Results

Dan Flavin: A Retrospective
Closed January 9, 2005

44 light installations and 96 drawings, sketches, and collage-constructions were in this exhibition illustrating the artist's experimentation with fluorescent light over 35 years. The exhibition included untitled (to you, Heiner, with admiration and affection), a 120-foot-long installation in green fluorescent light, which was visible outside the museum from Pennsylvania Avenue.

Gerard ter Borch
Closed January 30, 2005
A man bows to a woman as another man looks on from the shadowy background, while a woman sitting at a table plays a lute in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. The bowing man enters from an open door to our left. He faces our right in profile and has a bumped nose, a dark mustache, and his brown hair falls loosely over his shoulders. He wears a voluminous, black jacket that has a wide white collar and flat, plate-like, starched white cuffs. He bends forward with one foot stretched in front of him, as he gazes at the woman to our right. His hands are spread wide. His left forefinger and thumb touch to make an O shape, and he holds a wide-brimmed, black hat in his right hand, closer to us. At the center of the composition, the woman wears a dress with a coral-pink bodice and a cream-white satin skirt trimmed with gold down the front and around the hem. She faces our left in profile and looks at the man, her cheeks flushed. Her eyebrows are slightly raised over dark eyes, and she has a straight nose and the hint of a double chin. Her blond hair is pulled back under a lace covering, and curls frame her face. A black ribbon is tied into a bow at the shoulder closer to us. A brown and white dog, about knee-high, stands between the man and woman. To our right, a young woman sits at the far side of a table playing a lute. She wears a sapphire-blue dress and looks down at her instrument. One elbow is propped on the patterned rug that covers the table. A second instrument, perhaps a cello, lies on the table, and a wooden chair with a pine-green upholstered seat has been pulled up to our side of the table. Almost lost in the shadows at the back of the room between the two women, a man with a goatee and wearing a brown jacket and trousers stands with his body angled to our right as he looks over his shoulder at the couple at the door. He stands in front of a fireplace with an opening so large that the mantle is supported by columns as tall as the man.
Colorful Impressions
Closed February 16, 2004
This is a painting of a social gathering in an outdoor setting. Numerous elegantly dressed individuals are under a canopy of trees in a garden or park. In the foreground, there are chairs and a table with figures interacting. The participants wear 18th-century style clothing. The painting depicts movement and social dynamics. This is in the style of Thomas Rowlandson.
Alfred Stieglitz
Closed September 2, 2002
The Unfinished Print
Closed October 7, 2001
The image displays intricate, swirling lines and textured shading to create an abstract scene. On the left side are fine lines resembling branches and leaves, with a small figure nearby. On the right side is a large, densely shaded form reminiscent of mountains or a rock formation. The elements come together to suggest landscapes and nature through imaginative shapes and line work.
A Century of Drawing
Closed April 7, 2002
Mark Rothko
Closed August 16, 1998

The exhibition presented 97 paintings and 17 graphics by the artist, encompassing all phases of his career from the 1920s to his death in 1970, with an emphasis on the so-called surrealist and classic periods. The exhibition was the first comprehensive American retrospective of Rothko's work in 20 years.

A Design for the National Gallery of Art
Closed October 11, 1998
Degas at the Races
Closed July 12, 1998
The sculpture depicts a horse in mid-stride. It is made of dark, polished bronze material and mounted on a rectangular wooden base. A thin metal rod supports the horse from underneath. The musculature is well-defined, and the horse is posed with one front leg extended forward and the opposite back leg lifted. The scale suggests it is a small display piece.
Alexander Calder 1898-1976
Closed July 12, 1998
Two disks, one black and one white, and ten smaller red disks hang from eleven red wire branches in this free-floating sculpture, called a mobile. The uppermost branch ends with the white disk jutting out to our right, and the next ends with the black disk, projecting out and slightly up to our left. The red disks cluster in a loose line below, some higher and some drooping down. The mobile is suspended with an unseen filament in a white room in this photograph.
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