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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Berthe Morisot--Impressionist
Closed November 29, 1987
Shown from the lap up, two women with pale skin and dark hair pulled up and back, wearing white dresses with baby-blue polka dots, sit on a couch in this horizontal portrait painting. Both women have straight, dark brows, delicate noses, smooth skin, and their small, rose-pink mouths are closed. Wispy bangs brush their foreheads, and their hair is piled high with long ringlets falling down their backs. Both wear black ribbons like chokers around their necks. Their dresses have high necks with ruffles along the necklines, ruffles at the wrists, and are gathered under the bust. They sit angled in toward each other. The woman on our left has black hair, and she looks down and to our right with dark eyes. She wears a gold ring with a dark, oval stone on one hand resting in her lap. The other woman has chestnut-brown hair and looks down and off to our left with ice-blue eyes. She holds an open fan in her hands in her lap. The fabric on the couch has vertical white and lilac-purple stripes, and is overlaid with a pattern of pink flowers and green leaves. A framed picture hanging on the bone-white wall behind the women shows an arched painting against a sky-blue background. A few spiky leaves from a houseplant are cut off by the left edge of the painting. The portrait is loosely painted throughout, especially in the couch and background. The artist signed the painting in the upper right corner, “Berthe Morisot.”
A Century of Modern Sculpture
Closed February 15, 1988
This free-standing marble sculpture shows a man’s abstracted head and shoulders carved in angular planes. The top third of the piece is a smooth head, perhaps bald, with a curling, pointed oval shape coming down the middle of his forehead. The middle third is the elongated, rectangular face. Closed eyes are suggested by thin ridges carved in deep recesses on either side of a long nose, which is shaped by flat planes. The mouth is delineated by a thick, downturned, upper lip, and a narrow goatee hangs from the pointed chin. The bottom third is the shoulders, suggested by a downward-facing arch carved on the side we can see. The surface is rough and unpolished with a few streaks of gray in the sand-colored marble. This photograph shows the sculpture angled to our right against a pale gray background.
American Drawings and Watercolors of the Twentieth Century
Closed September 7, 1987
American Drawings and Watercolors of the Twentieth Century
Closed September 27, 1987
Italian Master Drawings from the British Royal Collection
Closed July 26, 1987
New York Interpreted
Closed September 7, 1987
Donatello at Close Range
Closed June 15, 1987
The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent
Closed January 17, 1988

Decorative arts from the Ottoman empire during the reign of Sultan Suleyman I (1520–1566) were shown including 68 illustrated books and manuscripts; 55 kaftans, embroideries, and rugs; 51 ceramics and tiles; and 40 imperial items of gold, silver, and rock crystal embellished with gems. More than 130 objects came from the Topkapi Palace Museum and other national museums in Istanbul. Others were lent by European, Middle Eastern, and American museums and collections.

The Age of Correggio and the Carracci
Closed February 16, 1987
In the left half of this horizontal painting, a bare-chested, seated woman, Venus, is tended by three nude women and several child-like, nude, winged putti. All the women and putti have pale, peachy skin. To our right, a statue of a man stands on an ornately carved pedestal on a veranda in front of a distant landscape. Venus sits facing our right and she looks into a rectangular, black-framed mirror she holds up with her left hand. Her blond hair is braided and she has delicate features. A sky-blue cloth wraps around her waist and lap, and covers her legs. One foot rests on the lap of a seated putto, who ties on a sandal. Another putto helps hold up the mirror. A third putto near us, in front of Venus, pulls strings of pearls from a gold box and the fourth, in the lower left corner, lifts a comb and long needle out of a gilded, rectangular box. Two of the women behind Venus tend to her hair and the third holds up and gazes at a teardrop-shaped pearl. A dusky rose-pink curtain falls behind the women and putti. The view opens onto a terrace on the right half of the painting. A gray stone sculpture of a nude man holding up a bunch of grapes with one hand and bracing a tall stick with the other stands facing our left on an ornately carved base. The base is made up of a wide, shallow bowl above a single pedestal foot. In the distance, two people sit against a tall balustrade. The person on the left wears gold-colored armor, a helmet, and holds a long spear. The bearded man to the right appears to be nude as he leans to the side toward his companion, resting his hand and chin along a staff propped on the bench's seat. Trees and mountains in the landscape beyond are painted with brown, deep gray, and forest and sage green. A sliver of white sky along the horizon brightens an otherwise steel-gray sky.
Alexander Archipenko
Closed February 16, 1987
Goya
Closed January 4, 1987
A young girl with pale skin, rosy cheeks, and blond hair stands facing us in front of a landscape with forests and mountains in this vertical portrait painting. The girl looks at us with wide, gray eyes under delicately arched eyebrows. She has a short, rounded nose, and her full, pink lips are parted. Her smooth, rounded cheeks are flushed. She wears a lace-trimmed, sky-blue, scoop-necked bodice that comes to a V at her waist, a full, ankle-length black skirt, and a white bonnet with a royal-blue ribbon, which has a pink rose at the bow. Her long, white, lacy veil, called a mantilla, drapes over the hat, over her shoulders, and to her waist. One end of the mantilla drapes over her left wrist, to our right. The other end is pinned under the back of her other hand, which rests against that hip. One cobalt-blue, pointed shoe with a silver buckle peeks out under her skirt. A small, shaggy, white-haired dog sits at her feet to our right. A low, gray stone wall behind the girl and dog angles away from us to the left. Some plants with dark green leaves grow in front of the wall to our left. Beyond the wall, pine-green, treed foothills rise to meet rocky, nickel-gray mountains under a ice-blue sky with pale, petal-pink clouds kicking up over the mountains. An inscription in all capital letters is painted in black in the lower left corner: “LA S.D. MARIA TERESA HIXA DEL SER. INFANTE D. LUIS DE EDAD DE DOS ANOS Y NUEVE MESES.” A crimson-red letter “B.” is painted to the left nearby. In the lower right corner, the number “15.” is painted in white and the number “5.” is painted in red.
The Age of Bruegel
Closed January 18, 1987
The image features a winter scene with numerous people skating and socializing on a frozen river. In the distance, there is a village with several small church towers. The drawing is meticulous, with fine linework capturing details like architecture, people, and bare trees. The color palette is warm sepia, creating a vintage effect. Closest to the viewer, figures are engaging in various winter activities. Further into the distance, tall trees line the river's edge, leading the eye to more buildings and natural elements in the background.

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