Sneak Peek from the Stacks: Outdoor Sculpture in DC

You don’t have to wait for the American Art Museum’s visitor hours to see some of the artwork in our permanent collection. Keeping watch outside the Reynolds Center are Roy Lichtenstein’s “Modern Head” and Luis Jimenez’s “Vaquero,” on the South and North sides, respectively. Further afield, near DC’s Embassy Row, you’ll find Jerome Connor’s sculpture of Robert Emmet.

Jerome Connor, "Robert Emmet", 1916

Emmet was an Irish revolutionist and a member of the United Irishmen’s Party. From our Art Inventories:

This sculpture was commissioned by American citizens of Irish ancestry in commemoration of the struggle for independence of Ireland. It was presented to the Smithsonian Institution in 1917 and originally stood in the main rotunda of the National Museum of Natural History until it was replaced with the elephant. The sculpture was then placed in storage until 1966. On April 22, 1966, it was dedicated at its present site on Massachusetts Avenue in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rebellion uprising for Irish independence.

There are tons of ‘hidden’ sculptures in and around DC -- just keyword search ‘outdoor sculpture’ in the Art Inventories.

-- Rachel Brooks, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Photograph Archives