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Reinstallation of Bellini/Titian Feast of the Gods
Closed May 13, 1990

The Feast of the Gods was reinstalled after completion of the painting's 4-year conservation. It was shown with 3 other Venetian Renaissance paintings and with didactic material, including photographs before and after treatment and other analytical conservation photographs. The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) coordinated a symposium in conjunction with the reinstallation.

Six women, eight men, two satyrs, and one child gather in pairs and trios in a loose row that spans the width of this nearly square painting. They are set within a landscape with craggy rocks, cliffs, and trees. Most of the people face us, and the men, women, and child have pale skin. The two satyrs have men’s torsos and furry goat’s legs, and they have darker, olive complexions. Most of the men wear voluminous, knee-length togas wrapped in short robes in shades of white, topaz blue, grass green, coral orange, or rose pink. Most of the women wear long, dress-like garments in tones of shell pink, apricot orange, or lapis blue over white sleeves. For all but one woman, their garments have fallen off one shoulder to reveal a round, firm breast. Several objects are strewn on the rocky, dirt ground in front of the group, including a wide, wooden bucket with a piece of paper affixed to its front to our right, a glass goblet, a pitchfork, a large blue and white ceramic dish filled with grapes and small yellow fruits, and an overturned cup near the center. Cliff-like, craggy rocks rise steeply behind the group to our left, filling much of the sky opposite a tall grove of leafy, dark green trees to our right. A few puffy white clouds float across the vivid blue sky. The slip of paper on the barrel has been inscribed, “joannes bellinus venetus p MDXIIII.”
Titian, Prince of Painters
Closed January 27, 1991

53 paintings by Titian were exhibited in celebration of the 500th anniversary of Titian's birth. Co-organizers were the Commune di Venezia, Assessorato alla Cultura, the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, the Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e Storici de Venezia, and the National Gallery of Art with Galileo Industrie Ottiche, S.p.A., Venice. This was the first comprehensive Titian exhibition since 1935 and the first ever in the United States. A public symposium coordinated by the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts (CASVA), Titian's Venice, was held on January 26. On crowded weekdays and weekends free exhibition passes were distributed as necessary on a first-come, first-served basis.

A partially nude woman with pale, peachy skin sits to our left looking into a mirror held up by a nearly nude, winged child to our right in this vertical painting. The woman’s body is angled to our left but she looks across her body to our right. She holds her left hand to her chest, and her right hand grips the fur-lined edge of the scarlet-red, velvet fabric that drapes over that upper arm and around her hips. Her blond hair is coiled up in rows of pearls, and she has dark eyes, a straight nose, and her pale pink lips turn up in a subtle smile. A teardrop pearl earring hangs from the ear we can see, and she wears rings and gold bracelets. The child-like figure to the right stands on a gold-striped cushion facing away from us as he holds up the rectangular, black-framed mirror. He has small silver wings and a sash of golden yellow hangs from one shoulder around the opposite hip. A second child reaches from behind the mirror to hold up a ring of laurel leaves. A forest-green curtain is gathered in the upper left corner and the beige wall beyond falls into shadow to our right.
Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting
Closed September 17, 2006

50 paintings by Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and their contemporaries were shown in this exhibition, which explored the art of Venice during the first three decades of the 16th century. Included were works from the National Gallery of Art and loans from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and other institutions in Europe and North America. The Louvre loaned Titian's Pastoral Concert (Concert Champêtre) for the exhibition, the first time the work had been shown in North America. The installation was arranged by theme: sacred images, pictures of women, allegories and mythologies, and portraits of men. One room was devoted to conservation studies of Venetian paintings, undertaken by Elke Oberthaler of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Elizabeth Walmsley of the National Gallery of Art. Titian's Bacchanal of the Andrians from the Prado and Giovani Bellini and Titian's The Feast of the Gods from the collection of the National Gallery were hung side by side to evoke the Camerino of Duke Alfonso d'Este.

Four people with pale skin are gathered to our right in a landscape, their heads bowed down toward an infant who lies on a white cloth on the ground in this horizontal painting. The nude baby has a rounded belly, chubby limbs, and short blond hair. To our right and near the edge of the panel, a woman kneels with her hands in prayer, looking toward the baby so she faces our left in profile. She wears a lapis-blue robe over a rose-pink dress, and a white cloth covers her head and shoulders. Behind her and to our left, a man with a white beard, wearing a golden yellow robe, sits or kneels next to a rock at the mouth of a cave cut into a rocky outcropping that extends off the top of the composition. To the left of the baby and at the center of the foreground, a pair of men wear tattered clothing and hold shepherd’s staffs. The man closer to us kneels with his hands pressed together in prayer as the man behind him bends his knee as if to kneel. The landscape recedes deep into the distance on the left half of the painting with a winding river, houses and other buildings, grassy hills, and mountains beneath a blue sky. A small winged angel wearing white looks down on the scene from the upper left corner.
Titian: The Flaying of Marsyas
Closed April 20, 1986

This special showing of Titian's famous work was arranged by chief curator Sydney Freedberg. In 1983 the work had been lent by the State Museum in Kromeriz, Czechoslovakia, for the first time in 300 years to the Genius of Venice exhibition at London's Royal Academy of Arts. Freedberg then persuaded authorities to permit the painting to travel to the United States.

Alfred Stieglitz and John Marin
Closed December 10, 2018

A journalist writing in 1926 described the relationship between the artist John Marin and the photographer and gallery director Alfred Stieglitz as one of “mutual admiration which, expressed by the silent loyalty on the part of the non-communicative Marin, is heralded widely by Mr. Stieglitz, who seems never to feel happier than when praising the genius of Marin.” These collaborators, who worked, as Stieglitz wrote, to prove that “water- color is a major medium in the hands of one like Marin,” met in 1909 and remained steadfast friends until Stieglitz’s death in 1946. Stieglitz first exhibited Marin’s work at his New York gallery 291 in 1910 and showed it almost every year thereafter. He him frequent financial support. The two shared subjects as well — especially New York City and the natural world — and frequently drew inspiration from one another’s work.

This image shows a landscape with hills or mountains in silhouette against a cloudy sky. The land is dark with various tones of black and deep gray. The sky above the horizon is filled with textured clouds in light and dark gray tones, with a bright circle indicating the sun or moon shining through. The image is in black and white, emphasizing contrast and texture.
African Art in Motion
Closed September 22, 1974
American Art, 1900–1950: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Closed January 1, 1970

Complementing the American modernist paintings and sculptures in the adjacent galleries, these rotating installations feature prints, drawings, and photographs by American artists working in the first half of the 20th century.

The image depicts geometric shapes and lines against a dark background. The composition includes vertical sections with various arrangements of shapes resembling an eye, tear droplets, and masks. The segments showcase circles, triangles, and ovals forming patterns resembling totemic symbols or mechanical parts. Bold brushstrokes and earthy tones enhance the mystique of the artwork, connecting the abstract forms with motifs like masks or tribal emblems.
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