Kirkpatrick titled ''Reforestation of the Imagination''.

Notable artists in the collection

A number of well-known, critically acclaimed artists had works in the Renwick Gallery's collection, as of the November 2015 reopening most are no longer on display. Among them are: *

Margaret Boozer Margaret A Boozer (born 1966) is an American ceramist and sculpture artist, best known for her clay and ceramic compositions, or landscapes, that focus on the individuality, history, and geology of the clay used as subject matters. Education Bo ...

's ''Eight Red Bowls'' Maryland terra cotta and pine sculpture. *

Wendell Castle Wendell Castle (November 6, 1932 – January 20, 2018) was an American sculptor and furniture maker and an important figure in late 20th century American craft. He has been referred to as the "father of the art furniture movement" and included ...

's ''Ghost Clock'' cloaks time with trompe l'oeil. *

Dale Chihuly Dale Chihuly () (born September 20, 1941) is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is best known in the field of blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture". Early life Dale Patrick Chihuly was born on September 20 ...

's famous glass globules float in their sandbox sanctuaries. *

Arline Fisch Arline Fisch (born August 21, 1931) is an American artist and educator. She is known for her work as a metalsmith and jeweler, pioneering the use of textile processes from crochet, knitting, plaiting, and weaving in her work in metal. She deve ...

's silver ''Body Ornament''
Larry Fuente
s ''Game Fish'' made from a mounted sailfish and game accessories, such as dice, poker chips, domino tiles, Scrabble letters, yo-yos, badminton shuttlecocks and Ping-Pong balls. *

Sam Maloof Sam Maloof (January 24, 1916 – May 21, 2009)
''Press-Enterprise'', ...

's furniture *

Maria Martinez Maria Montoya Martinez (1887, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico – July 20, 1980, San Ildefonso Pueblo) was a Native American artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez (born Maria Poveka Montoya), her husband Julian, and o ...

Albert Paley Albert Paley (born 1944) is an American modernist metal sculptor. Initially starting out as a jeweler, Paley has become one of the most distinguished and influential metalsmiths in the world. Within each of his works, three foundational element ...

's ''Reforestation of the Imagination'' (with Grant Kirkpatrick), an augmented reality exhibition. * Judith Schaechter's ''A Little Torcher'', a stained-glass creation depicting pyromania. * Kim Schmahmann's 1993–1999 ''Bureau of Bureaucracy'', which is a "wooden cabinet full of cupboards to nowhere, bottomless drawers, drawers within drawers, hidden compartments, and more, a wonderful metaphor for the labyrinthine workings of government".

References

External links

Smithsonian American Art Museum's official Web site
{{authority control National Historic Landmarks in Washington, D.C. Members of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington James Renwick Jr. buildings Contemporary crafts museums in the United States Art museums and galleries in Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution museums Art museums established in 1972 1972 establishments in Washington, D.C. Art galleries established in 1972 Decorative arts museums in the United States Downtown (Washington, D.C.)