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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Lewis Baltz: Prototypes/Ronde de Nuit
Closed July 31, 2011
This is a photograph of an old white station wagon parked against a blank wall. The vehicle is positioned on a street corner next to a large, dark wall. The station wagon shows signs of wear such as rust and smudges on its body. The contrast between the car and the wall adds visual interest to the composition. The setting appears urban, with a public telephone sign and a billboard visible in the background.
In the Tower: Nam June Paik
Closed October 2, 2011
Gauguin: Maker of Myth
Closed June 5, 2011

108 works by French artist Paul Gauguin were shown in this exhibition, which brought together self-portraits, still lifes, and landscapes from every period of the artist's career to explore Gauguin's use of religious and mythological symbols. Oil paintings, pastels, prints, drawings, and sculptures from the collection of the National Gallery of Art and loans from public and private collections in Europe and the United States were included. The exhibition was organized by theme: Artist as Creator; Quest for Spirituality; Earthly Paradise/Paradise Lost; Re-creating the Past; Archetypal Females; and Religious Commonalities.

Two nude women with brown skin and long black hair stand with their backs to us at a riverbank in this stylized horizontal painting. The body of the woman to our left is angled to our left with her hands raised, presumably about to plunge into the teal-colored water. The woman to our right unwraps a cloth patterned with bright yellow flowers on a deep purple background from her waist. Between the women and farther away, a bare-chested man, also with brown skin, wears a tomato-red garment across his hips as he stands hip-deep in the water holding a long spear. The top of his head is cropped by the top edge of the painting. Along the left edge of the canvas, a gnarled tree is painted as a flat field of dark, charcoal gray, and it rises off the side and top of the composition. An area of the same color, perhaps a thick root or the trunk growing nearly horizontally, spans the width of the painting, separating the women from us. The area around the trunk to our left and right is painted with fields of evergreen and cool mint. Closer to us, along the front of the root, a field of rosy pink swirls with grape purple to suggest sand. This area is dotted with harvest-yellow and pumpkin-orange vines and stylized flowers. A bunch of vivid orange flowers with pine and spring-green leaves sits on the root near the trunk, to our left. Most of the painting, especially the landscape, is painted with areas of mostly flat color. In the bottom left corner, the artist has written the title of the painting in darkred paint: “Fatata te Miki.” In the lower right corner, he signed and dated the work with periwinkle blue: “P. Gauguin 92.”
Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals
Closed May 30, 2011

20 paintings by Canaletto together with 34 paintings by his contemporaries, including Gaspar Vanvitelli, Luca Carlevarijs, Michele Marieschi, Bernardo Bellotto, and Francesco Guardi, were shown in this exhibition, which explored cityscapes of Venice and the styles and rivalries of the artists. Works on view were from the collection of the National Gallery of Art, and loans from public and private collections in Europe and the United States. 2 historical cameras obscura, on loan from the Museo Correr, Venice, also were shown, together with 3 modern examples to illustrate use of the tool in creating accurate landscape images. A 35-foot-long gondola that once belonged to the American painter Thomas Moran, on loan from the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia, was shown on the East Building Mezzanine. The exhibition was part of ITALY@150, a series of activities in Washington, DC, and throughout the United States celebrating the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

Dozens of men with several women and a few children gather in pairs or small groups across a sun-drenched plaza in front of a domed church next to a long, pale pink building in this horizontal painting. The people’s faces and hands we can see have pale, peachy skin. The men wear hats and shin-length capes or jackets over stockings in tones of charcoal gray, olive green, butterscotch yellow, black, and brown. The women wear black capes covering their heads and long, full skirts. The ash-brown plaza has two zones where geometric patterns are picked out in a lighter, oatmeal brown. Three coral-red flagpoles are spaced along the center of the plaza parallel to the two buildings. Each flagpole rests on an olive-green base about a third of the height of the pole. Tables under open umbrellas clustered around the outer two flagpoles display piles of cloth, and a few people gather around the wares. The domed building extends into the scene from the left edge of the painting, and reaches about a third of the way across as it angles away from us. It has a central portal with nested arches, flanked to each side by a pair of slightly smaller, arched portals. Scenes against gold backgrounds appear in the archway of each of the five doors. There is a second level of arches above. The smaller arches to either side are decorated with more scenes of people against gold backgrounds. Four gold horses stand atop the central, lower arch, each with one front and one back hoof raised. The arch behind them is dim, the back side of a stained-glass window. The stone of the arches and front of the building are light brown. The upper arches are lined with pale, slate-gray spires and curling tracery. The three-story pink building sits close by to our right, extending into the distance on the same angle as the church, and as tall as its neighbor. The lowest level is a series of open, pointed arches. The second level is also a row of arches, but more closely spaced. People walk and stand under both covered walkways. The top half of the building has a carnation-pink façade with seven windows evenly spaced across its width. The central window is surrounded by carved stone ornament. Along the right edge of the painting and closer to us than the large buildings is the corner of a two-story building. The lower level is in shadow under a sloping awning, creating a merchant’s stall, and the second level has a rounded, arched window. One person stands at the front corner of the roof and looks down into the square. In the narrow gap between the row of buildings to our left and the smaller structure to our right is a winged lion atop a tall column. Beyond that is sparkling blue water with several masted ships and long, narrow gondolas. The sky above has thin white clouds against a pale blue sky. The artist signed the lower left, “A.C.F.”
Collections Frozen in Time: Selections from the National Gallery of Art Library
Closed July 24, 2011
Larger Than Life: Ter Brugghen's Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene
Closed May 15, 2011
Shown from the lap up, a man with pale skin sits facing our right in profile, playing a bagpipe in this vertical painting. He is lit from our left so his face is in shadow, and he looks off to our right. He has dark eyebrows, a chestnut-brown mustache and short beard, and a rounded nose. He wears a floppy, chocolate-brown beret that covers his hair and the ear facing us. A cream-white, voluminous shirt falls off the shoulder close to us, and a fawn-brown robe gathers around his lap. He blows into a long mouthpiece as he squeezes the tawny-brown bag of the instrument between his forearms. Two long, wooden pipes rest over his shoulder, and he covers the finger-holes of the flute-like chanter at the front of the bag. The background behind him is pale peanut brown. The artist signed and dated the painting just to the right of the musician’s face, “HTBrugghen fecit 1624,” with the HTB intertwined into a monogram.
Italian Drawings from the Hammer Collection
Closed May 15, 2011
Picturing the Victorians: British Photographs and Reproductive Prints from the Department of Image Collections
Closed January 28, 2011
The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photography and Painting, 1848–1875
Closed January 30, 2011
This sepia-toned photograph depicts a young woman sitting in a slightly reclined position, facing the left, with her head and torso propped up on pillows against the back of a chair. She has pale skin and long, dark, curly hair flowing down her shoulders. Her eyes are closed, and her mouth appears partially open. She wears a long, light-colored garment and sits with her hands in her lap. Her legs seem to be covered by a long cloth or a blanket, but her knees seem to be bent. The background features a dark textured curtain or wall, with some indistinct objects in the lower right corner. The lighting is soft, illuminating the woman while the rest of the room is in shadow.
Modern Lab: There is nothing to see here
Closed April 22, 2011
Arcimboldo, 1526–1593: Nature and Fantasy
Closed January 9, 2011

16 paintings of fantastic heads composed of animals, plants, and objects by 16th-century Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo were presented in this exhibition, the first time the works had been shown together in the United States. Included were Arcimboldo's painting Four Seasons in One Head from the collection of the National Gallery of Art, together with loans from the Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna, the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and other public and private collections in Europe and the United States. The presentation was selected from a 2008 exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, and the Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna. To suggest the context for the artist's work, the exhibition in Washington also included 30 prints, drawings, volumes, and sculptures by Arcimboldo's contemporaries, including drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, volumes illustrated by Joris Hoefnagel, and a helmet by Giovanni Paolo Negroli. The exhibition was part of ITALY@150, a series of activities in Washington, DC, and throughout the United States celebrating the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

In this vertical painting, a tree trunk, branches, plants, fruit, and flowers are arranged to create the head, neck, and chest of an old person, like a portrait. The face and shoulders are angled to our left against a black background. The ash-brown tree trunk is the head with stumps to represent the long, bulbous nose, protruding chin, and ear. The eyes and mouth are sunken in deep shadow. Smaller bumps and the rough texture of the bark of the skin resembles warts or other imperfections. Flax-yellow moss or fungi grows on the chin and head, creating the impression of short hair. Branches grow up from the top of the head like antlers or a tall crown. On our left, green and purple grapes sit among the branches and stumps on the head while red apples and pears sit on our right. Ivy grows up on branch behind the apples. Two red cherries dangle from the small stub of the ear we can see. Pale pink, red, and white flowers on the chest make a garment. Sheaves of wheat hang down from branches protruding from the neck over the flowers. The artist signed the painting with black letters where bark has peeled away from a branch to our upper right, "ARCIMBOLDUS F."
Edvard Munch: Master Prints
Closed November 28, 2010

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