Past Exhibitions

Learn about past exhibitions going back as far as 1941 when the National Gallery of Art first opened to the public.

Filter Results

1212 results found

Results

February 4 - April 28, 1996
The Art of Louis-Léopold Boilly
November 19, 1995 - May 5, 1996
Italian Drawings from the Armand Hammer Collection
Drawn with brown ink and shaded with tan washes on cream-white paper, two bearded men wearing robes, with a smaller, nude, winged boy between them, fill this vertical drawing. At the center top of the paper, the angel faces us, gazing down to our left with open mouth and eyebrows drawn together. He has curly hair and lifts his muscular right arm, on our left, with his index finger pointed upward. Crosshatched lines define his body, and quick, curved lines shade his outstretched wings. To our right, one man stands with his body facing the center of the sheet but he turns his head to look up off the top right corner. He has curling hair, a wide mustache, and perhaps a goatee, though his chin is partially hidden by a dark spot on the paper. He has broad shoulders, a thick neck, large hands, and a hint of a muscular leg under his flowing, voluminous robes. He holds a flat, oblong object, possibly a stone tablet, perched on his slightly bent left knee. Seated to our left, the other man faces and looks at us. He also grasps a flat, tablet-like object but holds it up, braced on his right thigh, to our left, and points to it with his other hand. This man also is solidly built and swathed in robes, with a hood over his curly hair. He leans forward, knees apart, and stares out with his brows deeply furrowed. His downturned mouth is set in a bushy, curly beard. Near the bottom of the picture, the bare feet of the two men emerge from the folds of their robes. Touches of white washes on the folds of the robes create a sense of light coming from above and to our right, and charcoal lines reinforce the shadows. A grid is lightly drawn in red chalk lines over the composition. A black stamp in the lower left has the letters “E.C” and another at the center reads, “H de T. STAT.”
November 12, 1995 - February 11, 1996
Johannes Vermeer
Shown from the elbows up, a young person with pale skin and brown hair wearing a wide, scarlet-red hat sits in front of a tapestry in this vertical portrait painting. She sits with her body facing our right in profile but she turns her face to look at or toward us with dark eyes. She has a rounded nose, rather flat cheeks, and a sliver of teeth is visible through parted coral-pink lips. The wide brim of the red hat seems to be made of a soft, almost feathery material, and it casts a shadow across her face. She wears a high-collared white garment that catches the light, a royal-blue, possibly velvet, robe or overcoat, and large, teardrop pearl earrings. Her arm runs along the bottom edge of the panel in front of two carved, wooden lion finials that could be the arm or back of the chair. The tapestry behind her is painted in tones of pale caramel brown and pine green. The painting has a soft, hazy look, and light glints with bright white specks off the pearl earrings, the tip of her nose, her lips, and the lion finials.
October 15, 1995 - January 28, 1996
Winslow Homer
October 11, 1995 - January 7, 1996
John Singleton Copley in England
A knight in armor strides toward two women wearing long gowns in a balustraded terrace in this horizontal painting. The three people all have smooth, pale skin with flushed cheeks. To our left, the man’s entire body is covered in armor except for his face under a raised visor. He has blue eyes, and his rose-red lips are slightly parted. His helmet is topped with a plume of white feathers. There is a red cross on his chest and red fabric wraps over his far shoulder and billows down his back to his shins. He holds a round shield edged in red up over his head with his far arm, and holds a lance down by his side with the hand closer to us. A sword hangs from his far hip, and he strides forward onto his other leg. He gazes to our right. In the right half of the composition, the two women stand facing each other. Both have long, curly gray hair, delicate noses, gray eyes under arched brows, and their coral-pink lips are parted. At the center of the painting, one woman, Fidelia, wears a long-sleeved, floor-length white gown tied at the waist with a butter-yellow sash. White cloth wraps around her head and through her hair, and it flutters behind her. She turns her head to look up and to our left, and her head is surrounded by a vibrant, yellow glow. In her right hand, closer to us, she holds up a gold chalice with a snake curling from the cup, its mouth open and tongue flicking out near her hair. She holds a brown book in her other hand, down in front of her hips. The second woman, Speranza, faces Fidelia but she looks up and to our left. Speranza’s topaz-blue, satin dress has a gauzy white collar and cuffs, and the skirt pools around her feet. A sky-blue ribbon wraps through Speranza’s hair. With her far hand, Speranza touches Fidelia’s wrist near the book. With her other hand, closer to us, Fidelia gathers her dress and braces the curving prongs of a silver anchor across that arm. The trio is framed by tall trees on the left and columns swathed with burgundy-red curtains on the right. A balustrade between the man in armor and woman in white is silhouetted against a salmon-pink sky along the horizon. A screen of white clouds float against the aquamarine-blue sky above.
October 8 - December 31, 1995
A Great Heritage
October 1, 1995 - January 28, 1996
The Touch of the Artist

Loading Results