A Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition brings together 225 photographs tracing American people and places around the 1976 bicentennial, including images of everyday life in nearby Baltimore.
“Much Here Is Beautiful: Photography Surveys of the U.S. Bicentennial” opened September 18 and continues through April 18, 2027. The Washington museum lists free admission and daily hours of 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The National Endowment for the Arts supported more than 70 regional photographic surveys over six years. More than 200 photographers produced thousands of images documenting communities and landscapes.
The Smithsonian received about 1,000 photographs in 1983. Curators John Jacob and Krystle Stricklin assembled the new exhibition after research into those holdings and other collections.
The display places the bicentennial projects within a longer history of survey photography, including federally supported images from the Great Depression. Its title comes from Robert Hayden’s poem “American Journal.”
Smithsonian magazine’s October 13 feature highlights Baltimore photographers Elinor Cahn, Joan Clark Netherwood and Linda Rich. Their pictures document residents at work, at home and celebrating Independence Day.
Other images record subjects as different as changing city streets, Kentucky communities and the aftermath of Mount St. Helens’ eruption. Together, the photographs preserve views of places undergoing social and physical change.
The museum also provides selected images online and an illustrated companion catalogue. Visitors can explore the exhibition as both an art collection and a record of how Americans lived during an earlier anniversary of the nation’s founding.