{"id":377300,"date":"2026-04-13T12:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T12:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/377300\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T12:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T12:24:10","slug":"the-national-gallery-of-art-captures-250-years-of-american-art-in-single-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/377300\/","title":{"rendered":"The National Gallery of Art captures 250 years of American art in single exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n How do you capture 250 years of American art in a single exhibition? The task is complex \u2014 if not impossible \u2014 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\u2019s semiquincentennial this year.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cDear America<\/a>,\u201d 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some of the most famous include an Andy Warhol screenprint of Marilyn Monroe, depicting her as both icon and commodity, and Ansel Adams\u2019 timeless image of Wyoming\u2019s shimmering Snake River against the mountainous backdrop of the Tetons, commissioned by the US Department of the Interior in the 1940s. There\u2019s works by Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Faith Ringgold, Gordon Parks, and dozens of photographs of political figures by Richard Avedon.\n <\/p>\n

\"Ed<\/p>\n

\n 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis 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,\u201d said the museum\u2019s chief curator, E. Carmen Ramos, in a video call. \u201cWe have incredible jewels in our print and drawings and photography holdings\u2026 which aren\u2019t often on view because they\u2019re light-sensitive.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Ansel<\/p>\n

\n Curated by National Gallery department heads Sarah Greenough, Rena Hoisington and Shelley Langdale, as well as curatorial fellow Ang\u00e9lica 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 \u2018My Country \u2018Tis of Thee.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Like its titular artwork, the exhibition does explore the complexities of US history and how artists have responded across time \u2013 from Kara Walker\u2019s pop-up storybook exploring racial oppression, \u201cFreedom, a Fable: A Curious Interpretation of the Wit of a Negress in Troubled Times,\u201d to Richard Ray Whitman\u2019s biting criticism of the commercialization of Native American art, in lithographic form, titled \u201cDo Indian Artists Go to Santa Fe When They Die?\u201d In Carrie Mae Weems\u2019 self-portrait \u201cEchoes of Marian,\u201d she honors the contralto Marian Anderson\u2019s famous Lincoln Memorial performance in segregated America; elsewhere, Marisol\u2019s \u201cWomen\u2019s Equality,\u201d made for the country\u2019s 1976 bicentennial, depicts suffragists in vivid color.\n <\/p>\n

\"Gordon<\/p>\n

\"Carrie<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s a trans-historical exhibition, so (the curators) were really thinking about broad representation across time periods, geographies and media,\u201d Ramos said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Still, the show seems to tread somewhat carefully, with selections that appear less overtly political than other artworks that are in the museum\u2019s holdings. \u201cDear America,\u201d for example, includes a screen-printed mashup of the Mona Lisa and Quaker Oats logo by the Chicano artist Rupert Garc\u00eda, rather than his many works<\/a> in the permanent collection that decried racism and oppression of marginalized groups. For the US bicentennial in 1976, the artist depicted<\/a> a man with brown skin and three red bullet holes in a scathing critique of the legacy of the country.\n <\/p>\n

\"Roy<\/p>\n

\"Rupert<\/p>\n

\n The exhibition arrives at a time when the White House has put the exhibitions of other federally funded museums in the nation\u2019s capital under a microscope in the run up to the 250th anniversary of the country\u2019s founding. Last year, President Trump signed an executive order<\/a> targeting the Smithsonian\u2019s network of museums, accusing the institution of \u201ccasting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light\u201d regarding its representation of racism, sexism and oppression, and demanding reviews<\/a> 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n As the country passes its milestone, she hopes the show will be a place for reflection, she explained. \u201cI think that it\u2019ll allow our visitors to really see America, not just as a place, but really as an idea \u2014 an idea that is shaped by the voices of many people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do you capture 250 years of American art in a single exhibition? The task is complex \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-377300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}