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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An Enduring Legacy
Closed February 27, 2000
From Schongauer to Holbein
Closed January 9, 2000
Brassaï
Closed January 16, 2000
Tilman Riemenschneider
Closed January 9, 2000
The Drawings of Annibale Carracci
Closed January 9, 2000
The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology
Closed January 2, 2000

The exhibition featured 206 objects created between 5000 B.C. and 960 A.D., representing 5 dynasties of Chinese rule. The objects included sculpture, ritual implements, musical instruments, paintings, calligraphy, and other decorative objects in ceramic, jade, stone, wood, bamboo, lacquer, gold, silver, and bronze

Mary Cassatt
Closed September 6, 1999
We look slightly down into a lime-green and white rowboat carrying a woman holding a baby and a man in this nearly square painting. The man wears midnight-blue shoes, pants, jacket, and soft, floppy cap. He sits with his back to us, bending forward to row the boat, which is cropped by the bottom edge of the canvas. The left side of his ruddy face is visible over his left shoulder. The woman and baby both have pale skin. The woman and baby sit across from the man, facing us to our left in the bow. The woman’s long-sleeved, sky-blue dress is crosshatched with pink lines. The baby leans back in the woman’s arms, and wears a pink dress, blue socks, and brown shoes. The wide-brimmed hats on both the woman and baby are painted pale celery green. They gaze toward or just past the man. The corner of the boat’s sail, also painted pale green, is pulled taunt by the wind to our left. Azure-blue water surrounds the boat up to the high horizon line, which brushes the top edge of the painting. The shoreline in the distance is lined with trees and dotted with white houses with red roofs.
Caravaggio's The Taking of Christ
Closed July 18, 1999
A group of four men with pale skin, shown from the waist up, almost fill this square painting. Light pours onto the scene from the upper left and falls across the upturned face of the bearded, bare-chested man, Saint Bartholomew, who is situated with his back facing us and his arms spread wide. In the top right corner, his right wrist is lashed to a pole that extends off the top edge of the painting. His other arm is bent at the elbow near the lower left corner, and he holds that hand palm up. His profile, facing our left, is bright against the shadowed background. His mouth is slightly agape, and his eyebrows are raised as he looks up toward the light that bathes his lithe, muscular body. His long beard is streaked with gray, and he has receding black hair. A second, broad-shouldered man, draped in a brown cloak, stands facing us behind and just to our left of Saint Bartholomew. The younger man holds a knife in one hand resting against a black, rod-like sharpener held in the other. He turns his head to gaze at Saint Bartholomew, his eyes deep in shadow. He also has a furrowed brow and a craggy, ruddy complexion. Two more men stand behind him, to our left, filling the left side of the painting. The man on the far left has smooth skin, a trimmed beard, and short brown hair. He stands in profile looking to our right and wears a cranberry-red cloak. Barely visible beyond him, to our right, is a man wearing a gray-green hood hiding half his face. His features are loosely painted and faint, but he also looks up, either toward the young man or the light from above. All four are surrounded by deep shadows against a brown background.
Portraits by Ingres
Closed August 22, 1999
This drawing features a seated woman, her body turned to the right and her head facing us. Her hands are in her lap, holding an object resembling a book. The woman has dark curly hair styled under a lace-adorned bonnet. She has deep-set eyes, thin eyebrows, and a small mouth. The woman's face and neck are drawn in detail, but her clothes and accessories are roughly sketched. She wears a dark dress under a shawl with patterns and tassels that covers her shoulders and arms. In the background, there is a faint sketch of a scene with architectural structures, including an obelisk and steps leading to a building with domes or towers.
Faces and Figures
Closed November 7, 1999
Five sketches in brown ink are spaced around a vertically oriented sheet of paper. In the top left quadrant, a bearded man faces our right in profile. He has short, curly hair, a deeply lined face, a pronounced underbite, and the tip of his long nose points down. Two independent, wrinkle-lined eyes are sketched in the top right quadrant of the page. Below are two drawings of women with their shoulders angled away from us to the right. Near the bottom left and smaller in scale, a woman looks over her shoulder at us with a slight smile on her lips. In the bottom right quadrant, a woman with her hair pulled back under a snood looks to our right in profile with her chin tipped up. The neckline of both women’s bodices dip across the shoulder blades in the back. The paper is speckled with faint brown stains and spots.
Photographs from the Collection
Closed July 5, 1999
The image shows a stream surrounded by dense woods. A fallen tree trunk crosses the stream, with a man seated on a chair nearby. Trees frame the scene, and the overall color palette is earthy with browns and greens blending into the background.
John Singer Sargent
Closed May 31, 1999

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