Art News

Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Presents "Little Pictures Big Lives" Exhibition

WASHINGTON, D.C.- A special view into the intimate lives of “larger than life” people is given in the exhibition “Little Pictures Big Lives: Snapshots from the Archives of American Art.” This exhibit will be on display from July 1 to Oct. 3 in the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery at the Smithsonian’s Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. Snapshots—thousands of them—are tucked away among the letters, documents and diaries of artists in the Archives of American Art. Most of these images date from the golden age of snapshot photography—the 1920s through the 1960s—when cameras first became widely owned and were used to document all kinds of occasions, both public and private. In today’s digital age of point-and-shoot, instant playback and Photoshop, snapshots evoke an earlier