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Transportation

Wayne Thiebaud, Freeway Curve, 1979, color sugarlift aquatint and drypoint on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Gift of the Women's Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art), 2015.19.3164

How does transportation affect our daily lives?

What can we learn about transportation and travel from works of art?

             Planes, trains, and automobiles.

             Perhaps horses, trucks, or jets?

             Maybe ferries, scooters, buses, or bicycles.

Consider your typical day. What do you do and where do you go? More importantly: how do you get there?

The United States is a geographically diverse and large country, which means that people, goods, and information travel in a variety of ways.

For centuries, artists—keen observers of life—have depicted these modes of transportation and the ways people, cultures, and societies are affected by them.

How have the ways people get around changed over time? Where does public transportation exist, who are the people using it, and what are their stories? What do salty sea air, the noise of a city, and the rigging of a ship really look like?