Smithsonian American Art Museum Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's largest and most inclusive collections of art, from the colonial period to the present, made in the United States. The museum has more than 7,000 artists represented in the collection. Most exhibitions take place in the museum's main building, the old Patent Office Building (shared with the National Portrait Gallery), while craft-focused exhibitions are
The Smithsonian Institution (novel) to life—not historical figures—and not inside the Smithsonian, as they do in Vidal's novel. The Smithsonian Institution (novel) Gore Vidal's 1998 novel The Smithsonian Institution is a fictional account of the adventures of "T." as he helps a group of scientists in the basement of the Smithsonian create the neutron bomb, and encounters historical figures such as President Abraham Lincoln, Charles Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mrs. Grover Cleveland. Vidal supposedly claimed that this was the inspiration for the 2006 film "Night at the Museum". The film was in fact based on the 1993 children's book "The Night at the Museum".