Results

In the Tower: Barbara Kruger
Closed January 22, 2017

A focused exhibition of Kruger’s conceptual work of related images of faces and figures in profile over which striking phrases and figures of speech are superimposed. Active verbs and personal pronouns contrast with selected images of side-glancing figures, receiving and averting the viewer’s gaze.

A grainy black and white photograph showing a close-up of a woman’s profile is overlaid with three horizontal red bands with white text at the top, center, and bottom edges of this horizontal composition. The woman seems to lie down and look up at a metal instrument, perhaps a piece of medical equipment, with a long, eye-dropper-like tube extending close to her face. Her cheeks and profile appear between the central and bottom bands of text. Lit from our left, she has dark eyebrows and eyelashes, a straight nose, and her lips are closed. She seems to have pale skin and her hair is covered by a fold of fabric, perhaps a hat. The eye we see is open and the metal instrument points to the bridge of her nose, seeming to close in on her right eye. Light colored fabric behind her could be the uniform of a person standing opposite us. The red bands have white lettering saying, “Know nothing” across the top; “Believe anything” across the center; and “Forget everything” across the bottom.
In Celebration of Paul Mellon
Closed September 18, 2016
This drawing is a portrait showing the upper half of a woman's body. She is positioned facing us, her head turned slightly to the right. Her facial features include pale skin, blue eyes, thin eyebrows, a long nose, and pink lips in a calm expression. Her brown hair is partially hidden under a large, black, feathered hat. She is dressed in a light blue outfit with puffed sleeves and a high collar with black trim. The background is a simple, muted grayish-brown color.
Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt
Closed January 2, 2017
Damien Hirst: The Last Supper
Closed November 27, 2016
This is a painting of a medication label with the word "Chicken" featured. The painting showcases a design reminiscent of a pharmaceutical label. It prominently displays the word "Chicken®" in black font. Below it, in black and red text, the painting states "Concentrated Oral Solution Morphine Sulphate" with a dosage of "20mg/ml" and volume "120ml". The design includes blocks of orange and blue lines at the top, and the artist's name "Damien Hirst" printed at the bottom. The painting conveys a clinical yet playful tone, reflecting Hirst's interest in medical themes.
The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L.
Closed February 7, 2016
Peter Paul Rubens: The Three Magi Reunited
Closed July 5, 2015
Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence
Closed May 3, 2015

This exhibition brings together forty-four paintings representing all facets of Florentine artist Piero di Cosimo’s career, a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, including altar-pieces that still belong to the churches for which they were created.

Two women stand clasping hands between two seated men, all against a deep landscape with hills and a town in this nearly square painting. Dozens of people are gathered in the town to our right, and several cluster in front of a building to our left. All the people have pale, peachy skin. Close to us, the two women both have translucent, plate-like halos. They stand with their bodies angled toward each other, and they look at each other. The woman to our left, Mary, has smooth skin with a delicate profile. She wears a gold-edged, ultramarine-blue robe lined with forest green over a long-sleeved, ruby-red dress. Sandaled toes peek under the hem. An eggshell-white and gold scarf drapes over her blond hair, which is pulled back, and over her shoulders. Leaning toward her companion, Mary gazes directly into the eyes of the older woman, Elizabeth. They clasp their right hands, and Mary touches Elizabeth’s shoulder. They stand close together, so only a sliver of the background landscape is visible between their cloaks. Elizabeth wears a maroon-red dress mostly covered by a wine-red cloak that wraps around her body. Her opaque, white scarf drapes over her head and ties loosely on her chest. Her free, left hand is raised, the palm facing Mary. The women stand on a slightly raised platform as the elderly men sit on either side, their bodies angled toward the women. Both men have faint, barely visible halos floating over their balding heads. They have fringes of gray hair and long, gray beards. Their foreheads are deeply lined with wrinkles, and they look down long, straight noses at their laps. To our left, the man wears a scarlet-red cloak over a harvest-yellow garment with gray sleeves. He hunches over a book in his lap. Three gold balls lie next to him, near Mary’s feet. On our right, the second man wears black, round spectacles perched on his nose. The hood of his black robe lies across his shoulders, over an olive-green cape. The cape has gold trim, and the underside is scarlet red. He writes on a narrow piece of parchment with a quill on a closed, blue-covered book. He braces the book and an ink pot with one hand, and a leather pouch hangs from a cord in that hand. At his feet lie an iron-colored bell, a wooden cane, and a brown book. A single sprig of garnet-red flowers lies on the stone floor between the two men. Beyond the four people, the sand-colored land dips down between the town to our right and the building to our left. Dozens of women holding babies struggle against men with swords on a platform in the town. Four people look on from windows above, and buildings continue into the distance along high, steep hills. One of the buildings there is topped by a cross, and the side of that structure is painted with a scene showing a kneeling, winged angel holding a white lily toward a woman dressed in green, who kneels and crosses her arms over her chest. To our left and deep in the shadow cast by a tall building there, a woman and several men gather and some kneel around a baby. Beyond, the land extends to body of vivid blue water, which leads back to a pale blue mountain in the deep distance. A few puffy clouds float across the sky above, which deepens from powder blue along the top edge to nearly white along the horizon.
Drawing in Silver and Gold: From Leonardo to Jasper Johns
Closed July 26, 2015

Since the Middle Ages, artists have used metalpoint to create some of the most beautiful and technically accomplished drawings ever made with interest in the medium peaked during the Renaissance. Revived in the nineteenth century, metalpoint continues to be practiced today.

In Light of the Past: Twenty-Five Years of Photography at the National Gallery of Art
Closed July 26, 2015
Grapes and flowers arranged on a tabletop in front of a dark background fill this horizontal photograph. The image is monochromatic like a black and white photograph but is printed in warm tones of golden and dark browns. The tabletop runs parallel and close to the bottom edge of the composition. It seems to be made of marble and a striped cloth folds over the front edge of the table to our left. Dark grapes are bunched around a vase at the middle of the composition. The vase's tall oval body and long, tapering neck are painted with decorative scrolls and curlicues. A few pieces of small round fruit, perhaps plums, rest on the table in front of the vase. A gleaming goblet to the left and a small figurine of a young boy with a sheaf of wheat to our right are almost lost in the profusion of roses, lilies, hyacinth, and other flowers that fill the space around and behind the objects. The top corners of the photograph are curved, creating a shallow arch.
Recent Acquisitions of Italian Renaissance Prints: Ideas Made Flesh
Closed October 4, 2015
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