Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce The Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce is a research center that specializes in Floridian marine ecosystems and lifeforms. The research is focused mostly on the Indian River Lagoon and also on the offshore waters of Florida's central and east coast. The first director of the station was Mary Rice, who was also instrumental in its founding. The station is a part of the National Museum of Natural History, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, D.C. Its purpose is to be a field station which will draw scientists and students from
Smithsonian American Art Museum Avenue across the street from the White House. The building originally housed the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In addition to displaying a large collection of American contemporary craft, several hundred paintings from the museum’s permanent collection — hung salon style: one-atop-another and side-by-side — are featured in special installations in the Grand Salon. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art, with more than 7,000 artists represented, that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States. SAAM contains the world's largest collection of New Deal art; a collection