Smithsonian American Art Museum
  Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Morning, 1950, oil, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation  

"Some of the most beloved works in the museum's collection are part of this exhibition, which is a testament to the enduring relevance of the figurative tradition in American Art." 
- Virginia Mecklenburg, exhibition curator
 
      
The Sarah Roby collection was born one night in the early 1950s over dinner...

Sarah Roby, a painter who studied at the Art Students League and the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, was seated next to Lloyd Goodrich, associate director of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Roby told Goodrich about her newly formed foundation and how it needed a sense of direction. They discussed their mutual belief in the fundamental importance of form and design. Goodrich advised, "Damn Sally, if you want to support the artists, buy their art!" She agreed. And so the Roby Foundation started collecting the work of living American artists whose work embodied realist ideas of form and design. 
 
Sara Roby's extraordinary collection eventually made it's way to our museum. You can visit a selection of the artworks in person in our newly-opened exhibition, "Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection," on view through August 17, 2014.

Paintings and sculptures by Will Barnet, Isabel Bishop, Paul Cadmus, Nancy Grossman,  Edward Hopper, Wolf Kahn,  Yasuo Kuniyoshi and Jacob Lawrence, among others, illustrate the fascinating ways, from figural to abstract and from surrealist to satirical, in which American artists have interpreted "realism" over the decades.
 
Don't miss the chance to gain fascinating insight into these works when renowned art historian William Kloss returns to the museum on Friday, March 7th to present a talk on the Roby collection and the concept of modern American realism. Arguing that many of the pieces in the collection confound classification, he instead coins a new term, "RobyReal," to describe them.
 
(If you're not able to make it to the museum in person, don't worry. We'll be posting a webcast of the talk later this month, and you can view the works in the exhibition in our online slideshow!)

 

Receiving too many emails? You can update your email preferences at any time on our website by selecting only the categories that interest you. Simply enter your email address to view and edit your preferences.
Smithsonian American Art Museum
P.O. Box 37012
Washington, D.C. 20013
Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Find us on Pinterest View our videos on YouTube Visit our blog View our photos on flickr

Donate Button