A man is watching a badly filmed video. The picture quality is poor. The camera operator zooms the long lens into focus, then shakily pulls back again to reveal the plastic dashboard of a white van. It is early morning.

For an artist who jokingly claims to suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, the retrospective of William Wegman’s artistic output, currently on show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, demonstrates a remarkably sustained and consistent exploration of ideas over a period of almost four decades.

As the last words of Dutch Schulz infamously testify, pets have a prominent place in our subconscious (‘Oh, Oh dog Biscuit, and when he is happy he doesn’t get snappy…’)