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The National Gallery of Art:Brief Guide

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NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

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The National Gallery of Art

was created for the people of the United States of Amer­ ica by a joint resolution of Congress. The Board of Trust­ ees consists of four public servants, ex officio, and five private citizens. Under the policies set by the Board, the Gallery acquires and maintains a collection of paint­ ings, sculpture, and the graphic arts, representative of the best in the artistic heritage of America and Europe. Supported in its daily operations by Federal funds, the Gallery is entirely dependent on the generosity of pri­ vate citizens for the works of art in its collections.

Funds for the construction of the original building were provided by the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust. During the 1920s, Mr. Mellon began to collect with the intention of forming a national gal­ lery of art in Washington. His collection was promised to the nation in 1937, the year of his death. On March 17, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the completed building and collections on behalf of the people of the United States of America.

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Architect for the National Gallery’s West Building was John Russell Pope, who also designed the Jefferson Memorial and other outstanding public buildings in Washington. The building is one of the largest marble structures in the world, measuring 780 feet in length and containing more than 500,000 square feet of inte­ rior floor space. The exterior is rose-white Tennessee marble. The columns in the Rotunda were quarried in Tuscany, Italy. Green marble from Vermont and gray marble from Tennessee were used for the floor of the Rotunda. The interior walls are of Alabama Rockwood stone, Indiana limestone, and Italian travertine.

The principal painting and sculpture exhibition gal­ leries are on the Main Floor. To trace the development of western painting as represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the visitor should enter the west hall immediately adjoining the Rotunda and pro­ ceed to gallery number 1, the first room on the right.

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THE COLLECTIONS

The paintings and sculpture given by the founder, Andrew W. Mellon, including works by the greatest mas­ ters from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, have formed a nucleus of high quality around which the col­ lection has grown. Mr. Mellon’s hope that the newly established National Gallery would attract gifts from other collectors was realized, even before the Gallery opened, by the action of Samuel H. Kress. He gave to the nation his comprehensive collection of Italian paintings and sculpture dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century. Rush H. Kress enlarged and enriched his brother’s collection on subsequent occasions by con­ tributing additional works of Italian art, as well as a distinguished group of French eighteenth-century can­ vases and sculpture, and fine examples from other Euro­ pean schools.

In 1942 Joseph E. Widener gave the famous collec­ tion of paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts formed by him and his father, P. A. B. Widener. Chester Dale, besides making numerous gifts during his lifetime, be­ queathed his extensive collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French paintings to the Gallery. Ailsa Mellon Bruce also bequeathed her collection of French paintings to the Gallery and generously provided funds for the purchase of many old master paintings, includ­ ing the Leonardo da Vinci. Lessing J. Rosenwald con­ tributed some 25,000 prints and drawings, and a large collection of American naive paintings was given by Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. Paul Mel­ lon continues his family’s tradition of great generosity to the Gallery with many gifts of exceptional quality. In addition, hundreds of other donors have added to the collections of the National Gallery of Art.

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Byzantine School,

Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne. 13th

Century. Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Main Floor ITALIAN ART

In the National Gallery collections, works created in Florence, Siena, Rome, and Central Italy show the range of skills and styles prevalent in painting as it progressed from the highly religious art of the Middle Ages to the more worldly art of the Renaissance. Typical of the styl­ ized art of the Byzantine Empire, Madonna and Child on

a Curved Throne (gallery 1) by an unknown artist is an

icon, or holy image. The faces are modeled with cast shadows which suggest three-dimensional forms and an appreciation of classical solidity, whereas a Near East­ ern love of decoration accounts for the formalized drap­ ery patterns and their dazzling highlights. Artists later combined an interest in nature, analytical science, and classical humanism with recently developed oil paints to bring about a corresponding realism in art. Soon after his apprenticeship with the sculptor and painter Ver­ rocchio, Leonardo da Vinci rendered the portrait of

Ginevra de’Benci (gallery 6) with precise draftsmanship

and a subtle manipulation of light and shadow. Punning on the name of the young Florentine noblewoman, the artist has framed her head with a juniper bush — ginepro in Italian—and decorated the back of the panel with a juniper sprig.

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Aware of the subtle reflections of light and shadow playing over the misty air of Venice, the sixteenth- century artists of this city strove to capture the illusion of surface texture and tangible atmosphere, and to cre­ ate a sense of mood, whether it be the pastoral quietude of The Adoration of the Shepherds by Giorgione (gallery 21) or the eerie drama of Christ at the Sea of Galilee by Tintoretto (gallery 27). Giorgione bathed the placid land­ scape of his scene with the half-light of dawn and depicted a world sympathetic to the undisturbed religious medi­ tation of the holy family and shepherds. On the other hand, the strong colors, shifting light, gathering clouds, and agitated water of Tintoretto’s work heighten the moment of the resurrected Christ’s appearing to his dis­ ciples. Since oil paints blended easily together and could be thickened with pigments, Venetian artists soon estab­ lished a more flexible technique adapted to their aims. Titian built up forms with dense, opaque paints and mul­ tiple layers of glazes—thin translucent oils of great lumi­ nosity and richness of hue—convincingly evoking the feel of natural substances such as the fur, silk, and pre­ cious stones in his Venus with a Mirror (gallery 22).

To help curb the appeal the Protestant Reformation had for ambivalent Christians, the Catholic clergy com­ missioned and supported during the seventeenth cen­ tury a realistic yet dramatic art designed to involve the 4

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Titian, Venus with a Mirror.

C. 1555. Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Right. Panini, The Interior of the

Pantheon, c. 1740. Samuel H. Kress Collection

populace in the teaching and the authority of the Church. Representative of the time were the Carracci (gallery 28), three artists from the same family who combined an interest in the realism, idealism, and art theory of antiq­ uity and the Renaissance. In The Dream of Saint

Catherine of Alexandria by Ludovico Carracci, the

large scale of the figures, their closeness to the picture surface, and the direct gaze of the Christ Child estab­ lish a sense of rapport between the spectator, Catherine, and the members of her mystical vision.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, Italy stood at the center of the European Grand Tour, and the work of Canaletto, Guardi, and other artists answered a rising demand for souvenir view paintings. The depiction of

The Interior of the Pantheon by Panini (gallery 30), one

such scene, illustrates the source for the design of the Rotunda in the West Building of the National Gallery.

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El Greco, Laocoôn. C. 1610. Samuel H. Kress Collection

SPANISH ART

Commissioned by royalty or the Church, foreign paint­ ers dominated the arts of Spain during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. El Greco, a Greek who studied in Venice and Rome, settled in Toledo and produced works highly individualistic and mannered in approach. With elongated figures, exaggerated poses, and a tumultuous sky, he depicted in the Laocoon (gallery 34) an incident from the Trojan War during which a priest of Apollo and his sons wrestle with serpents sent by the Greek gods. The greatest Spanish artist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was Francisco de Goya, who was court portraitist to a succession of corrupt mon- archs and French conquerors. Sometimes sympathetic, more often unflattering in his representations of Span­ ish society, Goya was an astute observer of human nature.

Doha Teresa Sureda (gallery 37) sits erectly with arms

clasped and head turned; she appears in her portrait as a woman of great propriety and inner strength.

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FLEMISH AND GERMAN ART

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Netherland­ ish artists such as Jan van Eyck achieved mastery in the new technique of oil painting. His use of an oil medium in The Annunciation (gallery 39) permitted a greater depth and richness of color which he coupled with the medi­ eval tradition of minute, craftsmanly detail. Two centu­ ries later, Rubens drew heavily upon the dynamic realism of the baroque style for Daniel in the Lions’ Den (gallery 45). Van Dyck, as an influential court portraitist, estab­ lished the “Grand Manner” format of aloof figures on monumental canvases, illustrated in his portrait of Queen

Henrietta Maria with Her Dwarf (gallery 43). One of the

few surviving paintings by the German artist Grünewald,

The Small Crucifixion (gallery 35A) depicts the haggard

and scarred body of Christ against a darkened sky. Painted on the eve of the Protestant Reformation, this panel reflects with its emotional power and immediacy the human suffering necessary for Christ to redeem mankind and a growing insistence in northern Europe upon the reality and importance of private religious experiences.

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Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait. 1659.

C. 1664. W idener Collection Andrew W. Mellon Collection

DUTCH ART

After bitter wars with Spain, the United Netherlands emerged as a prosperous free republic where Dutch patrons developed a taste for landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and scenes of daily life to embellish their public and private buildings. Their demands were met by an ever increasing number of Dutch artists, including Hals, Kalf, Vermeer, and Hobbema, who specialized in a sin­ gle type of subject. Always sensitive to the nuances of light, Vermeer juxtaposed his Woman Holding a Bal­

ance ( gallery 49) against a framed painting of the Last

Judgment, thus suggesting a comparison between weigh­ ing the souls of mankind and one’s worldly possessions. The one exception to specialization was Rembrandt, whose penetrating insight into the human condition and whose superb technical facility enabled him to explore successfully a variety of subjects. In his Self-Portrait (gallery 47), Rembrandt appears enveloped by shadows and somber colors in a moment of quiet introspection.

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David, Napoleon in His Study. 1812. Samuel H. Kress Collection

FRENCH ART OF THE SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, ANL) EARLY

NINETEENTH CENTURIES

Heavily supported by the royal court, seventeenth- century French artists were sent to Rome to study the arts of the Italian Renaissance and classical antiquity; some, like Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin (gallery 52), chose to remain in Italy. A century later, French society became more relaxed and informal. Fragonard’s

A Young Girl Reading (gallery 55) illustrates the new

rococo style of carefree delicacy, pastel colors, and grace­ fully curving lines. After the French Revolution of 1789, a school of neoclassical artists led by David dominated painting and focused on themes of patriotic heroism and the severe beauty of line and firm modeling. In David’s portrait Napoleon in His Study (gallery 56), the French emperor stands as a dedicated leader, rumpled in appearance, after a night of hard work on the Napoleonic Code, a social reform still the basis of French law.

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Gainsborough, Mrs.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Probably 1785/1786.

Andrew W. Mellon Collection

BRITISH ART

During the eighteenth century, England was a leading maritime and industrial nation and supported a large group of native painters (galleries 58, 59). The portrait­ ists were led by Sir Joshua Reynolds, first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and Thomas Gainsborough, noted for his virtuoso brushwork. The natural setting, informal pose, and rapid application of paint achieve a sense of unaffected simplicity and graceful beauty in Gainsborough’s portrait of Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, celebrated actress and wife of the playwright. Two land­ scapists of international reputation emerged in England in the early 1800s. Constable was a realist in his study of the English countryside and natural light of Wivenhoe

Park (gallery 58); Turner was a romantic who explored

the intangible forces of nature—fire, smoke, light, vapor, and reflections—in Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moon­

light (gallery 57).

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Cole, The Voyage of Life: Childhood. 1842. Ailsa Mell on Bruce Fund

AMERICAN ART

During the colonial period, American art had been pre­ dominantly one of portraiture. The Boston artist John Singleton Copley was well known for the realism and individuality of his likenesses; in his portrayal of Epes

Sargent (gallery 64), he detailed the textures of the wool,

wig, and flesh of his subject, who leans casually and thoughtfully against a pillar. By the mid-nineteenth century, with the exploration of the West, the expanding population, and the influence of photography, there was a thriving school of landscape painters. This attention to the scenery of the New World—the mountains and forests of Asher B. Durand and Jasper Francis Cropsey (galleries 66, 67) and the quiet marine views of John F. Kensett and Fitz Hugh Lane (gallery 67)—fed a bur­ geoning national pride in the young republic. Thomas Cole painted panoramas of native wilderness, such as

The Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch) (gallery

67) and imaginary, allegorical scenes. One such land­ scape fantasy, The Voyage of Life (gallery 60), is a series of four views which traces the journey of “Everyman” through the four stages of life, seasons of the year, and periods of the day along the river of time.

At the turn of the century, Thomas Eakins (galleries 68, 69) and Winslow Homer (gallery 68) portrayed American life and scenery with straightforward candor

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Whistler, The White Girl

(Symphony in White, No. 1).

1862. Harris W hittemore Collection

Copley, Watson and the Shark. 1778. Ferdinand Lammot Belin Fund

through their portraits and genre scenes. Their exam­ ple was carried on by Robert Henri, George Bellows, and John Sloan (galleries 70, 71), American artists who were fascinated with the urban growth of the 1900s and emphasized the vitality of city life in their work. 12

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Manet, Gare Saint-Lazare. 1873. Gift of Horace Havemeyer in memory of his mother, Louisine W. Havemeyer

Renoir, A Girl with a

Watering Can. 1876. Chester Dale Collection

FRENCH ART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

French art during the second half of the 1800s is noted for its innovation and diversity. Although the paintings produced during this period differ in their visual effects, the artists of these works were all largely concerned with the same problems: how to treat nature and how to define reality. Monet, Renoir, and the other so-called impressionists concentrated on recording the fleeting and subtle color sensations created by changes in sun­ light. Renoir’s technique in A Girl with a Watering Can (gallery 90) is rapid and sketchy with little attention to

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Cézanne, Still Life with Peppermint Bottle, c. 1894.

Chester Dale Collection

studiously modeled form. His painting, although “real­ istic” in the rendition of light and space, does not have the solid, tangible qualities so evident in academic painting. Other artists rejected impressionism’s concern with transitory moments; Cézanne investigated the under­ lying structure of objects in nature. The fruit, glass, drapery, and wall of Still Life with Peppermint Bottle (gallery 85) conform to a muted color system and a geo­ metric organization of curves and stable axes which express the relationship of color and form in space. 14

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Ground Floor

Detail. Brussels tapestry,

he Triumph of Christ, c. 1500. W idener Collection

Chalice of Abbot Sager of Saint-Denis, c. 1140. W idener Collection

The National Gallery’s Widener Collection of decora­ tive arts includes a wide variety of objects dating from the twelfth to the eighteenth century.

Important Flemish tapestries and Italian Renaissance furniture can be seen in rooms near the Seventh Street Lobby. Three tapestries were designed by the Flemish painter Bernard van Orley. Woven about 1500, the famous “Mazarin” tapestry The Triumph of Christ, is considered the finest surviving tapestry from the Euro­ pean Middle Âges.

Medieval cloisonné enamels of religious significance are on view in the “treasury.” The Chalice of Abbot Suger, dating from c.1140, a cup of sardonyx and gold inlaid with precious stones, is among the most important objects of medieval art in America. For nearly six centuries, it served as the sacramental vessel for the coronation of French queens at the royal abbey of Saint-Denis.

The Widener collection of Chinese porcelains, includ­ ing a notable assemblage of decorative polychrome ware, is installed in three galleries.

Great cabinetmakers of eighteenth-century France are represented in a series of four galleries; one room is assembled from a house designed in the rococo style of Louis XV. Marie Antoinette’s writing desk from her imprisonment in the Tuileries Palace is of particular interest. Some pieces of furniture are opened to reveal their interior fittings and secret drawers.

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Alberti, Self-Portrait. C. 1435. Samuel H. Kre9s Collection SCULPTURE

Selections from the renowned Samuel H. Kress Collection of Renaissance bronzes, statuettes, reliefs and plaquettes, medals and coins, can be seen in the north sculpture galleries, along with works from the Widener Collection. Included are small bronzes by Riccio, the Capitoline

Wolfoi the Roman School, and the bronze self-portrait

plaque of Leone Battista Alberti, the only sculpture attributed to the great fifteenth-century Italian architect.

Sixteenth-century Italian maiolica ceramics from the Widener Collection are exhibited with bronze plaquettes by Moderno and Valerio Belli of the same period.

Jewels designed by Renaissance masters are displayed with carved and incised rock crystals from sixteenth- century Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Important eighteenth-century French sculpture by Clodion and Houdon, nineteenth-century sculpture including many works by the animal sculptor Barye which were given to the National Gallery by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, and a group of some forty works by Rodin, many from the collection of Mrs. John W. Simpson, are also installed here. The twentieth century is represented by masters such as Degas, Maillol, Duchamp-Villon, Lehmbruck, and Manzù.

PRINTS AND DRAWINGS

The rapidly expanding National Gallery collection of prints and drawings, in great part given by Lessing J. 16

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Rosenwald, currently contains some 50,000 pieces from the twelfth century to the present time. Old master and modern works by major artists—Master E. S., Dürer, Rembrandt, Blake, and Whistler among others—are installed on a rotating basis and provide a survey of the graphic arts. Special exhibitions of prints and drawings from other sources are also on view in adjoining galleries.

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Hicks, The Cornell Farm. 1848.

Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

AMERICAN NAIVE PAINTINGS

Paintings from the Colonel Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch collection of American folk art dat­ ing from the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth cen­ tury fill the central gallery. Included in this notable gift are Edward Hicks’ Peaceable Kingdom, Joshua Johnson’s

The Westwood Children, and Winthrop Chandler’s com­

panion portraits of Captain Samuel Chandler and Mrs.

Samuel Chandler.

INDEX OF AMERICAN DESIGN

The Index of American Design is a collection of water- color renderings of the popular arts in the United States from before 1700 until about 1900. Some 17,000 finely executed watercolors and 500 photographs representing American ceramics, furniture, woodcarving, glassware, metalwork, tools and utensils, textiles, and costumes may be studied upon request.

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West Building

Concourse

European paintings and sculpture from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries, and American art, are on the Main Floor. On the Ground Floor are galleries of prints, drawings, sculpture, decorative arts, and American naive paintings; also the Garden Café and the main sales shop.

The underground concourse beneath the Fourth Street Plaza connects the West and East Build­ ings and contains the self-service Buffet, the Cascade Café, and the main bookstore.

East Building

Twentieth-century art and a changing series of special exh ibitions are shown in the East Build­ ing. The main auditorium is on the concourse level, and the Terrace Café is on the upper level.

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Main Floor Ground Floor

Tower Upper Level Mezzanine <;r,>’" 1111 , ' <-1... ... Coo<*i»urs<’ 18 19

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The East Building opened on June 1,1978, in response to the changing needs of the National Gallery. It pro­ vides a variety of spaces to accommodate the Gallery’s growing collections and special exhibitions, augment­ ing as well the facilities for educational services, schol­ arly research, and administration.

Funds for the East Building’s construction were given by Paul Mellon and the late Ailsa Mellon Bruce, the son and daughter of the founder, and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Groundbreaking took place on May 6,1971, on land which had been set aside as part of the initial Congressional allotment to the National Gallery in 1937.

Located where the Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue con­ verge near the foot of Capitol Hill, the site for the East Building is trapezoidal in shape. Not only did such a form put limitations on the design of the structure; it also presented difficulties in aligning the East Building with the axis of the West Building. I. M. Pei and Partners, the architects of the complex, resolved these problems by designing the building as a trapezoid divided into two triangular sections. A large isosceles triangle con­ tains public galleries and auditoriums; a smaller right triangle houses administrative and curatorial offices and the Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. The entrance of the East Building, located at the center of the base of the isosceles triangle, appears to 21

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Calder, Untitled. 1976. Gift of the Collectors Committee

continue the axis of the West Building, thus visually and geometrically unifying the two structures.

The contemporary and classical architectural designs of both buildings are boldly simple. While their sheer marble walls are in different styles, they are identical in material. Although rectangular forms dominate the classic West Building and polygonal forms govern the geometry of the East Building, each structure shows a precision and cleanness of line not needing superficial ornamen­ tation.

The vast Central Court is the core of the East Building. Its glass walls and space-frame skylight merge the inte­ rior dynamically with exterior vistas, allowing visitors to orient themselves to the outdoors. Natural light from above animates the indoor central court, while bridges and balconies give measure to the monumental space. Interpenetrating solids and voids reveal to the visitor the entire multistoried concept of galleries housed in the corner towers and their connecting interior terraces.

The National Gallery Plaza links the two buildings, emphasizing their common axis. The fountain cascade and prismatic skylights of the Plaza not only are lively abstract sculptures but also admit natural light to the Concourse, the underground connecting link between the two buildings.

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CENTRAL COURT

When the East Building was first designed, several origi­ nal pieces were commissioned by the Collectors Com­ mittee, a group of art patrons from many parts of the United States who make possible the acquisition of important works of twentieth-century art.

Alexander Calder’s mobile, for instance, is suspended from the space frame and complements the richly artic­ ulated space of the Central Court. The artist combined his interest in form and motion to invent a new artistic concept, the “mobile.” The sculpture activates its envi­ ronment in its circuit around the building, as the sensi­ tively balanced rods and free-form plates move in response to air currents. Aerospace techniques were used to reduce the projected weight; although three stories high and 76 feet in extended length, the mobile, with its honey­ comb aluminum blades, weighs only 920 pounds.

In recent years, Joan Miro, one of the foremost

mod-Miro, Woman. 1977. Gift of the Collectors Committee and George L. Erion

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Moore, Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece. 1977/1978. Gift of the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation

ern painters, has explored textiles as a creative medium. The brilliant colors, simple forms, and textured treat­ ment of Woman, the tapestry hanging in the Central Court, suggest a sense of rhythmic energy.

Anthony Caro, by placing his work on the ledge above the entrance to the Administrative and Study Center, eliminated the conventional pedestal for sculpture and removed his art from traditional orientation. Before weld­ ing the oxidized steel bands, the sculptor studied the site in scale models, remaining free to improvise while he assembled the final piece.

Henry Moore, in designing Knife Edge Mirror Two

Piece for the entrance of the East Building, adapted one

of his earlier motifs, reversing the composition and enlarg­ ing the scale to complement the terrace area. He focused attention not only on the metal masses but also on their surrounding space. Moore has explained his two-piece sculpture: “As you move around it, the two parts over­ lap or they open up and there’s space between. Sculp­ ture is like a journey. You have a diiferent view when you return.” This work is the gift of the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.

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Mondrian, Lozenge in Red, Yellow, and Blue.

C. 1925. Gift of Herbert and Nannette Rothschild

EXHIBITIONS ANI) COLLECTIONS

The East Building offers a wide variety of art experiences. Twentieth-century art, old master paintings and sculp­ ture, prints and drawings, and other works from the Gallery’s collections are installed in changing contexts. Loan exhibitions of national and international signifi­ cance are presented in this building as in the West Building, and the size and flexibility of the structure’s design allow several different shows to be held simulta­ neously on the various levels.

Aspects of twentieth-century painting and sculpture in the work of such renowned artists as Picasso, Matisse, David Smith, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Motherwell may be viewed on the Upper Level. Many of these art­ ists often abandon the direct imitation of reality, prefer­ ring instead to work through complex problems of design to express human feelings. A tremendous diversity of styles has resulted. The National Gallery’s present col­ lection of modern art is particularly strong in the French school prior to World War I, the period when Paris was the cultural center of Europe, and in American art from the 1950s and 1960s. 25

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Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques. 1905. Chester Dale Collection

Gathered in the foreground of a barren landscape, the wandering acrobats portrayed in Picasso’s Family of

Saltimbanques stand immobile, each caught in a moment

of solemn introspection. Sometimes called his youthful masterpiece, the scene suggests a mood of gentle sad­ ness and represents the culmination of his circus period.

By 1910, Picasso had focused his attention upon the theoretical basis of cubism, the intellectual analysis of form and space. Nude Woman, the largest of his analytic cubist paintings, at first appears to be an abstract com­ plex of interlocking planes. Picasso, however, never denied the natural source of his subject.

The American artist Jackson Pollock abandoned the tra­ ditional imagery of earlier art and developed what became known as the “drip technique.” Pouring paint across

Number 1, 1950, he emphasized the actual process of

painting through direct and spontaneous gesture. The resultant abstract image is marked by rhythmic energy, active lines, and vaporous tones. Due to the atmospheric effect of this technique and the pastel colors of this painting, the work was later named Lavender Mist. 26

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Reconciliation Elegy is one of over 140 paintings by Rob­

ert Motherwell which are composed of stark black shapes on a white ground. This series, entitled The Elegies to

the Spanish Republic, began as ornamentation for a poem

and found its source in Motherwell’s political awaken­ ing during the Spanish Civil War. Suggestive of the strug­ gle between life and death, the austere relationship of black and white enables the canvas to be easily read from a distance. At close range, the spattered black and smeared red chalk lines reflect the practice of linear automatism—gestures of the artist’s hand following the impulses of his mind.

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David Smith, Circle I, Circle II, Circle III. 1962. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund Although trained as a painter, David Smith was one of the most influential American sculptors of the twen­ tieth century. Circle I, Circle II, and Circle III were conceived as a polychrome steel ensemble which com­ bined painting and sculpture. Each piece relies on sim­ ilar geometric shapes, but the individual forms vary in arrangement, size, and color. Often used in his work, color here dominates and enhances the simple, abstract structures.

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GENERAL

INFORMATION

The National Gallery of Art is open every day of the year except Christmas and New Year’s. Admission is free at all times.

Hours Mon.—Sat. 10 am—5 pm; Sun. 12 noon—9 pm. Tours, Lectures, Films, Free tours of the collection and gallery talks are given

and Concerts by the Education Department.

• An Introductory Tour, lasting about fifty minutes, cov­ ers the Gallery’s highlights. Mon. —Sat. 11:00 and 3:00; Sun. 1:00 and 5:00.

• The Tour of the Week, lasting about fifty minutes, concentrates on one type of painting or on a special exhibition. Tues. —Sat. 1:00; Sun. 2:30.

• The Painting of the Week is a fifteen-minute gallery talk on a single painting in the collection. Color repro­ ductions of the painting discussed may be purchased in the Gallery’s sales shop; a brief text is available without charge. Tues.—Sat. 12:00 and 2:00; Sun. 3:30 and 6:00. • Special Appointments for groups of fifteen or more people,

or foreign language tours for five or more, can be arranged by applying to the Education Department at least two weeks in advance.

• Illustrated Lectures by visiting authorities are scheduled in the auditorium. These lectures are usually related to the National Gallery’s collections or to a special exhibi­ tion. Admission is free, and no reservations are required. Sunday 4:00.

• Free Films on art are presented on a varying schedule in the auditorium. For further information, consult the Gallery’s Calendar o f Events.

• Free Concerts are given by the National Gallery Orches­ tra or guest artists in the East Garden Court of the West

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Art Information Desks

Building on Sunday evenings at 7 pm except during the summer months. Seats, which are not reserved, are avail­ able after 6 pm. The programs, with intermission talks or interviews by the Gallery staff, are broadcast live over

WGMS-AM ( 570 ) and FM ( 103.5 ).

West Building: Main Floor, Rotunda; Constitution Ave­ nue entrance, Ground Floor

East Building: 4th Street entrance, Ground Floor

Calendar of Events The free monthly Calendar o f Events listing special

exhibitions, lectures, concerts, and films will be sent upon request.

Publications Service The largest sales shop is on the Ground Floor of the

West Building, adjoining the 4th Street entrance. The Concourse Level shop, between the two buildings, fea­ tures a wide selection of art books. In the East Building, the shop emphasizes materials relating to the East Build­ ing and its exhibitions.

Food Service «

< <

* Café/Buffet

Concourse Level, Connecting Link: Mon.—Sat. 10 am —3:30 pm. Sun. 12 noon—6 pm. > Garden Café

West Building, Ground Floor: Mon. —Sat. 11 am—4:30 pm. Sun. 12 noon—6 pm. * Terrace Café

East Building, Upper Level: Mon. — Sat. 11 am—4:30 pm. Sun. 12 noon—6 pm.

Extension Services Educational materials suitable for museums, schools,

and other educational organizations can be borrowed free of charge. Color slide programs, films, and videocas­ settes cover a wide range of subjects based on works in the Gallery’s collections and special exhibitions. A free catalogue is available at any Information Desk. For addi­ tional information, write to the Department of Exten­ sion Programs.

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Slide Lending Service Slides of the Gallery’s collection are available as loans

to organizations, schools, and colleges without charge. For information, apply to the Slide Library.

Restrooms and Telephones

First Aid

There are restrooms and telephones adjacent to all the entrance lobbies and to the cafés.

An emergency room under the supervision of trained nurses is available for first-aid treatment. The guards will direct visitors.

Wheelchairs, Strollers Strollers for small children and wheelchairs are available

from the guards at building entrances without charge. Attendants for pushing wheelchairs are not available.

Checkrooms Parcels, briefcases, knapsacks, and umbrellas must be

checked. Free checking service is provided at the entrances.

Regulations The guards are under orders not to permit visitors to

touch the works of art under any circumstances. Pens with fluid ink may not be used in the galleries. Smoking is forbidden in the exhibition areas. Food and drink are limited to the food service areas.

Photography Photography for personal purposes, with or without flash,

but not with a tripod or monopod, is permitted unless signs in a particular area indicate the contrary. Applica­ tion for permission to use a tripod or monopod should be made to the Photographic Services Office, Monday through Friday, except legal holidays.

31

INF

OR

MA

TIO

N

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Paul Mellon, Chairman

The Chief Justice of the United States The Secretary of State

The Secretary of the Treasury

The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution John R. Stevenson, Carlisle H. Humelsine, Franklin D. Murphy, Ruth Carter Johnson

GIFTS AND BEQUESTS

Both the buildings and the collections of the National Gallery of Art are the result of private generosity. The Board of Trustees has full power to receive property, real and personal, for the general purpose of the National Gallery of Art.

Offers of gift or bequest of particular property should be discussed in advance:

• with the Secretary’s Office for specific important works of art,

• with the Chief Librarian for books of art historical importance.

Gifts may also be made by check payable to the Trust­ ees of the National Gallery of Art.

The following form of bequest may be used:

I bequeath to the Trustees of the National Gallery of Art the sum of--- ---for the general purposes of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia.

All gifts and bequests are deductible, within the limits prescribed by law, for applicable Federal tax purposes. 32

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G S T R E E T U .S. C a p ito l 4 T H S T R E E T M M e t r o : R e d L i n e J u d i c i a r y S q u a r e S t o p 4 t h a n d D S t r e e t E x it U j Z Uj

I

3 R D S T R E E T M 6 T H S T R E E T (n O 4 T H S T R E E T Z O (0 D< 5 7 T H S T R E E T (/) Z O O 7 T H S T R E E T 9 T H S T R E E T 1 O T H S T R E E T M 1 2 T H S T R E E T I N D E P E N D E N C E A V E N U E

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National (lallery of Art

Washington, D.C. 20565 Telephone: (202) 737-4215

Kişisel Arşivlerde İstanbul Belleği Taha Toros Arşivi

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