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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Guercino: Master Painter of the Baroque
Closed May 17, 1992
A nude woman with pale pink skin reclines under cream-white sheets in a bed as she reaches for the cloak of a man with light skin standing in front of the bed, who leans away with arms raised in this horizontal painting. The mattress runs along the bottom edge of the canvas, and the man is shown from the knees up. The woman’s bare torso faces us, hips stacked, as she turns her face to our right in profile, looking at the man. She props her body up with her right elbow, to our left, on a mauve-pink pillow. With that hand, she clutches the end of the man’s royal-blue cloak. With her other hand, she reaches with palm up across the body of the man toward his face. Her strawberry-blond hair is pulled back under a muted red ribbon, woven with pearls, and gathered at the nape of her neck. Soft curls frame her forehead and temple. A teardrop pearl earring dangles from her right earlobe. Her nose is long and slender, and her small, pale peach lips are slightly parted. The man’s body is angled toward the woman, to our left, but he twists and leans away, to our right. With elbow raised, he grips her extended forearm with his right hand, to our left. He raises his other arm with his palm out. He looks up with brown eyes under raised brows. His mouth is open and his head tipped sharply away from the woman so his chin-length, wavy, brown hair hangs by his face. He wears an ochre-yellow, thigh-length tunic over a white shirt. A thin olive-colored belt is tied in a bow at his waist. His vivid blue cloak wraps over his right upper arm, farther from us, around his torso and hips, and is pulled by the woman. Rose-pink, shiny curtains frame the scene in the upper corners, and beyond, the background is swallowed in shadow.
John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo
Closed August 2, 1992
The Saint Anne Altarpiece by Gerard David
Closed May 10, 1992
Walker Evans
Closed March 1, 1992
The image depicts a close-up of two individuals sitting closely together, showing only their upper bodies and faces. On the left, a man is wearing a dark suit, white shirt, patterned tie, and a dark hat. The person on the right is a child wearing a coat, brimmed hat, and a scarf tied under the chin. A third person is partially visible reading a newspaper, and their hat is also dark. The background shows a window with blurred lights outside, indicating an evening or nighttime setting. The image has a monochrome tone.
Italian Drawings from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed May 10, 1992
Drawn with brown ink and shaded with tan washes on cream-white paper, two bearded men wearing robes, with a smaller, nude, winged boy between them, fill this vertical drawing. At the center top of the paper, the angel faces us, gazing down to our left with open mouth and eyebrows drawn together. He has curly hair and lifts his muscular right arm, on our left, with his index finger pointed upward. Crosshatched lines define his body, and quick, curved lines shade his outstretched wings. To our right, one man stands with his body facing the center of the sheet but he turns his head to look up off the top right corner. He has curling hair, a wide mustache, and perhaps a goatee, though his chin is partially hidden by a dark spot on the paper. He has broad shoulders, a thick neck, large hands, and a hint of a muscular leg under his flowing, voluminous robes. He holds a flat, oblong object, possibly a stone tablet, perched on his slightly bent left knee. Seated to our left, the other man faces and looks at us. He also grasps a flat, tablet-like object but holds it up, braced on his right thigh, to our left, and points to it with his other hand. This man also is solidly built and swathed in robes, with a hood over his curly hair. He leans forward, knees apart, and stares out with his brows deeply furrowed. His downturned mouth is set in a bushy, curly beard. Near the bottom of the picture, the bare feet of the two men emerge from the folds of their robes. Touches of white washes on the folds of the robes create a sense of light coming from above and to our right, and charcoal lines reinforce the shadows. A grid is lightly drawn in red chalk lines over the composition. A black stamp in the lower left has the letters “E.C” and another at the center reads, “H de T. STAT.”
Albert Bierstadt
Closed February 17, 1992
Circa 1492
Art in the Age of Exploration
Closed January 12, 1992
This print shows a medieval town surrounded by green trees and tall, jagged gray rocks. The horizon is high in the image, with a tan-colored sky meeting green rolling hills in the distance. Closest to us, there are clusters of buildings enclosed by stone walls, with tall bridges leading over a wide river in the bottom left. The roofs of the structures are painted in bright colors, predominantly red and blue, standing out against the natural greens of the surrounding foliage and the beige stone buildings. Winding tan roads lead through the town, passing by more structures with pointed towers. Larger castles and rock formations are in the background, with tall towers and turrets. There is a strip of blue at the very top of the sky, and above the top edge of the print is a line of text.
Rembrandt's Lucretias
Closed January 5, 1992
Shown from the thighs up, a pale-skinned woman looks down and off to our left as she holds the pointed end of a dagger toward her chest in this vertical painting. Her lips are slightly parted, and her arms are spread wide as holds the hilt of the dagger in her right hand, to our left. Her hooded, dark brown eyes are rimmed with red. Her head tilts to our left, her pale lips parted. There are gray shadows at the corners of her mouth and along her jawline. Her brown hair is pulled back under a cloth covering painted with white flecks to suggest shiny thread or possibly jewels. She wears a long, tawny-brown gown with diaphanous sleeves. The bodice is laced up over a cream-white undergarment with a deep V neck and voluminous sleeves with unfastened cuffs near her wrists. She wears a large, teardrop-shaped pearl in the ear we can see and two necklaces. One necklace is a strand of pearls, and the other is a gold and possibly jeweled pendant with another teardrop pearl hanging from a cord. A gold belt drapes around her hips over a narrow waist. She is warmly lit from the upper left and set against an earth-brown background. The artist signed and dated the center left, “Rembrandt 1664.”
Graphicstudio
Closed January 5, 1992
Soap Bubbles of Jean-Siméon Chardin
Closed September 2, 1991
A young man and child, both with pale skin, are framed within the rectangular opening of a stone window in this vertical painting. At the center, the young man leans toward us over his forearms, which rest on the wide ledge. Angled to our right, he holds a long straw to his mouth to blow a large, glistening bubble that hangs on the opposite end. A second straw rests in a glass cup filled with white liquid, presumably soapy water, that sits near his right elbow, on our left, and he looks down at the bubble. His chestnut-brown hair is tied back with a black ribbon, and curls hang down from his temple. He wears a brown jacket over a white shirt. A younger child peeks over the ledge to our right and also looks at the bubble. Seen from the nose up, the child wears a hat that curves up and over the crown of the head. The face of the brown stone building into which the window is cut seems close to us. A vine of ivy climbs up the face of the building to our left.
Drawings of Landscape and Architecture from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed November 11, 1991
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.
Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange
Closed September 2, 1991
The image displays an arrangement of rectangular and square shapes layered over each other to create an abstract composition. The shapes feature grids, textured patterns, and overlaid images of various objects. The color palette includes yellows, browns, muted greens, and blues, adding a vintage, collage-like feel. Dots and swirls are scattered throughout, suggesting splashes or faded brushstrokes and enhancing the abstract qualities of the composition.

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