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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Thomas Moran
Closed January 11, 1998

This first retrospective of Moran's works included 97 paintings and watercolors and 17 photographs. Some of the watercolors were lent by the National Park Service as part of the 125th anniversary celebration of the creation of Yellowstone National Park.

Sheer, vertical, cliffs, brightly lit in cream white and rust orange by the low sun, tower over a band of people riding horses into the distance in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The glowing cliffs dominate the upper right quadrant of the painting. They lighten from burnt orange along the jagged tops to flame orange down the steep sides, and are and warm, parchment white near the earth. One tall, narrow promontory to our right looms over a range of lower, rounded cliffs. As the cliffs move into the distance, they are shrouded with a lavender-purple haze. The land closest to us dips into a shallow valley at the bottom center of the composition, leading away from us. The dirt-packed earth is dotted with pine-green, scrubby bushes and vegetation and a grove of low, gnarled trees a short distance to our right. One chestnut-brown horse walks along the path at the bottom center of the composition, lagging behind a cluster of at least two dozen horses and riders winding into the distance. The horses range from ivory white to tawny brown and charcoal gray. The riders are loosely painted so some details are indistinct, but they all seem to have brown skin and dark hair. They wear feathered headdresses and garments in teal blue, fawn brown, or golden yellow. They ride over a low hill toward a crystal-blue river, and then back along a flat expanse toward a row of minuscule, triangular tepees lining the horizon in the deep distance. The horizon comes halfway up the composition, and the tepees are backed by a row of rose-pink, flat-topped cliffs. A pale yellow disk hangs low in the sky, over the distant cliffs. The sky above deepens from soft, lilac purple along the horizon to ice and sapphire blue along the top. A few wispy clouds are burnished orange in the sunlight. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “TYMoran 1881,” with the T, Y, and M overlapping to make a monogram.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment
Closed December 14, 1997
Winslow Homer and the Civil War
Closed September 21, 1997
Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia
Closed September 28, 1997
Thirty-Five Years at Crown Point Press
Closed September 1, 1997
Drawings of Landscape and Architecture from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed November 9, 1997
The image is a sketch depicting a rural scene. The point of view presents a path curving away from us and extending into the distance, flanked by fields. The horizon is marked by a line of trees. The sketch uses light pencil work with faint shading and outline. Close to us, a figure with an animal walks along the path. Sparse details on the left show fields, while to the right, a tree and fence posts create a boundary. The color palette is monochromatic, using natural tones and shadows of pencil on paper.
Picasso
Closed July 27, 1997
Alexander Calder
Closed July 6, 1997
The Victorians
Closed May 11, 1997
We look slightly down at a woman with pale skin and two men with ruddy complexions sitting at a table near a railing overlooking a boat-clogged waterway in this horizontal painting. Only the corner of the table is visible in the lower right corner of the canvas. The woman sits next to one man on the far side of the table, and the third person leans onto the table from our right, along the edge of the composition. The table is covered with a dark, ruby-red, floral cloth. The red-haired woman wears a dark green dress and leans back, extending her right arm along the railing. Her back is to the river below, and she gazes directly ahead, to our right. The dark-haired, bearded man sitting to her left, our right, leans toward the cleanshaven, dark-haired man sitting across from him. That second man wears a cap, and he has a prominent nose and square jaw. Sailboats, rowboats, a steamship, and vessels of every size occupy much of the waterway. Rows of buildings extend along the river to our left and right, and trees line the distant horizon at the center of the painting. The river is a tan color and the pale blue sky is hazy.
Six Centuries/Six Artists
Closed May 4, 1997
The image shows a woman reclining on her side with a large yellow hat and a thoughtful expression. She is accompanied by a small dog and surrounded by playing cards on a red ground. The background features a pattern of pink and white florals.
Splendors of Imperial China
Closed April 6, 1997
Figure Studies and Compositional Drawings from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed May 11, 1997

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