Past Exhibitions

Learn about past exhibitions going back as far as 1941 when the National Gallery of Art first opened to the public.

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A World of Bonds: Frederick Sommer’s Photography and Friendships
Closed August 4, 2013

Drawn largely from the Gallery’s collection, which includes significant works gifted by the artist himself in 1995, this one-room exhibition presents twenty-seven photographs, prints, collages, and drawings.

This is a photograph of an assemblage made from found objects. The composition includes a naked doll placed upside down at the focal point, held between two abstract arms attached to a textured, aged surface. The surface appears weathered and pitted, with a rough, gritty texture and numerous small holes. Above the doll is a large, rusty blade or tool with a prominent rivet. The diverse elements create a sense of surrealism and contrast.
Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced with Music
Closed October 6, 2013

Serge Diaghilev founded the Ballets Russes dance company in Paris in 1909, combining Russian and Western traditions with modernism, choreography, music, and design. This exhibition showcases over 130 original costumes, set designs, paintings, sculptures, photographs, posters, film clips, and more.

Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina
Closed June 9, 2013

This groundbreaking exhibition presents 91—including most—of the superb Dürer watercolors and drawings from the Albertina and 27 of the museum’s best related engravings and woodcuts. It also includes 19 closely related drawings and prints from the Gallery’s own collection.

Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop
Closed May 5, 2013

In the first major exhibition devoted to the history of manipulated photographs before the digital age, some 200 works will demonstrate that today's digitally altered photographs are part of a tradition that extends back to the beginning of photography. Featuring visually captivating photographs, the exhibition will trace photographic manipulation from the 1840s through the 1980s and show that photography is—and always has been—a medium of fabricated truths and artful lies.

Pre-Raphaelites and the Book
Closed August 4, 2013
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848–1900
Closed May 19, 2013

The first major survey of the art of the Pre-Raphaelites to be shown in the United States features some 130 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative art objects. The young members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed in 1848, shook the art world of mid-19th-century Britain by rejecting traditional approaches to painting. Combining scientific precision, an innovative approach to subject matter, and brilliant, clear colors, Pre-Raphaelitism was Britain's first avant-garde art movement.

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