How do you capture 250 years of American art in a single exhibition? The task is complex — if not impossible — so the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC turned to its own deep holdings, from iconic artworks to rarely seen works, to commemorate the country’s semiquincentennial this year.
“Dear America,” features more than 100 works on paper, including photography, lithographs and artist books, to show a broad view of what it means to be American.
Some of the most famous include an Andy Warhol screenprint of Marilyn Monroe, depicting her as both icon and commodity, and Ansel Adams’ timeless image of Wyoming’s shimmering Snake River against the mountainous backdrop of the Tetons, commissioned by the US Department of the Interior in the 1940s. There’s works by Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Faith Ringgold, Gordon Parks, and dozens of photographs of political figures by Richard Avedon.
Other artists are lesser known, such as Eunice Pinney, an early 19th-century folk watercolorist who was entirely self-taught, as well as Bernarda Bryson, a printmaker who depicted farmers in New Deal-era art and only gained recognition later in her life.
“This exhibition really grew out of the discussions among the curators of how to think about the American experience, and really to present and place the role of artists and the visions of artists at the center of that,” said the museum’s chief curator, E. Carmen Ramos, in a video call. “We have incredible jewels in our print and drawings and photography holdings… which aren’t often on view because they’re light-sensitive.”
Curated by National Gallery department heads Sarah Greenough, Rena Hoisington and Shelley Langdale, as well as curatorial fellow Angélica Becerra, the exhibition has been in the works since 2023. The title takes its name from a series by the Ho-Chunk artist Tom Jones, who reckons with the invisible histories of Native Americans in the country by blending historical postcard images, Indigenous craft and the lyrics to ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”
Like its titular artwork, the exhibition does explore the complexities of US history and how artists have responded across time – from Kara Walker’s pop-up storybook exploring racial oppression, “Freedom, a Fable: A Curious Interpretation of the Wit of a Negress in Troubled Times,” to Richard Ray Whitman’s biting criticism of the commercialization of Native American art, in lithographic form, titled “Do Indian Artists Go to Santa Fe When They Die?” In Carrie Mae Weems’ self-portrait “Echoes of Marian,” she honors the contralto Marian Anderson’s famous Lincoln Memorial performance in segregated America; elsewhere, Marisol’s “Women’s Equality,” made for the country’s 1976 bicentennial, depicts suffragists in vivid color.
“It’s a trans-historical exhibition, so (the curators) were really thinking about broad representation across time periods, geographies and media,” Ramos said.
Still, the show seems to tread somewhat carefully, with selections that appear less overtly political than other artworks that are in the museum’s holdings. “Dear America,” for example, includes a screen-printed mashup of the Mona Lisa and Quaker Oats logo by the Chicano artist Rupert García, rather than his many works in the permanent collection that decried racism and oppression of marginalized groups. For the US bicentennial in 1976, the artist depicted a man with brown skin and three red bullet holes in a scathing critique of the legacy of the country.
The exhibition arrives at a time when the White House has put the exhibitions of other federally funded museums in the nation’s capital under a microscope in the run up to the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding. Last year, President Trump signed an executive order targeting the Smithsonian’s network of museums, accusing the institution of “casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light” regarding its representation of racism, sexism and oppression, and demanding reviews of its exhibitions in order to receive funding. Ramos said the National Gallery of Art, which is not part of the Smithsonian, has not been subjected to political pressure, and that the exhibition made no changes.
As the country passes its milestone, she hopes the show will be a place for reflection, she explained. “I think that it’ll allow our visitors to really see America, not just as a place, but really as an idea — an idea that is shaped by the voices of many people.”