Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence is the first-ever monographic exhibition in the United States on Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435–1488), the innovative artist, painter, sculptor, and teacher whose pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, and likely Sandro Botticelli as well. The exhibition examines the wealth and breadth of Verrocchio's extraordinary artistry by bringing together some 50 of his masterpieces in painting, sculpture, and drawing that allow viewers to appreciate how his work in each art form stimulated creativity in the others. Groundbreaking technical research explores Verrocchio's materials and techniques, offering revelations about his artistic choices. Several carefully argued new attributions in different media are proposed in the exhibition. The National Gallery of Art is the sole American venue for the exhibition. A fully illustrated catalog will accompany the landmark exhibition.

On the 180th anniversary of photography’s introduction to the world in 1839, an exhibition of some 140 photographs offers an in-depth look at the development of the medium throughout its first 50 years. The Eye of the Sun draws from the Gallery’s rich holdings of 19th-century photographs and features many works which have not been on view previously, including several photographs recently acquired from Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro.

The painter Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) and the photographer Nathan Lerner (1913–1997) worked in different cities and probably never met. Yet they were united by the influence of surrealism, an artistic movement that started in France in the 1920s and sought to channel the powers of the unconscious mind into art.

The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. Photography played a significant role both in preparing for the mission and in shaping the cultural consciousness of the event. An exhibition of some 50 works will include a selection of photographs from the unmanned Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter missions that led up to Apollo 11. The landmark event will be represented by glass stereographs, taken on the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, showing close-up views of three-inch-square areas of the lunar surface, as well as iconic NASA and press photographs of the astronauts that were disseminated widely in the wake of the mission's success.

This exhibition presents technical manuals and festival books drawn from the Special Collections of the National Gallery of Art Library, which describe and depict an array of techniques and strategies. Representing many different times and places, they show how the technology and artistry of fireworks displays and the methods for recording them evolved in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, as rulers projected their power and prestige through pyrotechnic delights.

As the first exhibition devoted to the subject, The Life of Animals in Japanese Art covers 17 centuries (from the fifth century to the present day) and a wide variety of media—sculpture, painting, lacquerwork, ceramics, metalwork, textile, and the woodblock print.

The National Gallery of Art Library mounts this special-focus exhibition in conjunction with a lecture by Professor Bernier on Friday, April 26, 2019. Selections from the Walter O. Evans Collection include a majority of the family scrapbooks, photographic portraits of several members of the Douglass family, pamphlet editions and manuscript copies of several of Douglass’s speeches, letters to and from Douglass concerning various family members, and other related ephemera.

Oliver Lee Jackson: Recent Paintings will present 18 paintings created over the past 15 years, many of which will be shown publicly for the first time. Jackson’s often large-scale paintings blend figural elements of bodies pointing, kneeling, drawing, and playing instruments with colorful abstract compositions and vigorously worked surfaces. Each painting creates a space and world of its own, captivating viewers and challenging them to spend time with the mesmerizing works.

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Ruskin (1819–1900), the most influential art critic of the Victorian era, the Gallery presents more than 90 paintings, watercolors, and drawings created by American artists who were profoundly influenced by Ruskin’s call for a revolutionary change in the practice of art. The exhibition includes a number of recently discovered works never before exhibited publicly.

The first exhibition to focus specifically on Tintoretto’s work as a draftsman, Drawing in Tintoretto’s Venice provides new ideas about his evolution as a draftsman, about the dating and function of the so-called “sculpture drawings,” and about Tintoretto’s place in the Venetian tradition.

In celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Jacopo Tintoretto, the National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia with the special cooperation of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, will organize a major exhibition on the Venetian master.

Completing the panorama of Venetian art in the time of Tintoretto is an exhibition that will present some 40 prints from the second half of the 16th century, ranging from the exquisite etchings of Parmigianino and his immediate followers in the Veneto, to the spectacular woodcuts of Giuseppe Scolari, most from the Gallery’s own collection.