This exhibition was the first major one of Ault’s work in more than 20 years and included 46 paintings and drawings by the artist and his contemporaries. It centered on four paintings Ault made between 1943 and 1948 depicting the crossroads of Russell’s Corners in Woodstock, N.Y. The mystery in Ault’s series of nocturnes captures the anxious tenor of life on the home front.

With Alexander Nemerov, Vincent Scully Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, serving as curator, “To Make a World: George Ault and 1940s America” is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with generous support from Dolores and John W. Beck, Joan and E. Bertram Berkley, Diane and Norman Bernstein Foundation, Janet and Jim Dicke, Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins, Barney A. Ebsworth, Tania and Tom Evans, Kara and Wayne Fingerman, Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason Foundation, Joffa and Bill Kerr, Robert S. and Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, John and Gail Liebes Trust, Paula and Peter Lunder, Betty and Whitney MacMillan, Margery and Edgar Masinter, Oriana McKinnon, Susan Reed Moseley, and Betty and Lloyd Schermer. Additional funding is provided through the museum’s William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment Fund and Gene Davis Memorial Fund. The C.F. Foundation in Atlanta supports the museum’s traveling exhibition program, Treasures to Go.

Annelies Mondi, deputy director (in-house)

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