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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Robert Longo Drawings: Engines of State
Closed June 11, 2023

Depicting the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the United States government, Robert Longo’s drawings are based on preexisting photographs and video images he combines or alters, translating them with painstaking detail into charcoal.

Philip Guston Now
Closed August 27, 2023
Looking Up: Studies for Ceilings, 1550–1800
Closed July 9, 2023

In modern architecture and contemporary interior design, ceilings have lost much of their original, complex meaning, becoming neutral fields or featuring generic decoration. However, in the European tradition that spanned nearly four centuries, ceilings were where the most ambitious, compelling, and meaningful painted compositions appeared.

This is Britain: Photographs from the 1970s and 1980s
Closed June 11, 2023

This exhibition brings together the work of a generation of British photographers of the 1970s and 1980s like Vanley Burke, Pogus Caesar, Anna Fox, Paul Graham, Sunil Gupta, Chris Killip, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Martin Parr, and others.

Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice
Closed February 12, 2023

Don’t miss large-scale canvases painted for charitable societies alongside smaller works that originally decorated the homes of prosperous Venetians. Some 45 paintings and 30 drawings including The Scuola degli Schiavoni and The Virgin Reading.

Vermeer's Secrets
Closed January 8, 2023

This exhibition offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse, revealing our findings about Johannes Vermeer’s paintings and the mysterious artist who made them.

Sargent and Spain
Closed January 2, 2023
Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South
Closed June 11, 2023

Discover the remarkable stories of inventive works by Thornton Dial, James “Son Ford” Thomas, Lonnie Holley, Mary T. Smith, Purvis Young, and many other southern Black artists, including nine Gee’s Bend quilts.

The Double: Identity and Difference in Art since 1900
Closed October 31, 2022

The first major exhibition to consider how and why modern and contemporary artists have employed doubled formats to explore perceptual, conceptual, and psychological themes. This multimedia presentation features works by Kerry James Marshall, Glenn Ligon, Roni Horn, Yinka Shonibare, and more.

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