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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The Streets of New York
Closed January 15, 2007
Selections from the Collection of Edward R. Broida
Closed November 12, 2006
Alexandre-Louis-Marie Charpentier (1856-1909)
Closed December 31, 2006
Henri Rousseau
Closed October 15, 2006
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.
Gauguin Drawings from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed November 27, 2006
Charles Sheeler
Closed August 27, 2006
The Poetry of Light
Closed October 1, 2006
Shown from the chest up, a young woman with pale, smooth skin and dressed in a light blue gown holds a paint brush and palette in this vertical pastel drawing. The woman’s body is angled to our right. She turns her head back to our left but then looks back off to our right from the corners of her eyes under faint brows. Her wide-set eyes are gray, her nose long and straight, and her delicate pink lips are closed in a slight smile. Her curly, ash-blond hair sweeps back from her forehead to gather in a braid across the crown of her head. Soft, loose tendrils frame her round face, which has touches of ice-blue shadows at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Sky-blue and white flowers with mint-green leaves adorn her hair to our left, and two touches of royal blue near her ear on our right suggests a ribbon. Gleaming white pearl earrings hang from her ears. Her dress is created with filmy layers of arctic blue, taupe, white, and pale pink. The gown has a deep, V-shaped neckline, and a long sleeve is turned back from the wrist we can see. In that hand, she holds the wooden paintbrush at about chest height, and it extends off the right edge of the sheet. In the lower right corner of the composition, the thumb of her other hand hooks through a hole in the palette, which has daubs of pink and white. The corner of a blank easel is visible over her shoulder to our right. The background is mouse gray tinged with the blue of the paper on which it is drawn.
Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections
Closed January 2, 2007
This painting depicts a busy scene on a frozen river or lake, filled with a crowd of people. The horizon is in the center, showing boats and low buildings in the distance. Closer to us, many people are engaged in different activities on the ice. Some ride in a horse-drawn sled, while others play a game with long sticks and small round balls. The people wear colorful clothing in shades of red, blue, yellow, green, and black. Some of the women wear elaborate gowns with ruffled collars, while the men wear colorful suits and wide-brimmed hats. Other people wear simpler jackets and trousers. A few dogs run on the ice among the crowds. Aside from the colorful clothing, the color palette is mostly shades of cream, light gray, and pale blue.
Photographic Discoveries
Closed July 30, 2006
Amorous Intrigues and Painterly Refinement
Closed May 21, 2006
Dada
Closed May 14, 2006

A multimedia installation that traced the history of the Dada movement. Organized around the movement's major city centers of Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, and Paris, 448 works were presented such as collages, photographs, prints, drawings, paintings, posters, films, and more.

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