Coming Soon

Radcliffe Bailey, NY Rail (Transportation), 1993, cut-and-pasted offset printed paper and painted paper, acrylic paint, and blue crayon on wove paper, Gift of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson, 2023.145.14

Upcoming Exhibition

With Passion and Purpose

Gifts from the Collection of Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson

Details

  • Dates

    -
  • Locations

    East Building, Mezzanine — Gallery 214
  • Ticketing Information

    Admission is always free and passes are not required

See standout works by Black artists from the past century, newly gifted to the Nation.

For over four decades, Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson have championed the work of Black artists. They have supported exhibitions and scholarship as they built a remarkable collection that spans 100 years of Black creativity in America.

This exhibition celebrates the recent and promised gifts of 175 works from the Thompsons to the National Gallery—the largest group of objects by Black artists to enter our collection at one time. Explore more than 60 paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints organized in sections around themes of music and abstraction, figuration and portraiture, civil rights and social politics, as well as landscape and transcultural connections and influences.

Works range from a captivating portrait by Beauford Delaney and lyrical abstractions by Mildred Thompson to a towering allegorical woodcut by Alison Saar and an intricate sculpture of found objects by vanessa german. Enjoy works by renowned artists—Jacob Lawrence, Archibald Motley, and Kara Walker—and discover artists you may not yet know, such as Camille Billops, Vivian Browne, Moe Brooker, and Alonzo Davis.

Curators 

Curated by Kanitra Fletcher, associate curator of African American and Afro-Diasporic art, and Shelley Langdale, curator and head of the department of modern prints and drawings, with Claudia Watts, research assistant, and Emily Wehby, curatorial assistant, all of the National Gallery of Art.