Nineteen major paintings lent from the private collection of Thelma and Melvin Lenkin of Chevy Chase, Md., are on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through Aug. 16. Mary Cassatt’s renowned “Reading ‘Le Figaro’” is joined by major oil paintings by George Bellows, Martin Johnson Heade, John Singer Sargent, John Sloan, William Glackens, John La Farge, Everett Shinn and others. These artworks have been installed on the second-floor galleries of the museum within the chronological flow of the museum’s permanent collection to create a narrative around the excitement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America, a “coming-of-age” period in American art. Many of the works are on public view for the first time.
