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Three Centuries of American
Prints from the National Gallery of Art
April 3 - July 24, 2016
A new international
traveling exhibition will explore major events and movements in American
art through some 150 outstanding prints from the Colonial era to the present.
On view in Washington from April 3 through July 24, 2016, Three Centuries
of American Prints from the National Gallery of Art is the first major
museum survey of American prints in more than 30 years. The exhibition will
travel to the National Gallery in Prague from October 4, 2016 through January
5, 2017, followed by Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City from
February 7 through April 30, 2017.
Timed to coincide with the National Gallery of Art's 75th
anniversary, the exhibition is drawn from the Gallery's renowned holdings
of works on paper, and features more than 100 artists such as Paul Revere,
James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, George Bellows, John
Marin, Jackson Pollock, Louise Nevelson, Romare Bearden, Andy Warhol, Robert
Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, Jenny Holzer, and Kara Walker.
"In the past few decades the American collections
at the National Gallery of Art have grown vastly in quality and scale. From
2000 until today -- thanks to generous donors and acquisitions from the
Corcoran Gallery of Art -- the collection of American prints has almost
doubled and now numbers some 22,500 works," said Earl A. Powell III,
Director, National Gallery of Art. "We are tremendously grateful to
hundreds of donors, foremost among them Lessing J. Rosenwald and Reba and
Dave Williams, as well as grateful to Altria Group, the Terra Foundation
for American Art, and The Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art
for their vital support."
Exhibition Highlights
Organized chronologically and thematically through nine
galleries, Three Centuries of American Prints reveals the breadth
and excellence of the Gallery's collection while showcasing some of the
standouts: exquisite, rare impressions of James McNeill Whistler's Nocturne
(1879/1880), captivating prints by Mary Cassatt, a singularly stunning
impression of John Marin's Woolworth Building, No. 1 (1913), and
Robert Rauschenberg's pioneering Booster (1967).
The exhibition is bracketed by John Simon's Four Indian
Kings (1710) -- stately portraits of four Native American leaders who
traveled to London to meet Queen Anne -- and Kara Walker's no world (2010),
which recalls the disastrous impact of European settlement in the New World.
Both prints address the subject of transnational contact, a theme that runs
through the history of American art.
Three Centuries of American Prints features works
intended to provoke action, such as Paul Revere's call for moral outrage
in The Bloody Massacre (1770) 
and
Jenny Holzer's appeal to "Raise Boys and Girls the Same Way" in
her Truisms (1977). Others lean more strongly toward visual concerns,
such as Stuart Davis's striking black-and-white lithograph, Barber Shop
Chord (1931), and Richard Diebenkorn's resplendent Green (1986).
This duality between prints designed to exhort or teach and ones more weighted
to artistic matters is an undercurrent of both the exhibition and the history
of American prints. (right: Frances Flora Bond Palmer, A Midnight
Race on the Mississippi, 1860, color lithograph with hand-coloring on
wove paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Donald and Nancy de Laski
Fund)
Exhibition Organization
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of
Art, Washington.
American Prints at the National Gallery of Art
Since its opening in 1941, the National Gallery of Art
has assiduously collected American prints with the help of many generous
donors. The Gallery's American print collection has grown from nearly 1,900
prints in 1950 to some 22,500 prints in 2015. The collection was transformed
in recent years by the acquisition of the Reba and Dave Williams Collection,
the personal print archive of Jasper Johns, and some 2,300 American prints
from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, along with a gift and pledge of 18th-
and early 19th-century prints from Harry W. Havemeyer.
Curators
The curators of the exhibition are Amy Johnston, assistant
curator of prints and drawings, and Judith Brodie, curator and head of the
department of modern prints and drawings, both at the National Gallery of
Art. The exhibition catalog is conceived and edited by Judith Brodie, with
coauthors Amy Johnston and Michael J. Lewis. The Terra Foundation for American
Art provided additional funding for the exhibition catalog.
Exhibition Catalog
Published by the National Gallery of Art, the fully illustrated
scholarly catalog provides a vantage point from which to assess the rich
terrain of American prints. Drawing on the keen eyes and insightful points
of view of 15 emerging and established scholars-experts in American art
or history generally, not only in prints-the catalog offers a fresh range
of interpretations. Biographies of the artists and a glossary of printmaking
terms are additional features. The 360-page hardcover catalog will be available
in April 2016. To order, please visit http://shop.nga.gov/; call (800) 697-9350
or (202) 842-6002; fax (202) 789-3047; or e-mail mailorder@nga.gov.
Sponsors
The exhibition is made possible by Altria Group in celebration
of the 75th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art. This is the twelfth
exhibition sponsorship by Altria Group at the Gallery.
"For more than 50 years, Altria and its companies
have supported visual and performing arts. Our partnership with the National
Gallery of Art to share Three Centuries of American Prints is an important
way that we're bringing world-class cultural experiences to our communities,"
said Bruce Gates, Senior Vice President of External Affairs for Altria Client
Services.
The international tour of the exhibition is sponsored by
the Terra Foundation for American Art. Additional support is provided by
The Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art.
Resource Library readers may
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For biographical information on certain artists referenced
in this article please see America's
Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
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source by visiting the sub-index page for the National
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