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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Gauguin Drawings from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed October 23, 1988
The Art of Paul Gauguin
Closed July 31, 1988
Four young women with olive-green-colored skin shaded with cool blue stand or sit in a vividly colored landscape surrounded by trees in this horizontal painting. A slender, spruce-blue tree divides the picture just to our left of center. The ground around the tree spans the width of the composition and is carpeted in coral orange, carnation pink, and lavender purple with a handful of emerald-green saplings and tufts of grass. A pair of young women are to each side of the central tree, and a body of water extends across the composition just beyond this bit of land. To our left, the two women’s bodies face away, and they look back over their left shoulders at us. The girl on the left has black hair and wears a honey-orange and pale blue fabric wrapped around her waist. The girl next to her has copper-red hair with a pink cloth wrapped around her chest. They stand by or in the water so are shown from the knees up. The water there is made up of swirling pools of flame red and golden yellow bordered by lilac purple and peacock blue. On the other side of the tree, a young woman with white flowers in her brown hair sits on the ground, also with her back to us. The fourth faces us along the right edge of the canvas. She has black hair and stands next to and touches a thicker tree trunk with one hand. These two women are nude. The water beyond them is painted with patches of rose pink, lemon yellow, and ice blue. Areas mottled with teal, honeydew, and bottle green suggest shrubs and trees lining the far side of the water. Closer inspection reveals two ghostly, pale blue dogs lying on the ground near the lower right corner. The artist signed and dated in lower right, “P Gauguin 97.”
Sweden
Closed September 5, 1988
The Human Figure in Early Greek Art
Closed June 12, 1988
English Drawings and Watercolors, 1630-1850
Closed March 13, 1988
The image depicts a landscape with a broad expanse. The horizon is low in the composition above buildings and ship masts on the distant shore. The sky occupies most of the upper portion of the painting. Buildings with red-tile roofs and whitewashed walls line the shore, with ships' masts rising above them. The brushstrokes indicate a watercolor technique, giving a soft texture to the scene. The color palette is earthy with browns, greens, and grays. Cattle are resting on dark sand or soil in the foreground. Hills are visible in the distance with buildings reflecting in the water.
Titian's Saint Sebastian
Closed February 17, 1988

Saint Sebastian by Titian was lent by the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, on the occasion of the visit to Washington by General Secretary and Mrs. Gorbachev. In exchange, the Gallery agreed to lend Laocoön by El Greco to the Hermitage in 1989 in celebration of that museum's 225th anniversary.

An American Sampler
Closed April 14, 1988
The Armand Hammer Collection: Eighteenth-Century Drawings
Closed April 17, 1988
Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986
Closed February 21, 1988
The curling, flaring petal of a jack-in-the-pulpit blossom wrapping around a vertical, elongated core nearly fills this vertical painting. The flower rises from a narrow base and is veined with white against dark, maroon red. It unfurls to reveal the deep maroon stamen within. Spring-green leaves span the lower edge of the composition, beneath the flower, and billow around the blossom, across the top of the painting. A soft blue and white background recalls clouds in a bright sky.
Rosso Fiorentino: Drawings, Prints, and Decorative Arts
Closed January 3, 1988
Le Repos (Portrait of Berthe Morisot)
Closed November 29, 1987
William Merritt Chase: Summers at Shinnecock 1891-1902
Closed November 29, 1987
Two pale-skinned women sit facing each other on a long sofa centered on the wall across from us in a room warmly lit from the right in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted so some details are indistinct. The woman on our left wears a white, full-length dress belted at the waist and trimmed with a ruffled hem. The puffy sleeves narrow below the elbow and are tucked into long, fawn-brown gloves. She wears a brimmed hat topped with dabs of white and lapis-blue paint, presumably flowers, with a sheer veil covering her face and chin. Glints of gold at her wrists might be bracelets. Her lower body faces us but her head and torso turn to her left, our right, to face her companion. She leans forward, with her left hand slightly extended, and she rests her fingertips on the cushion between them. Her other hand, closest to us, holds the curving handle of a closed, shell-pink parasol trimmed with white. To our right, the second woman sits with her knees angled to our left as she turns her head in profile, looking at her companion. She wears a floor-length, butter-yellow dress with white, vertical stripes. The dress has a high black collar, and a black ribbon wraps around her waist and falls down the front of the dress. Her sleeves billow at the shoulder and narrow below the elbow. Her dark brown hair is gathered at the top of her head. She holds a flat object in the same butter yellow in her lap that may be a matching hat. The sofa spans almost the entire width of the center of the painting. Its seat is draped in spruce-green fabric, and emerald-green, mauve, rose-pink, black, and gold throw pillows are scattered along its length. The lower half of the wall behind the women is tawny brown while the upper half is divided into four sections. A coral-red and off-white wall hanging fills the wall to our left of the woman in white. A framed artwork and mustard-yellow fabric with daubs of white, ash gray, and black hang on it. Moving right, a column of three framed artworks hang on the wall between the women. Next is a large mirror with a gold frame that hangs behind the woman in yellow. At the far right is another column of three framed artworks. The room behind us is reflected in the large mirror, showing an amber-colored wall with large windows and more framed artworks. Steps leading up to another sunlit room are also visible. A wicker chair with a pink and white pillow sits in the lower right, facing the women at an angle. The floor in front of them fills the lower third of the composition and is covered with a vanilla-yellow carpet streaked with areas of smoke gray and brick red. Two small throw pillows with tassels lie at the feet of the woman in white. The tip of the parasol points to a small sage-green pillow with tomato-red tassels lying on the floor between the women. To our left of the woman in white is a cream-white pillow with marigold-orange tassels. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left, “Wm. M. Chase. Copyright 1895.”

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