Art Everywhere

People throughout the United States have voted for the works of American art they most want to see installed in Art Everywhere US, the initiative that will transform billboards, bus shelters, subway platforms, airport dioramas, movie theaters and more into a free, open-air art gallery across the country. The top three vote-getters are in the Art Institute of Chicago’s permanent collection: Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942), Mary Cassatt’s The Child’s Bath (1893) and Grant Wood’s American Gothic (1930) took first, second and third. All three are currently on display at the Art Institute.

Fourteen works were chosen from the National Gallery of Art, Washington collection including Thomas Eakins's The Biglin Brothers Racing (1872), Winslow Homer's Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) (1873-76), and Gilbert Stuart's George Washington (1821).

Art Everywhere US is organized through a collaboration among five major museums—the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York—and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America and its members, with the cooperation of artists, estates, foundations, and rights agencies. 

In April 2014, voting began on the official website www.ArtEverywhereUS.org, where the public was invited to register their preferences among 100 artworks nominated by the five museums. The website has now been converted into an interactive art gallery, where there is more information about the selected works and the story of American art in the United States.

A nationwide celebration of America’s artistic legacy, Art Everywhere US will begin on August 4, 2014, with a launch event in New York’s Times Square, where digital billboards will display all 58 of the selected artworks. For the subsequent four weeks, through August 31, Art Everywhere US will be installed on as many as 50,000 displays, both static and digital, in all 50 states.

Nighthawks (1942) | Winslow Homer

The Child's Bath (1893) | Mary Cassatt

American Gothic (1930) | Grant Wood

The Biglin Brothers Racing (1872) | Thomas Eakins

Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) (1873-76) | Winslow Homer

George Washington (1820) | Gilbert Stuart

Stolen Matisse Painting Returned to Caracas, Venezuela Museum

Venezuelan authorities on Monday welcomed home a painting by the artist Henri Matisse more than a decade after it had disappeared from a Caracas museum.  The painting, Odalisque in Red Pants (1925), was recovered in 2012 by F.B.I. agents in Miami when they arrested two people and charged them with trying to sell the long-missing artwork.  Officials do not know when it was stolen from the Contemporary Art Museum of Caracas, where it was part of the museum’s collection, because the thieves put up a fake version of the painting in its place — a ruse that was discovered in 2002.  Photographs showed that the fake, which experts said was crudely executed, was in place at least as early as 2000.  News of the painting’s recovery two years ago caused a stir in Venezuela, and officials on Monday made a show of bringing it home, with a live television broadcast from the Caracas airport.  When it was recovered, American officials said the painting was worth $3 million.