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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Pablo Picasso
Closed September 3, 1979
Self-Portraits
Closed September 3, 1979
Cycladic Art
Closed January 6, 1980
French Romanticism
Closed September 9, 1979
A bearded man, a young man, and five monks stand in a cream-white hall hung with a map and paintings in this horizontal painting. The people all have pale, peachy skin. The scene is lit from windows lining the wall to our left, where three monks stand, presumably talking. They and the other two monks wear long white robes with marine-blue hoods and cloth panels that hang down the fronts of the cassocks. Two monks have their hoods up and the other two have their hair cut into rings around their heads. The bearded man, Christopher Columbus, stands to the right on the other side of the hall, looking at a map hanging there. He has chin-length, dark hair and wears a bronze-brown, knee-length jacket, dark blue, knee-length pantaloons, and golden yellow stockings. His right hand, closer to us, is planted palm out against his hip, and he holds a red hat in that hand. The other foot is perched on a long bench that stretches along that wall. The young man sits and leans back on the bench with one forearm along the bench’s armrest. His other hand rests on Columbus’s knee, and Columbus rests his hand on that. The boy has long brown hair and wears a red cap, a parchment-white robe over yellow sleeves, sage-green stockings, and laced, toeless boots. Two bundles and a long stick are against the wall on our side of the bench. An object on the floor next to Columbus’s standing leg is covered by a brown cloth. A gold chain and a pink hoof protrude from the blanket. One of the monks standing behind Columbus wears a tight-fitting blue cap. A rosary hangs over his cassock from his waist, and extra panels of blue fabric drape down over his shoulders. Four paintings in our view hang near the high ceiling of the hall, which has arched openings and a pink floor. Doors or oversized shutters swing into view at the far end of the hall. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “Eug. Delacroix. 1838.”
From Leonardo to Titian
Closed June 24, 1979

This loan of 11 paintings from the Hermitage Museum was dominated by the only work by Leonardo da Vinci in the USSR, the so-called Benois Madonna.

Grandma Moses
Closed April 1, 1979
Circus and Carousel
Closed February 25, 1979
This is a painting of a pig with a saddle and corn motif. The pig has exaggerated features, and the saddle is decorated with green and red drapery. The pig is shown in a leaping position.
Early German Drawings and Prints
Closed February 25, 1979
A confrontation between a man dressed in full armor and a second hairy, nude man twice his size is drawn with delicate black lines and hatching on tan-colored paper. These two men are at the center of this horizontal drawing, and trees, shrubs, rocky formations, and pebbles on the dirt ground create the setting. The armored man is to our left. He lunges forward and holds an oversized broadsword high over his helmeted head. To our right, the larger man is covered with wavy hair from head to foot. A thick, curly beard frames his scowling mouth, and he appears to wear a helmet made of bark or leaves. He also strides forward but holds up a wooden stick, really an almost in-tact trunk of a tree, to block the knight’s blow. The bodies of three people and a broken sword lie behind the wild man.
Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting
Closed September 3, 1979
A young, nude, light-skinned man stands in the center of a rocky, mountainous landscape in this square painting. The man’s muscular body faces us but he turns his head in profile to our right as he looks down at the coral-red cloth he drops onto the ground. He is cleanshaven with prominent eyebrows, a straight nose, and his lips are slightly parted. He has thick, reddish-brown hair with bangs across his forehead, and there is a red-edged, glimmering, gold, plate-like halo across the crown of his head. He leans slightly to the side as he drops the red cloth onto a white one, already on the ground. With his other hand, he holds a fawn-brown animal skin or cloth over that shoulder. The man is surrounded by tan and parchment-brown, deeply ridged, mostly barren mountains. The pointed peaks nearly reach the top of the painting. The rocky mountains are interspersed with a few dark green bushes. A light blue stream curves in a shallow S shape along the right side of the painting. Peaks in the far distance are icy blue against a sky that deepens from topaz blue along the horizon to navy blue at the top edge. Some puffy and some thin white clouds float across the sky.
French Printmaking in the Time of Fragonard and Robert
Closed January 21, 1979
Drawings by Fragonard in North American Collections
Closed January 21, 1979
The image displays four figures in a domestic setting. On the left, a man with a full beard and curly hair sits with arms crossed. A woman kneels beside him on the right, holding a small child. Another woman leans over a ledge behind the seated man. Domestic items are on a shelf, and a dog lies on the floor. The background has a textured surface with hanging objects.
Hubert Robert
Closed February 4, 1979
This is a drawing of an interior scene in a rustic setting. The room has a high ceiling with exposed wooden beams and a large window. Various figures are engaged in dancing, playing music, and observing. To the left, a character plays a flute while standing on a barrel. In the foreground, a dancer appears in mid-motion. The figures are clustered around the central dancer, some holding hands and others leaning against barrels. In the background, a ladder reaches up to a loft area where additional objects are stored. The atmosphere is festive yet intimate, with a focus on movement and engagement among the elements in the image.

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