Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne

Start
December 12, 2025
End
October 4, 2026
Location
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 E 91st St, New York, NY 10128
Learn More
Assembling a Discovery IQ PET/CT scanner, 2024 Photographed by Christopher Payne (American, born 1968) GE Healthcare (Waukesha, Wisconsin) Courtesy of the artist. ©Christopher Payne/Esto

Made in America brings together more than 70 large-format photographs captured by Christopher Payne over a decade-long photographic journey to learn more about the craft of both industrial and artisanal making in the United States. His images celebrate the combination of human skill and mechanical precision that transform raw materials into objects as diverse as pencils, semiconductors, pianos, and rockets.

Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne received support from Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: 250, a Smithsonian-wide initiative commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary. Signature support for Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: 250 has been provided by Lilly Endowment Inc. Additional generous contributions have been made by Target and New Balance.

On View

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Aug 22, 2026
Radical Botany: The Politics of Flowers
By
Alice Austen House

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Aug

May 7, 2026
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Sep 2, 2026
Gerrit Rietveld: Wealth of Sobriety
By
Center for Architecture

May

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Sep

Dec 12, 2025
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Oct 4, 2026
Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payne
By
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Dec

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Oct

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum