OMAA to Present American Conversations, on View April 10 – November 15, 2026
Ogunquit, Maine, March 4, 2026—The Ogunquit Museum of American Art (OMAA) will present the exhibition American Conversations from April 10 through November 15, 2026. Responding to the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, the exhibition examines how artists have brought their own experiences, identities, and artistic perspectives to the shared and ongoing project of making—and remaking—America.
Artists featured range from figures closely connected to Maine—including Marsden Hartley, Lynne Drexler, Winslow Homer, Lois Dodd, Katherine Bradford, and Jay Stern—presented in dialogue with fellow artists shaping the national conversation—including Derek Fordjour, Philip Guston, Cara Romero, Jack Whitten, Alexander Calder, Dana Schutz, Hughie Lee-Smith, Nicholas Galanin, and Kara Walker, among others.
Across a range of artistic practices, the exhibition considers how art gives form to questions of belonging, memory, conflict, aspiration, and value, revealing the role artists play in negotiating who we are, individually and collectively. Defining “America,” and what it means to be an “American,” is not a fixed or settled act. Rather, American Conversations understands American identity as something continually shaped through reflection, challenge, and reinvention.
American Conversations is curated by Devon Zimmerman, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Ogunquit Museum of American Art. Says Zimmerman, “What it means to be an American has never been static. Rather than trying to define it, this exhibition looks at how artists speak around the idea—through lived experience, contradiction, and imagination—capturing the texture of life in this country in all its humor, tenderness, beauty, violence, and unease.”
Drawing primarily from the Ogunquit Museum of American Art’s permanent collection and supplemented by significant loans from Art Bridges and other partners, the exhibition is organized as a constellation of visual dialogues. Each section pairs two works of art, inviting visitors to consider how artists across generations and backgrounds engage with themes central to American life. Some pairings bring contemporaries together, while others create transhistorical encounters that reveal shared concerns or unexpected resonances across time and place.
Over the course of the exhibition, pairings and individual works will shift, allowing new interpretations and relationships to emerge. This fluid structure—constantly changing and deliberately colliding the local and regional with the national and global—mirrors the evolving, entangled nature of American life and art. American Conversations underscores that the meaning of “America” is continuously shaped through exchange, interpretation, and imagination.
ADDITIONAL EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS
Three additional exhibitions will be presented at OMAA during the 2026 season: Looking for America on view April 10 – July 19; Carl Sprinchorn: All the World is a Painting, on view August 6 – November 15; and Maggie Strater: In her Own Light, on view April 10 – November 15. Additionally, OMAA will present guest lectures by such renowned artists as Cara Romero, and a robust slate of programs, special events, and community collaborations. Visit https://ogunquitmuseum.org for more information.
ABOUT OGUNQUIT MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART (OMAA)
Opened in 1953, OMAA was founded by the artist Henry Strater. The museum shares close historic and geographic ties to one of the earliest modern arts communities in the United States. OMAA houses a permanent collection of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and photographs from the late 1800s to the present. The museum showcases American art by mounting modern and contemporary exhibitions and accompanying educational programming and events. OMAA sits on approximately three acres of gardens right on the water with stunning panoramic views of Maine’s iconic coves and outcroppings. The museum is open for the 2026 season from April 10 through November 15. For more information, visit ogunquitmuseum.org.
Media Contact: Meg Blackburn, meg@blackburncreative.com
