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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Rembrandt's Landscapes
Closed May 20, 1990
The image shows a landscape with a thatched-roof building to the right. The horizon is low, emphasizing the sky with soft clouds. Surrounding the building are trees, a fence, and subtle brushstrokes adding texture. The color palette consists of sepia tones. In the distance to the left, faint structures can be seen on the horizon. The land close by has gentle brush marks, with a small body of water reflecting light.
Matisse
Closed June 3, 1990
Selections and Transformations
Closed April 15, 1990
Bold strokes and textured squiggles of light teal, muted peacock blue, chestnut-brown, and gray create the impression of a churning sea beneath an oyster-white sky in this abstracted painting. Near the center of the composition, lime-green triangles against a larger patch of slate gray march toward the high horizon line. More green triangles line the lower edge of the canvas. The upper left is filled by a tall, sloping mound of gray and smoky purple layered with strokes of black. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right, “Marin 38.”
Reinstallation of Bellini/Titian Feast of the Gods
Closed May 13, 1990

The Feast of the Gods was reinstalled after completion of the painting's 4-year conservation. It was shown with 3 other Venetian Renaissance paintings and with didactic material, including photographs before and after treatment and other analytical conservation photographs. The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) coordinated a symposium in conjunction with the reinstallation.

Six women, eight men, two satyrs, and one child gather in pairs and trios in a loose row that spans the width of this nearly square painting. They are set within a landscape with craggy rocks, cliffs, and trees. Most of the people face us, and the men, women, and child have pale skin. The two satyrs have men’s torsos and furry goat’s legs, and they have darker, olive complexions. Most of the men wear voluminous, knee-length togas wrapped in short robes in shades of white, topaz blue, grass green, coral orange, or rose pink. Most of the women wear long, dress-like garments in tones of shell pink, apricot orange, or lapis blue over white sleeves. For all but one woman, their garments have fallen off one shoulder to reveal a round, firm breast. Several objects are strewn on the rocky, dirt ground in front of the group, including a wide, wooden bucket with a piece of paper affixed to its front to our right, a glass goblet, a pitchfork, a large blue and white ceramic dish filled with grapes and small yellow fruits, and an overturned cup near the center. Cliff-like, craggy rocks rise steeply behind the group to our left, filling much of the sky opposite a tall grove of leafy, dark green trees to our right. A few puffy white clouds float across the vivid blue sky. The slip of paper on the barrel has been inscribed, “joannes bellinus venetus p MDXIIII.”
The 1980s: Prints from the Collection of Joshua P. Smith
Closed April 8, 1990
Drawings of Mythological and Religious Subjects from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed May 13, 1990
The Art of Paul Strand
Closed February 3, 1990
Expressionism and Modern German Painting from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
Closed January 14, 1990
Anthony van Dyck
Closed February 24, 1990
Light pours over a woman floating in front of a bank of clouds, surrounded by ten mostly nude, toddler-like winged putti in this vertical painting. The woman, Mary, and the putti all have pale, peachy skin. Mary's body faces us with her knees bent so her feet are lost in the clouds. She holds both hands out by her sides, palms facing out. Her head is tipped slightly back and to our right, and she looks up with light brown eyes, her pink lips parted. Her golden hair falls loosely in waves to her shoulders. Her pale blue, long-sleeved, voluminous garment is tied with a navy-blue ribbon that crosses her chest between her breasts and is presumably tied across her back. The ten child-like putti have rounded bellies, chubby limbs, and small, gold or silver wings at their shoulder blades. Five putti hover around Mary to each side. To our left, one putto plays with the end of Mary's blue ribbon while below, another holds a wooden cross near the lower left corner of the canvas. The putto holding the cross rests one foot on an iron-gray ball encircled with a gold band and topped with a gold cross. Another putto touches the top of the wooden cross and gestures toward Mary. Near her shoulder, one putto holds a ring of thorns above its head while another raises a ring of pink roses as if to place it on Mary's head. To our right, near Mary's head, a putto holds a piece of cloth like a handkerchief toward her face while one below holds a larger drapery around its head like a hooded cloak as it looks out at us and smiles. The two bottom-most putti hold Mary's fluttering dress and look up at her face. A streak of warm light pours down from the top center, casting yellow light on the tops of the powder-blue clouds.
Frederic Edwin Church
Closed March 18, 1990
We look through a tropical forest lining a hazy, wide, placid river in this horizontal landscape painting. Densely packed trees, bushes, and plants create shadowed, thickly forested banks along both sides of the river. The trees are covered with climbing vines, and they have gnarled, sprawling branches. Light catches the flat leaves of a palm-like plant close to us to our left, and once we take a closer look, we find two minuscule black birds with cherry-red chests perched on a long curving stem. The vegetation is reflected in the water’s surface into the distance, where it becomes pale mauve-pink and blends imperceptibly with the sky and clouds. A flock of white birds create a long line low over the water to our right. The sun is a small disk of white low in the humid sky amid pale lavender-purple clouds. The sun reflects in the calm surface of the water below, and it brings our attention to a person rowing a canoe, barely visible on the river in the deep, misty distance.
John Twachtman
Closed February 11, 1990
A stream meanders back through snowbanks in this wooded landscape, which is created entirely with cool, pale tones of white, gray, blue, lilac, and golden beige in this nearly square painting. Steep banks sloping toward the stream are mounded with snow. Touches of tan and pale pink suggest traces of foliage in some of the tree branches above. The paint is loosely applied so some brushstrokes are visible, creating a soft, hazy view of this scene.
Frans Hals
Closed December 31, 1989
This vertical portrait painting shows a pale-skinned older woman wearing a full, long-sleeved black dress with a wide white ruff at her neck and white lace cuffs at her wrists. She sits in a curving, low-backed wood chair against a pale brown background. Her body and the chair are angled slightly to our left, and she looks directly at us. She has small eyes, pink, rounded cheeks, and a wide chin. Her lips are parted in a slight smile, and her hair is covered by a starched, sheer white cap that flares at the sides. The ruff around her neck is gathered in accordion-like, narrow figure-eight folds, and it extends flat and stiff, nearly to her shoulders. Close inspection reveals that the dress is woven with a black-on-black brocade pattern and has a line of small black buttons down the front. She holds a small brown leather book tooled with gold ornament in her right hand, on our left, and her other hand rests on the arm of the chair. She wears a gold ring on each hand. An inscription is painted to our left of her head: “AETAT SVAE 60 ANo 1633.”

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