holt and Smithson in their loft

Holt/Smithson Foundation Launches Friends Program

We are very happy to share the launch of the Holt/Smithson Foundation Friends Program, a close community of supporters committed to advancing the creative legacies of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson and ensuring their ideas remain active in the world.

Friends are invited to join an annual small-group trip personally led by the Foundation’s Executive Director, offering a rare opportunity to encounter places central to Holt and Smithson through her specialist knowledge of the artists and their work. In May 2027, our first Friends trip will take us to Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, with a specially developed program of visits and events tailored to the group. Future trips will visit Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels in 2028 and Smithson’s Broken Circle/Spiral Hill in the Netherlands in 2029.

Friends provide vital annual support for the Foundation’s research, exhibitions, publications, educational initiatives, and public programs. As a foundation without a cash endowment, this support helps us continue to make knowledge about Holt and Smithson freely accessible to all.

Annual Friends membership is $5,000. To become a Friend click here and with questions about the program, contact Jess Zeglin, Research Assistant, at programs@holtsmithsonfoundation.org.

Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson in their New York City loft in Greenwich Village, 1964.
Photograph: Hermann Landshoff
© Holt/Smithson Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York

Archived News

a notebook showing calculations for Sun Tunnels

Nancy Holt’s Project Files Digitized at the Archives of American Art

The papers of Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson are held at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art. This series documents more than 50 projects developed by Holt from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, offering insights into her working processes and the development of her ideas from initial conception through to completion.

poster for Smithson's film Spiral Jetty 1970 cropped

Soft Network Benefit Auction

We are pleased to participate in the Soft Network Benefit Auction, open on Artsy from September 23 until October 7, 2026. The auction brings together works in support of Soft Network and the Artist Foundations and Estate Leaders List (AFELL), an international network for artists and stewards of artists’ estates and legacies. Holt/Smithson Foundation has donated two rare works of art by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson to the auction to help further this goal. 

Nancy Holt's "Starfire" (1986) as installed at the Powder Art Foundation, Utah, 2025

“Starfire” at Powder Art Foundation Fall Open Day and Utah Museum of Fine Arts Land Art Week

On October 2, from 11 am to 3 pm, Powder Art Foundation will host a Fall Open House at Powder Mountain in Eden, Utah where Nancy Holt’s Starfire (1986) can be experienced. Starfire joined the collection of Powder Art Foundation last year. The sculpture comprises eight fire pits arranged in the configuration of the Big Dipper and the North Star, bringing the sky down to earth.