What's New
Following guidance surrounding the national response to COVID-19, the Interior Museum has been temporarily closed as of March 17, 2020, until further notice, with no gallery access, building tours, or in-person public programs. Updates will be posted to the museum’s website and on Twitter and Facebook (@InteriorMuseum). We invite you to discover some of our collections highlights and digital exhibitions online and hope you will explore more than 50 past public lectures available on our YouTube channel.
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We have been undertaking a renovation project to add more than 1,500 square feet of exhibition space to the Interior Museum. What’s more, on March 9, 2020, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced that after two decades, the Interior Museum’s two panoramic masterpieces by artist Thomas Moran (1837–1926) will be returning this autumn for public display in the newly expanded gallery. Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872) and Chasm of the Colorado (1873–1874) capture the iconic grandeur of the American West and are uniquely tied to the history of the Department of the Interior. READ MORE >>
Collections Spotlight
Basket Bowl
Louisa Keyser (Washoe, circa 1831–1925), circa 1900
Willow, bracken fern root, redbud
Gift of Frona Wait Colburn, 1940
U.S. Department of the Interior Museum, INTR 00335
This finely coiled, watertight basket is attributed to the preeminent Washoe maker Louisa Keyser, also known as Dat so la lee, who lived in western Nevada. Her work is characterized by masterful artistry and incredibly minute stitching. While this globular bowl form or “degikup” was once utilitarian, Keyser’s is purely decorative and made for sale. This piece is now in the Interior Museum’s Colburn Collection. Over a forty-year period, Frona Wait Colburn (1859–1946)—a San Francisco-based journalist, author, and editor—acquired examples of Native American basketry and donated more than 300 to the Interior Museum between 1939 and 1941. Look for this basket and many others in an upcoming exhibition at the museum this fall.
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