U.S. Department of the Interior Museum

08/25/2026

Happy 110th birthday to the National Park Service! As part of National Park Week, we've been paying tribute with park-themed art from our collection . . . and here's from the start of it all. Thomas Moran's 1872 "Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone" was the result of his accompanying the 1871 Hayden Survey. Moran created several images of Yellowstone that would appear in magazines and in the expedition's official report to Congress. Moran debuted this 7' x 12' painting just two months after President Grant signed the legislation making Yellowstone our first national park on March 1, 1872. See this masterpiece on view in the museum! (INTR 03001)

08/25/2026

If you've been following along for National Park Week, our artistic summer road trip continues! Today we head to the American Southwest with:

🎨"Arid" by Chelsea Bighorn, 2024. Beads, jingle cones, fiber reactive dye on canvas. Gift of the artist, in association with the National Parks Arts Foundation, 2025. U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, OSAC 07532.

Chelsea Bighorn considers her art an expressive blend of her Lakota, Dakota, Shoshone-Paiute, and Irish-American heritage. She built upon her undergraduate degree from The Institute of American Indian Arts with a master’s of fine arts degree in fiber and material studies from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

For her 2024 residency at Arizona’s Saguaro National Park via the National Parks Arts Foundation, Bighorn envisioned producing works that would not only embody “the colors and monumental presence of the [saguaro cacti] and the surrounding landscapes” but also create “a moment of stillness and reflection for the viewer.” This piece, says Bighorn, “serves as a reminder of my time spent in the park and a celebration of the land and its people.” She utilizes layered shapes to convey stars and dyes for the skyline and silhouetted mountains she saw each morning. The fringe, jingle cones, and beaded embellishments are elements she frequently includes as references to traditional dance and body adornment.

08/24/2026

Our virtual National Park Week sojourn continues with this artistic highlight from our collection . . .

🎨"Ancient Gaze" by Jing Zhou, 2006, archival inkjet print, photomontage and digital painting. Gift of the artist, in association with Everglades National Park and Artists in Residence in Everglades, 2025. U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, OSAC 07551.

Providing protected habitat for myriad orchids, birds, reptiles, and rare species like the manatee and Florida panther, Everglades National Park in southern Florida is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. Its brackish ecosystem makes it the only place where alligators and American crocodiles coexist.

For these reasons, Jing Zhou was profoundly impacted by all she saw and felt during her two weeks as an artist in residence there in July 2006. Yet, she struggled with how best to express the Everglades’ complexity. Several pastel drawings, watercolor paintings, and photographs later, her solution was to create this piece combining photomontage with digital painting. The approach ultimately allowed her to integrate multiple visual vocabularies. Says Zhou, “Through a narrow vertical window, this carefully crafted image provides a glimpse of the Everglades at a moment when the ancient gaze intertwines with the present breeze. Guarded by cypress trees, the boundless space of marsh and water forms the endless horizon, where the many-colored ocean and the raindrops of the golden sunset are one on summer days of dead calm.”

08/23/2026

Join us on our National Park Week virtual road trip where we're sharing national park-themed contemporary works of art from our collection! Next up:

🎨"Tree Looking Towards Burlingham House" by Alissa Siegal, 2019, charcoal, acrylic, and oil on canvas. U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, OSAC 07480.

Alissa Siegal is an artist and arts educator who completed this piece as part of her month-long residency in 2019, during which she lived and worked at Weir Farm National Historical Park in Wilton, Connecticut. The park preserves the home and studio of American Impressionist artist J. Alden Weir (1852–1919) and continues to foster contemporary artistic expression.

The tree in this painting grows towards the Burlingham House where Weir’s youngest daughter, Cora Weir Burlingham, lived from 1931 to 1986, cultivating her interests in interior design and horticulture. Today, the house serves as the park’s visitor center and museum shop. Says Siegal, “As I painted, I thought of the landscape that surrounded me and about Weir and his family, who created an intergenerational community of art in nature. The family’s lives across generations felt so tangible and present. I was feeling as if I had been given a great gift—an intimacy with history and invitation to join it.”

08/23/2026

In honor of National Park Week, we're going on a virtual road trip and sharing contemporary works of art from our collection featuring national parks! First up:

🎨"Amongst Friends" by Amy Hook-Therrien and Dale Broholm, 2022, watercolor on paper in a handcrafted ash wood frame. Gift of the artists, 2023. U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, OSAC 07472

As the 2022 artist in residence at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont, Abenaki artist Amy Hook-Therrien felt a strong connection to the landscape, which is a small portion of N’Dakinna, the homeland of the Abenaki people.

She noted, “All of my life I have wandered these woods. I have taken in the quiet beauty, the understated grandeur, the unheard ancestral voices. I have watched the mist gather around the trees, blanket the ferns and fungi, lift and then burn off.” She created this piece to reflect the tranquility of the forest, where a person can stand alone and still be “amongst friends,” as the title suggests. Acclaimed woodworker Dale Broholm crafted the accompanying frame from ash, a tree culturally significant to the Abenaki and yet critically threatened by invasive beetles, the emerald ash borers. Broholm harvested this wood from the park, which has a tradition of conservation stewardship and encompasses the oldest continuously managed forest in the United States.

07/31/2026

It's National Intern Day, and we're delighted to shine the spotlight on our current intern! Carrie recently earned her Master's degree in museum studies, and we're excited that she's joined our team. She's already having an impact on a variety of our collections-based projects, and she's also contributing her knowledge and enthusiasm to our public tour program.

07/03/2026

We're about to celebrate America's 250th birthday, but check out how the U.S. Department of the Interior was celebrating the nation's 150th birthday in 1926! The bronze medallion seen here was specially designed by Albert Laessle for the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial International Exposition. Notice Independence Hall in the background behind the eagle! The Interior was one of several departments exhibiting in the Exposition's government pavilion from May to November 1926. We showcased maps, models, surveying equipment and more to highlight the work of our General Land Office, U.S. Geological Survey, and National Park Service. The 20-page brochure was produced by what was then our Office of Education. Selling for 5 cents, this commemorative souvenir included the full text of the Declaration of Independence, brief biographies of six of the signers, and a historical essay about the road to independence. (INTR 03205, INTR 07972)

07/03/2026

Did you know that some architectural details on our headquarters in Washington, DC, provide a history lesson? If you look closely at the frieze on the southern facade of the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building, you can see the seals of the original 13 colonies! These were incorporated into the design when this structure was built in 1936-1937.

07/02/2026

05/20/2026

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, opening the door to land ownership across the American frontier.

The Act granted up to 160 acres of public land to anyone willing to live on and improve it for five years. Millions answered the call, building farms, towns, and communities that would shape the nation.

By 1934, more than 1.6 million claims had been processed, totaling over 270 million acres, nearly 10% of all U.S. land.

This monumental effort was led by the U.S. General Land Office, which merged with the U.S. Grazing Service nearly 80 years ago to form the Bureau of Land Management!

📸 A family poses for a picture in Loup Valley, Nebraska, on their journey to a homestead in 1886; Courtesy of the National Archives