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National Gallery of Art - EXHIBITIONS

Past Exhibitions

Constable's Great Landscapes: The Six–Foot Paintings

October 1, 2006–January 2, 2007 (extended from December 31, 2006)

Overview: 55 paintings and drawings by John Constable were shown in this exhibition, which focused on Constable's 6-foot-wide landscape paintings, including The Hay Wain, View on the Stour near Dedham, and Hadleigh Castle, and the associated full-size oil sketches. This was the first exhibition to display all of Constable's 6-foot paintings and the first to reunite them with the corresponding full-size oil sketches. The presentation was inspired by the recent cleaning by National Gallery conservators of the oil sketch for The White Horse, the first 6-foot painting in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.

A public symposium, An Expanding Vision: Constable and the Transformation of Landscape, was held on October 22. A concert of songs on landscape by William Walton and other English composers was presented on November 5. A Weekend in the English Countryside, a special family event of music and hands-on art activities, was held on November 4 and 5, supported in part by the Prince Charitable Trusts and the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.

The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Tate Britain, London, and The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, California.

Exhibition curators were Franklin Kelly, senior curator of American and British paintings, National Gallery of Art, and Anne Lyles, curator of the Constable collection, Tate Britain. The exhibition was made possible by General Dynamics and General Dynamics United Kingdom, Ltd. The exhibition was supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Attendance:  88,686 (94 days)

Location: East Building, Mezzanine, Northwest, and Upper Level, Northwest

Catalogue: Constable: The Great Landscapes, edited by Anne Lyles, with essays by Sarah Cove et al. London: Tate Publishing, in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2006.

Brochure: Constable's Great Landscapes: The Six-Foot Paintings, by Margaret Doyle. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2006.

Web site: The site provided a biography of John Constable. Related Online Resources

Other venues:
Tate Britain, London
June 1–August 28, 2006
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, California
February 3–April 29, 2007

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