The Smithsonian Institution, consisting of 19 museums and galleries, is the world’s largest museum and research complex. In this class, we will focus on the art museums: African Art Museum, American Art Museum, American Indian
Museum, American Indian Museum Heye Center, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Cooper Hewitt, Freer Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Portrait Gallery, and the Renwick Gallery. After covering a brief history of
Smithson and the Smithsonian Institute, we will cover a brief history of these Smithsonian art museums, the architecture of these buildings and some of the collection of these museums. Each museum has its unique history and an extensive
collection. For example, the Freer Gallery of Art, which is a small museum, has a collection of over 26,000 objects. Therefore, this course will only be an overview of the collections with some in depth talk of a few of the objects. We will continue from museum to museum, collection to collection, until we run out of time.