This two-minute trailer of the new documentary produced by Blue Bear Films for the National Geographic Society on the occasion of the traveling exhibition Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul features footage of the 2003 rediscovery of the collections from the National Museum, Kabul, which had been hidden in the vaults of the Central Bank in the Presidential Palace in 1988. National Geographic archaeologist Fredrik T. Hiebert and museum director Omara Massoudi give their personal accounts of this dramatic story…

Join exhibition curators Kanitra Fletcher, Steven Nelson and Molly Donovan on a two-minute tour of Afro-Atlantic Histories. An incredible collection of work from the 17th century to the present bears witness to the powerful stories of the Black Atlantic. Engage firsthand with a transnational and transhistorical dialogue of artwork that invites us to reimagine the African diaspora’s legacy and impact on everyone, everywhere.

Why should Alma Thomas be your new favorite artist? Well, after teaching art in Washington, D.C. for 35 years at Shaw Junior High School, Alma Thomas created a new style of painting. Her vibrant dabs of color, lovingly called “Alma stripes,” gained the artist, by then in her late seventies, recognition that has grown over the years. Her painting “Resurrection” was chosen for the White House Collection in 2014. In this short video, Michelle Obama and others share why Alma Thomas and her art continue to inspire.

Gouging the wall with sharp instruments, Anastasi creates his sculpture by displacing bits of plaster into a pile. The plaster “issued” from the excavated wall sits at its base. Converting the gallery wall into the medium for his art, Anastasi literally embeds his work in the exhibition. By emphasizing the gallery as a physical space rather than as a neutral backdrop for art, Issue is inextricably bound to its setting.

Covering 17 centuries and a wide variety of media, including sculpture, paintings, lacquerwork, ceramics, metalwork, textile, and the woodblock print, this exhibition showcases some 300 works representing animals—real or imaginary, religious or secular.

The Apollo 11 mission captivated audiences across the globe. Blastoff was a major televised event, and live broadcast of the arrival four days later, on July 20, 1969, was viewed by more than 500 million people. The source of some of the most indelible images of the twentieth century, the lunar footage was shot with a special television camera made to withstand the extreme forces of the launch and temperature fluctuations, and designed to transmit information across the long distance from the Moon to the Earth.

Years after campaigns against minority Armenians in Turkey caused his family to disperse and his mother to die before his eyes, Gorky found a 1912 photograph taken in the city of Van upon which he based drawn and painted portraits of The Artist and His Mother. The video Ararat (Excerpts) investigates the fraught history of Gorky's lost childhood through his protracted work on the image of himself at age twelve, standing beside his mother Shushan. Derived from the feature-length film Ararat written and directed by Academy Award®-nominated director Atom Egoyan.

Art for the Nation introduces the National Gallery of Art as the enduring legacy of Andrew W. Mellon. Narrated by Gallery director Earl A. Powell III, this video provides a tour exploring some of the masterpieces in the collection and underlines the Gallery’s civic value to American society.

What do a baby rhino, soldiers on stilts, or a human figure dragging a whale signify to artist Avish Khebrehzadeh? Here, the artist talks about her drawing process for her video Seven Silent Songs and her inspiration for her wall-size drawing Tree of Life in Blue.

This 6-minute film features works from the exhibition In the Tower: Barbara Kruger, presenting Kruger’s profile works—images of faces or figures seen in profile, over which the artist has layered attention-grabbing phrases and figures of speech. The film is narrated by the artist, who discusses her background, process, and methodology. It covers Kruger’s early career beginning in the 1970s as she transitioned from her work as a layout editor for Condé Nast to the art world. By the end of the decade she had begun her “picture practice,” a conceptual approach that involved culling images from manuals and magazines and adding attention-grabbing language using her signature style of direct-address, complete with personal pronouns and active verbs. Kruger’s work now spans a variety of formats, from paste-ups to large-scale silkscreens and photographs, billboards, multichannel videos, and book-cover designs. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation.”

Go behind the scenes with the National Gallery of Art as our filmmakers pilot a camera drone inside three Spanish churches, capturing unparalleled views of artist Alonso Berruguete’s masterpieces. Get an aerial view of Berruguete’s haunting marble effigy of Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera in Toledo and soar up the towering altarpieces from the Colegio Arzobispo Fonseca in Salamanca and Nuestra Señora de la Mejorada (now at the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid). This footage was produced for the Gallery’s film accompanying the exhibition Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain.

Join exhibition curator C.D. Dickerson on a tour of highlights from the exhibition Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain on view from October 13, 2019 to February 17, 2019.

Fifty of the most important and beloved paintings of Paris and its environs by impressionist Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) is the focus of the first major U.S. retrospective of the artist's work in 20 years. On view in the West Building, from June 28 through October 4, 2015, the exhibition offers visitors a better understanding of Caillebotte's artistic character and the complexity of his contribution to modernist painting.

Artist Paul Cézanne lived and worked in a studio in Aix-en-Provence, France, where many of his celebrated paintings were completed. This video gives a brief look at the studio and the interiors that served as inspiration for Cézanne’s still-life paintings.

Many early English beachgoers flocked to Normandy, just across the English Channel in France; the beaches at Etretat, Deauville, and Trouville were the most popular. Artists came to the Channel coast seaside for the opportunity to paint scenic locales. Views painted by artists "advertised" Normandy's attractions, and tourists’ enjoyment of local sites, facilitated by easy railroad access, in turn increased demand for landscape painting.

Join exhibition curator Betsy Wieseman on a two-minute tour of “Clouds, Ice, and Bounty.” Rich with detail, paintings of majestic seascapes and lively scenes of skating, music, and parties glamorize the prosperity and progress of the Dutch Republic, which blossomed during the “Little Ice Age” in the 1600s. Glowing embers, hints of sunlight, sumptuous bounties, long icy winters—were these larger-than-life fantasies or the reality of the time? Interested in more? Go in-depth with Betsy Wieseman as she looks more closely at these paintings : https://youtu.be/0miWbRhTL2Y

Portrait artist Dalton Paula illuminates his mission to preserve the memory of long-lost historical figures by painting portraits of contemporary Black Brazilians.  Travel with Paula as he finds inspiration in Brazil’s Quilombo Kalunga, a community of resistance and empowerment founded centuries ago by indigenous Brazilians and people fleeing enslavement. Paula’s portraits are on view at the National Gallery of Art from April 10 to July 17 as part of Afro-Atlantic Histories. O artista plástico e retratista Dalton Paula ilumina sua missão de preservar a memória de figuras históricas esquecidas criando retratos de negros brasileiros contemporâneos. Viaje com Paula na busca por inspiração no Quilombo Kalunga, uma comunidade de resistência e empoderamento fundada séculos atrás por indígenas brasileiros e por aqueles que fugiam da escravidão. Os retratos de Paula estão expostos na National Gallery of Art do dia 10 de abril a 17 de julho como parte das Histórias Afro-Atlânticas.

Artist Daniel Lind-Ramos builds his sculpture “Figura de Poder,” a towering and provocative work that conjures up the spirit of the vejigante with mysticism, music, and activism. Lind-Ramos guides us through the sculpture’s connections to his family and celebrates the history of his ancestry in Loiza, Puerto Rico. El artista Daniel Lind-Ramos crea su escultura “Figura de Poder”, una obra imponente y provocadora que evoca el espíritu del vejigante con misticismo, música y activismo. Lind-Ramos nos guía a través de las conexiones de la escultura con su familia y celebra la historia de sus ancestros en Loíza, Puerto Rico.

Photographer David Maisel (American, b. 1961) explores the camera’s ability to expose unusual views typically invisible to the naked eye. For decades he has worked in the field of aerial landscape photography, portraying industrially damaged environments from such a distance that the earth and its wounds almost appear as abstract forms. More recently his work has focused upon individual objects, as in his series History’s Shadow , where he photographs museum conservators’ x-rays of paintings and sculpture. Using Photoshop, Maisel heightens the mystery and beauty of the museum’s archival documents by intensifying contrasts and imbuing the images with a color palette reminiscent of early photographic processes. His luminous, large-scale prints simultaneously reveal both the internal structure and external details of the art objects. As Maisel explains, “They make the invisible visible, and express the shape-shifting nature of time itself.”

The complex and dynamic artistic relationship between Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt is fully examined for the first time in this exhibition of some 70 works in a variety of media. Degas/Cassatt is on view only in Washington, May 11 through October 5, 2014.

Don Perry, producer. Thomas Allen Harris’s 2014 documentary film Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People investigates black portrait photographers and artists who have profoundly reshaped the image of contemporary and historic African Americans, and continue to do so. Don Perry, who coproduced and cowrote the film with Harris, visited the National Gallery of Art on May 31, 2015 to introduce and speak about Through a Lens Darkly.

Many seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings are small because they were created for domestic settings. In 1995 the National Gallery of Art unveiled the Dutch and Flemish Cabinet Galleries, a suite of intimately scaled, wood-paneled rooms that emulates the viewing experience one might have had in such an environment. Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. tours the cabinet galleries, discusses his inspiration for them, and explains why they are especially appropriate for paintings such as Vermeer’s remarkable genre scenes.

Many of the Dutch paintings at the National Gallery of Art have fascinating histories. Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. recounts how, under the threat of the Third Reich, the Petschek family in Aussig (now the Czech Republic) saved their beautiful landscape by Albert Cuyp from the Nazis. Wheelock also relates the peaceful, Arcadian quality of Cuyp’s paintings to the political and social ideals of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century.

By examining the stylistic relationships between two paintings in the National Gallery of Art, The Fall of Man by Hendrik Goltzius and Daniel and the Lions’ Den by Peter Paul Rubens, curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. explains how Goltzius drew inspiration from the great Flemish master. In 1612 Rubens traveled from Antwerp to Haarlem to visit Goltzius, and as The Fall of Man (1616) demonstrates, that meeting had a profound impact on Goltzius’ subsequent style.

Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. introduces the collection of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings at the National Gallery of Art. Filmed in the elegant oak-paneled galleries where the Dutch paintings hang, Wheelock discusses the collection’s history and changing character since the Gallery was founded in 1941.

Rembrandt van Rijn’s art is marked by his ability to capture the human experience in its joys, its drama, and its vulnerabilities. His many self-portraits are among the most iconic of his works. Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. explains how Rembrandt, in his Self-Portrait of 1659, depicted himself as a proud and thoughtful individual, worn with age but with an inner dignity gained from the personal difficulties he had experienced in the mid-1650s.

The dramatic composition and emotional power of Rembrandt’s The Mill has made it one of the most renowned paintings in the Dutch collection at the National Gallery of Art. Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. takes viewers through the fascinating history of this masterpiece, which includes major controversies about its attribution and its appearance.

In April 1969, Virginia Dwan joined artists Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt on a journey to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. The trio visited ancient Maya sites and took a boat ride on the Usumacinta River with Dwan filming their journey in Super 8 stock. Reflecting on her various travels, Dwan wrote, “I see the journeys as both adventure and metaphor of my ongoing quest for that which is beyond the clamor and the inherent struggles of contemporary life.”

Swiss artist Jean Tinguely spent several months in Los Angeles in 1963 preparing for a Dwan Gallery exhibition, his studio a former factory rented by the dealer. Fellow artist Edward Kienholz escorted Tinguely and Virginia Dwan to a local hardware store where Tinguely gathered motors to operate his kinetic sculptures. The viewer operates Odessa by pressing a floor pedal, causing the sculpture to whir to life.

Swiss artist Jean Tinguely spent several months in Los Angeles in 1963 preparing for a Dwan Gallery exhibition. In this kinetic portrait, Tinguely depicts gallery owner Virginia Dwan as a delicate arrangement of wires, a fireplace andiron, a radio circuit board, and a motor that causes the tuning dial to flicker between stations.

This excerpt is from a documentary produced by the National Gallery of Art that includes archival footage of Edward Hopper (1882–1967), new footage of places that inspired him in New York and New England, including his boyhood home in Nyack and his studio on Washington Square, where he lived and worked for more than 50 years. Narrated by actor and art collector Steve Martin, this film traces Hopper's varied influences, from French impressionism to the gangster films of the 1930s. Artists Red Grooms and Eric Fischl discuss Hopper's influence on their careers. Curators discuss recent and diverse perspectives on Hopper's art. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Edward Hopper.

The National Gallery of Art has released a new video podcast about the artist and his work and influence. In the podcast, which features more than 50 of Hopper's paintings and watercolors, Senior Curator Franklin Kelly discusses New York City, New England, and the cinema as Hopper saw and portrayed them—and as we view them today through his work. The filming of the pod cast was made possible by Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. Music composed and performed by Scott Silbert of the US Navy Band. Music engineered by David Morse of the US Navy Band.

This video shows John Cage and the Crown Point printers making Eninka 29 . The footage was shot in 1986 and edited by Kathan Brown in 2013, Courtesy of Kathan Brown.

This slideshow features photographs taken from 1967 to 2014 at the Gemini G.E.L workshop of the artists whose series are on display in the exhibition The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L.

The Magic of Illusion—presented here in a seven-part podcast series—is a film about how we see, what we see, or what it is we think we see. Al Roker guides us on a journey into the secrets of illusion, utilizing special effects to illustrate the artistic and visionary discoveries of the Renaissance. While Copernicus and Columbus were changing our understanding of the world, the Renaissance masters were dramatically changing the way we see that world. The film uses recent technology to look at old works in new ways. Each segment of this podcast presentation unlocks new secrets of illusion and perspective as seen in the works of old masters.

In 1427 inside Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Masaccio created the masterpiece The Trinity using linear perspective for the first time. This segment explains how he was able to make the wall behind the work seem to disappear so that the painting becomes an extension of the room the viewer is in.

Using forced perspective in the apse of the small Church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan, Bramante created the illusion of a much larger space.

Sant'Ignazio's Ceiling in Rome is an amazing demonstration of illusionism on a monumental scale. This segment demonstrates that when the viewpoint of the fresco changes, the illusion is destroyed.

Palazzo Spada's Corridor in Rome demonstrates the use of forced perspective. Special effects reveal how Borromini used an optical trick to create the illusion of depth.

St. Francis of Paola, Performer of Miracles, one of the largest anamorphic paintings in existence today, is located in Santa Maria dei Monti at the top of the Spanish Steps in Rome. Computer animation illustrates how this extraordinary use of foreshortening creates an image that fools the eye.

The set design by Vincenzo Scamozzi for Palladio's covered theater draws us in. This segment shows how perspective is used to create space that isn't really there.

Jarob J. Ortiz, is a large-format photographer with the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service (NPS). In the winter of 2015, the NPS commenced a job search for the next Ansel Adams (1902–1984), the landscape photographer commissioned by the NPS in the 1940s to document nature in US National Parks. Ortiz, a Milwaukee native, was selected out of 5,000 applicants as a staff photographer for the Heritage Documentation Programs. Through recordings from a lecture held on April 18, 2017, at the National Gallery of Art, interviews, and an on-location shoot in the Shenandoah, Ortiz illustrates the story of the processes and photographs he has taken while serving in this important role and discusses his journey and experience as a photographer in the field.

Jennifer Reeves, featured artist. Filmmaker Jennifer Reeves visited the National Gallery of Art on May 30, 2015, to introduce her film The Time We Killed (2004), a feature-length, experimental narrative that delves inside the mind of an agoraphobic writer unable to leave her New York apartment in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001. In this talk, Reeves discusses her approaches to filmmaking and the specific ways in which this feature addresses themes of memory, mental health and recovery, feminism, sexuality, and politics.

Kay Rosen's SORRY has taken on new meaning since she first conceived the installation. The artist shares her creative process and how SORRY encourages viewers to form their own interpretation.

This video presents footage of Degas’s masterpiece Little Dancer Aged Fourteen in situ at the National Gallery of Art. This wax statuette is the original version of Degas’s ballerina, the only one he produced himself; the many bronze examples in collections around the world are posthumous casts. Although Degas modeled figures of wax and clay throughout his career, the Little Dancer is the only three-dimensional work that he chose to exhibit during his lifetime. The video provides 360 degrees of footage, as well as close-up shots of the ballerina’s feet, face, and costume.

Made in conjunction with the exhibition Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, this six-minute film documents a two-day-long encounter between Sally Mann and choreographer and dancer Bill T. Jones. She has long admired his work, recognizing a shared interest in confronting difficult history through art. In late 2017, Mann invited Jones to her farm just outside Lexington, Virginia, where she photographed him. They discussed these pictures, her photographs of African American men, and the complex legacy of slavery in the South. Jones responded to these pictures and their conversation in a dance he performed on a nearby hillside. Made possible by Heather and Jim Johnson and Neil and Sayra Meyerhoff

Mario García Torres explores the war in Afghanistan through art, struggling to come to terms with violence there and at his home in Mexico. García Torres was inspired by Alighiero Boetti, the Italian artist who opened the mysterious One Hotel in Kabul more than fifty years ago. The artist talks about how he transformed Boetti’s poetic mirror-writing into a concrete presentation of the news of daily violence suffered by the Afghan people.

This short documentary, narrated by curator Harry Cooper, was produced by the National Gallery of Art in conjunction with the exhibition In the Tower: Mark Rothko. The film considers Rothko's style, which infused abstract painting with emotional significance. Recognized in the 1950s for his use of brilliant colors, Rothko changed direction in the 1960s and produced a series of canvases known as the black-form paintings. Critics and artists often associated the darkness of these works with Rothko's bouts of illness and depression, but Cooper argues that the paintings are a continuation of the painter's lifelong exploration of light.

Mark Ruwedel (American, b. 1954) is a photographer who examines the interaction between society and the landscape of the western United States, creating works that are in his words “about the interrogation of human values, not only about beauty or geology.” Active as a professional photographer since the 1970s, Ruwedel has often focused on nature’s reclamation of land over time, as in the series Westward the Course of Empire (1994–2007), in which he turned his lens to the faint traces of the railroad lines that once snaked through the West. His photographs capture the dramatic cuts through landmasses, scattered remains of trestles, and the lingering imprint of the long-forsaken tracks in the subtle grade of the terrain. Ruwedel’s more recent series Dusk (2007–2010), a study of derelict houses in the California desert, similarly addresses the relationship between natural and built environments. In these projects and others Ruwedel examines the landscape not to marvel at its splendor, but rather to better understand how history is written into its topography.

The Memory of Time presents work by contemporary artists who investigate the richness and complexity of photography’s relationship to time, memory, and history. In the last two decades, as the world has undergone an unprecedented technological revolution, photography itself has changed profoundly. With the advent of the digital age, people around the world are recording every aspect of their lives through photography, sharing their pictures with friends and strangers online and through the burgeoning social media. Yet digital photography has not only changed the way people make and circulate photographs, it has also shattered enduring notions of the medium as a faithful witness and recorder of unbiased truths, for now everything in a photograph can be fabricated; nothing need be real. Photography — once understood as verifying specific facts, capturing singular moments of time, and preserving explicit memories — is now recognized to have a multifaceted and slippery relationship to the truth and to the past. By embracing this complexity, contemporary artists have placed photography at the center of a renewed discussion around the construction of history and memory and the perception of time. The exhibition is divided into five sections: “Traces of History,” “Time Exposed,” “Memory and the Archive,” “Framing Time and Place,” and “Contemporary Ruins.” It features recently acquired works made from the early 1990s to the present by artists who explore these concepts.

Over the course of nearly half a century, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff acquired works by some of the most influential American artists in the postwar era, building a collection that bridges the divide between abstract and figurative painting. More than 40 artists are represented, with special focus on Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. Harry Cooper, the National Gallery's curator of modern and contemporary art, gives a tour of the exhibition, which includes 126 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture. By discussing the works according to themes such as Line, Drip, Gesture, and Concentricity, he presents the collection in new and often unexpected ways. The Meyerhoffs have donated 47 works to the National Gallery of Art since 1987, and their entire collection will eventually be given to the museum.

Over the course of nearly half a century, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff acquired works by some of the most influential American artists in the postwar era, building a collection that bridges the divide between abstract and figurative painting. More than 40 artists are represented, with special focus on Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. Harry Cooper, the National Gallery's curator of modern and contemporary art, gives a tour of the exhibition, which includes 126 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture. By discussing the works according to themes such as Line, Drip, Gesture, and Concentricity, he presents the collection in new and often unexpected ways. The Meyerhoffs have donated 47 works to the National Gallery of Art since 1987, and their entire collection will eventually be given to the museum.

Monet moved to the enchanting village of Giverny, 45 miles northwest of Paris, in 1883 at the age of 43. He lived in a specially designed home with water-lily gardens until the end of his life in 1926. This video gives a brief look at his home and place of work in Giverny, where he found inspiration in his surroundings.

Monet first moved to the enchanting village of Giverny, 45 miles northwest of Paris, in 1883 at the age of 43. He lived in a specially designed home with gardens until the end of his life in 1926. In this video, artist David Dunlop discusses and loosely demonstrates Monet’s painting techniques, drawing on Monet’s carefully developed and cultivated water-lily garden for inspiration.

Published to accompany the first retrospective museum exhibition of Guston's art in recent years, this book traces the unconventional path of this hugely important painter (1913–1980), whose constant aesthetic reinvention defies easy categorization. Incisive essays from leading art historians reveal Guston's thematic influences and interests, while an authoritative, illustrated chronology shares many new discoveries about his life and work. We also hear from 10 of the most relevant artists of our day—including Glenn Ligon, Amy Sillman, Art Spiegelman, and Rirkrit Tiravanija—for whom Guston's work has served as inspiration. Featuring a magnificent array of color plates derived from exquisite new photographs of Guston's paintings, this generously illustrated volume also highlights rarities including little-known cartoons drawn by Guston in his youth and intimate, previously unpublished photographs of his studio and painting materials. Hardcover edition published in association D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. Major support for the international tour of the exhibition and the catalog is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi and produced by the National Gallery, this excerpt is from a new documentary film that examines the explosion of artistic activity around the Bay of Naples beginning in the first century BC. The film includes original footage of houses in Pompeii and of the seaside villas that dotted the coastline of the Bay of Naples. The 30-minute version of the film is on view and for sale at the National Gallery of Art. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples.

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of renowned art critic, John Ruskin, this exhibition features more than 80 paintings, watercolors, drawings, and photographs created by artists profoundly influenced by the influential Victorian era critic. Member artists not only recorded the natural world with strict fidelity, as Ruskin advocated, but also created a number of works that included rich political subtexts referencing the ongoing war.

The dramatic installation of rare suits of armor worn by Spanish kings, royal portraits, and magnificent tapestries from the Renaissance are accompanied by music and brief remarks from the press preview on June 23, 2009, for this stunning and historic exhibition. Speakers include Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art; His Excellency D. Jorge Dezcallar, ambassador of Spain; Yago Pico de Coaña, president, Patrimonio Nacional; Charo Otegui Pascual, executive president, SEACEX; Alvaro Soler del Campo, director, Spanish Royal Armory, and chief curator, Patrimonio Nacional; and José Andrés, chef and owner, Jaleo and THINKfoodGROUP.

Featured are highlights from the National Gallery of Art's press preview for the landmark exhibition of Itō Jakuchū's "Colorful Realm of Living Beings"–a set of 30 bird-and-flower paintings on display at the Gallery from March 30 through April 29, 2012. Widely considered as one of the greatest achievements in the history of Japanese nature painting, this Edo masterpiece is on view for the first time outside of Japan. The occasion for this exhibition is the centennial of the gift of cherry trees from Tokyo to Washington, DC, in 1912.

Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Brice Marden, and Ellsworth Kelly—four of the American masters whose art is on view in this landmark exhibition—speak with collector Robert Meyerhoff, curator Harry Cooper, and Gallery director Earl A. Powell III. The artists discuss their work, the collection itself, and the show while strolling through this innovative thematic installation prior to its opening in September 2009. Speakers at the podium include Powell, Meyerhoff, and Victoria P. Sant, president, National Gallery of Art.

Robert Adams has made compelling, provocative, and highly influential photographs depicting the inherent beauty and fragility of the American landscape and the inadequacy of our response to it. This exhibition explores the reverential way he looks at the world around him and the almost palpable silence of his work. On view at the National Gallery of Art: May 29 – October 2, 2022. The exhibition and catalog are made possible through the leadership support of the Trellis Fund and a generous gift from Jane P. Watkins. The exhibition is also made possible in part by The Shared Earth Foundation. Additional support is provided by Randi and Bob Fisher, Wes and Kate Mitchell, Nion McEvoy, Greg and Aline Gooding, and the James D. and Kathryn K. Steele Fund for Photography.

In the short film about the exhibition Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, Dorothy Lichtenstein, the artist’s widow and president of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, and Harry Cooper, curator of modern art at the National Gallery of Art, talk about the iconic artist’s signature dots, the wide range of subject matter explored in his art, and the impact of his body of work on contemporary art. The landmark retrospective exhibition is on view at the Gallery through January 13, 2013.

How do you make a site-specific installation thousands of miles from the site? Artist Sarah Cain provides insight into creating My favorite season is the fall of the patriarchy.

There are many revelations in the “Masterpieces of Polish Cinema” series and whether you’re familiar with some of these films or not, it’s an incredible opportunity to discover for yourself the great power of Polish cinema, on the big screen in brilliantly restored digital masters.— Martin Scorsese

Humor may be fundamental to human experience, but its expression in painting and sculpture has been limited. Instead, prints, as the most widely distributed medium, and drawings, as the most private, have been the natural vehicles for comic content. Drawn from the National Gallery of Art’s collection, Sense of Humor celebrates this incredibly rich though easily overlooked tradition through works including Renaissance caricatures, biting English satires, and 20th-century comics.

(4 min excerpt), 2011, HD video with sound

Photographer Susan Meiselas (b. 1948) engages with diverse, often marginalized populations from across the globe. In many instances, she returns to the sites she has photographed to share her prints with the communities represented, a move that questions the traditional relationship between photographer and documented subject. She is also interested in the circulation of her photographs, a driving force behind her 2014 multi-media installation, The Life of an Image: “Molotov Man,” 1979-2009 . In it Meiselas traces the afterlife of her iconic photograph depicting a Sandinista revolutionary hurling a Molotov cocktail. In addition to citing use by disparate factions, Meiselas includes examples of her own reengagement with Nicaragua and its people. Through the construction of an archive, Meiselas examines the shifts in meaning of her photographs over time and in different contexts. A member of Magnum since 1976, Meiselas currently serves as the President of the Magnum Foundation, where she is a leading voice on expanding the parameters of documentary practice.

Talk About Art is a six-minute documentary film that highlights visitors to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Among the visitors who share their thoughts on art are people from all walks of life—including students, a taxi driver, an architect, a security guard, and a hairdresser. These are not art historians, but art is a common bond for them, and definitely a force in their lives. For some art is a way to connect to the past; for others it is a way to see the world around them in a different way. Listening to their side of the museum experience may get you talking about art as well.

James Layton, manager, Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center, The Museum of Modern Art; David Pierce, founder of Media History Digital Library and president, Sunrise Entertainment Inc. Color was an integral part of early cinema, with tinting, toning, and other processes adding imaginative dimension to black-and-white images. In this Rajiv Vaidya Memorial Lecture recorded on December 6, 2015, James Layton and David Pierce, authors of The Dawn of Technicolor, 1915–1935 , illustrate the efforts of Technicolor to give filmmakers tools to present naturalistic color on the screen, even as the company was striving to overcome countless technical challenges and persuade cost-conscious producers of color’s virtues. Rare photographs from the Technicolor corporate archive chart the development of the early two-color process and the new aesthetic color photography required for lighting, costumes, and production design. Three early Technicolor shorts preserved by the George Eastman House followed the lecture: Manchu Love (1929), The Love Charm (1928), and Sports of Many Lands (1929).

Teresita Fernández invited us to be the first to film her renovated Brooklyn studio and the installation of “ Paradise Parados” , her site-specific, monumental sculpture at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Often using materials that relate to the landscapes she’s depicting—charcoal from burned trees, mined minerals, or reflective metals—Fernández’s work has a luminous, seductive beauty that draws viewers in, while unapologetically challenging us to think critically about the inherent violence of colonization and how it continues to shape our ideas about the land and one another.

The armor, paintings, and tapestries in the exhibition were made for the Spanish royal family—the nobles, kings, and Holy Roman Emperors who expanded Spain’s influence throughout Europe and the New World. These objects reveal the exquisite work of artists and craftsmen who served the Spanish ruling class from the 15th to the 18th century. In the intricate and finely wrought details on shields, portraits, and tapestries, something quite different is also revealed: an attempt to link the Spanish monarchy with the pieties of the Catholic Church, the power of the ancient Roman empire, and the cultural glories of ancient Greece. David Brown, curator of Italian and Spanish paintings at the National Gallery of Art, describes this subtle advertising campaign waged by the Spanish throne to advance its goals and reputation.

Join us on a two-minute tour of “The Double,” an exhibition that flips reality, splits time, and causes us to see ourselves seeing. Artists from Henri Matisse, Arshile Gorky, and Robert Rauschenberg to Kerry James Marshall, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, Mary Kelly, and Yinka Shonibare, explore enduring questions of identity and perception.

Winner of the 2022 People's Voice Webby Award The New Woman was a global symbol of female empowerment based on real women making revolutionary changes in life and art. Modern, independent, and confident, the New Woman was an inspirational model for women photographers around the world during the 1920s to the 1950s.

One of the greatest Italian painters of the 16th century, Jacopo Tintoretto was known for creating immense paintings, stretching nine, ten, or even 16 feet! Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of birth, this first full-scale retrospective of the artist in America comprises 46 paintings and ten drawings, with subject ranging from regal portraits of Venetian aristocracy to religious and mythological narrative scenes

This film, made in conjunction with the exhibition Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice , recounts the history of the relationship between the Venetian fraternal organization Scuola Grande di San Marco and the works of Tintoretto and his son that fill San Marco’s walls. This confraternity dedicated to Venice’s patron, Saint Mark, commissioned a cycle of four Tintoretto paintings to decorate the building’s interior. Take a tour of San Marco’s lavish chapter hall, which includes Tintoretto’s masterwork Miracle of the Slave and later additions by his son Domenico, and learn about the fate of these paintings after the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797.

Join curator Mary Morton on a tour of highlights from the exhibition True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870 . Young artists of the late 18th and 19th centuries developed their skills at capturing the effects of light and atmosphere by painting outdoors, working quickly in oils on paper or small canvases. The exhibition presents more than 100 of these oil sketches with views ranging from the Swiss Alps to the ruins of Rome. The exhibition is on view at the National Gallery of Art from February 2 to May 3, 2020.  #PaintingTruetoNature

The moon rises high over water and becomes one with Turner's evocative image of the sights and sounds on the River Tyne at Newcastle. Time-lapse photography interweaves with close details of Turner's painting to capture both the stillness of the night and the work of loading coals by moonlight and torch.

Drawing on one of the earliest forms of photographic technology, Vera Lutter (German, b. 1960) creates monumental photographs of compelling architectural spaces. She first builds a camera obscura by darkening the interior of closed spaces—a suitcase, shipping container, or apartment—and leaving a small pinhole opening for light to enter. Placing light-sensitive paper opposite the opening, Lutter then exposes an image of the exterior view on the paper for an extended period of hours, days, even months. The unusually long exposure time challenges notions of photography’s instantaneity, producing images that capture the passage of time rather than a singular moment. For Ca' del Duca Sforza, Venice II: January 13–14 , 2008 Lutter transformed a room in the Palazzo Sforza into a camera to create a stunning and uncanny view of the Grand Canal in Venice.

Vermeer's classic painting A Lady Writing inspired this evocative film. The exquisite skills of this 17th-century Dutch artist evoke nuances of light, texture, and reflection that describe both the artist's native city of Delft and the details of this much-loved work. Painted ermine, pearls, velvet, brass, and wood are illuminated by the sensitive touch of an unparalleled master.

Join exhibition curator Andrew Butterfield on a tour of highlights from the exhibition Andrea del Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence on view from September 15, 2019 to January 12, 2020

The award-winning film The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg offers a fascinating portrait of a poet and photographer who helped define postwar American counterculture. Originally released in 1994, Jerry Aronson’s documentary was rereleased in 2005 with additional hours of interviews with numerous contemporary artists and cultural figures, among them Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, and Norman Mailer. Two screenings of the film were held at the National Gallery of Art in September 2010, and the new edition of the two-disk set is available through the Gallery Shop.

In this video, artist Andy Goldsworthy performs the humble, everyday act of sweeping a dusty shed near his home in Scotland. As birds chirp and lambs bleat in the background, he employs his broom as a tool to push the dust into his signature lines, making nine “drawings” over the course of a week. Light and shadows come and go as the camera bears witness to the delineation of new forms. As Goldsworthy suggests, the five hour video need not be watched continually. It can play in the background, and be returned to as the process unfolds.

Narrated by Isabella Rossellini and produced by the National Gallery of Art, this film traces the career of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an artist whose work thrilled and delighted the Habsburg courts of the later 16th century. Arcimboldo was best known for his "composite heads"—faces composed of fruits, vegetables, fish, flowers, and beasts of all kinds. The film explores the connection between his paintings and the burgeoning natural sciences, the voyages of discovery, and the atmosphere of intellectual curiosity at the courts of Europe. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Arcimboldo, 1526–1593: Nature and Fantasy.

Narrated by Ethan Hawke, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition George Bellows. Bellows arrived in New York City in 1904 and depicted an America on the move. In a twenty-year career cut short by his death at age 42, he painted the rapidly growing modern city—its bustling crowds, skyscrapers, and awe-inspiring construction projects, as well as its bruising boxers, street urchins, and New Yorkers both hard at work and enjoying their leisure. He also captured the rugged beauty of New York's rivers and the grandeur of costal Maine. This documentary includes original footage shot in New York City and Maine; examples of Bellows' paintings, drawings, and prints; and archival footage and photographs. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

This 10-minute film explores the life and art of Alonso Berruguete, the revolutionary sculptor and painter of Renaissance Spain. Around 1506, when still a teenager, Berruguete traveled from his small town in Castile to Italy, where he came into contact with Michelangelo, whose emotionally expressive figures greatly influenced the young artist. Returning to Spain in 1518, Berruguete turned his focus to expansive retablos , the name in Spanish for the traditional kind of altarpiece that combines painting and sculpture. Narrated by C. D. Dickerson III, curator and head of the department of sculpture and decorative arts, the film traces Berruguete’s career, while capturing many of his masterful works that are too large to travel.  Thanks to drone footage, the film grants unparalleled views of the choir of Toledo cathedral, the tomb of Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera, and the retablo mayor of the Colegio Mayor Arzobispo Fonseca, Salamanca. The film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain. Funding provided by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain. The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid

Binh Danh (American, b. 1977 Vietnam) uses alternative printing techniques to explore the relationship between history, memory, and the landscape. His interest in the power of photography to define the past and construct national identity unites his studies of the Vietnam-American War, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, and Yosemite National Park. Upon visiting Vietnam as an adult, Danh recognized that remnants from the war were still visible in the country’s landscape. Seeking to convey this lasting imprint of the conflict as well as our collective memories of it, Danh began printing negatives of mass-media photographs of the war onto natural supports, such as leaves and grass, using “chlorophyll printing,” a process he invented, which transfers photographic images by means of photosynthesis. On a subsequent trip to Cambodia, Danh visited sites connected to the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge regime. The trip inspired a series based in part on the regime’s own interrogation photographs of prisoners. Creating both chlorophyll prints and daguerreotypes, one of the first photographic processes that yields a highly detailed, mirrorlike surface, Danh’s works are altars or memorials to the prisoners and, in his words, provide “a proper homage to the legacy of their life.” Danh turned to the daguerreotype process once more when photographing the iconic sites of Yosemite, first brought into the American imaginary by Carleton Watkins in the 1860s and popularized by Ansel Adams in the 20th century.

A shrewd businessman, Chester Dale started out as a Wall Street messenger in the early 20th century. By 1910 he was poised to make the fortune that enabled him to assemble one of the finest collections of modern art in America. He and his wife Maud first focused on American paintings, but they soon turned their attention to French art of the 19th and early 20th centuries, acquiring a few old masters along the way. Dale's gifts to the nation, numbering more than 300 works of art, transformed the Gallery's collection and included masterpieces by Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Picasso. Never lent to other museums, these paintings can only be seen at the National Gallery of Art. Narrated by director Earl A. Powell III.

This film presents still and original moving footage of historically significant Byzantine churches in Greece. Set to the music of Byzantine hymns and chants, the film evokes the original context of many works of art in the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections at the National Gallery of Art, October 6, 2013–March 2, 2014. Produced by the Department of Exhibition Programs at the National Gallery of Art. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation

Late 19th–century art is usually identified with airy and colorful impressionist paintings and the radiant atmosphere of Paris. But in the shadowy recesses an art of a very different kind thrived. Prints, drawings, and small sculpture from the period present an alternative vision in depictions of the inner worlds of emotions, anxieties, and fantasies. Mainly stored away rather than openly displayed by their owners, the works in this exhibition appealed to artists and audiences devoted to a private aesthetic experience. Peter Parshall, the Gallery's curator of old master prints, talks about the works in the exhibition and their subtle and complex depictions of human psychology decades before the publication of Sigmund Freud's theories on the unconscious.

For over a decade, Deborah Luster (American, b. 1951) has created photographic archives to examine the complexity and tragedy of violence. For her series One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana, 1998–2002, Luster spent years taking individual portraits of hundreds of Louisiana’s incarcerated men and women. She produced wallet-sized photographs that she gave to the sitters and also made prints on prepared aluminum that were etched on the reverse with details the sitters provided about their lives. These photographs, reminiscent of 19th-century tintypes, are stored in a steel cabinet that houses a gripping archive of a forgotten population. Turning from individuals in the prison system to victims of violence, Tooth for an Eye: A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish , 2008–2011, documents murder sites throughout the post–Hurricane Katrina landscape of New Orleans. Focusing on what Luster describes as “the empty, dizzying space at the core of violence,” each photograph of a crime scene is accompanied by a police-style ledger entry, providing details about the homicides committed at the pictured locations. Through a combination of text and image, Luster urges viewers to confront the nature and prevalence of violent crime.

This film was produced in conjunction with the exhibition Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns . Used by artists since the Middle Ages, metalpoint in its simplest form involves inserting gold or silver wire into a stylus to make drawings on paper prepared with an abrasive coating. Kimberly Schenck, head of paper conservation at the National Gallery of Art, demonstrates the process of preparing the paper; Mark Leithauser, the Gallery’s chief of design, demonstrates various ways of drawing with metal; and Stacey Sell, associate curator in the department of old master drawings, comments on the techniques used by the artists. This film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

This film is made in conjunction with the exhibition Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971 , on view from September 30, 2016, to January 29, 2017. Produced by the Department of Exhibition Programs, the film follows the career of Virginia Dwan, who opened her first art gallery in Los Angeles in 1959 and went on to organize dozens of exhibitions of remarkable range, representing movements as diverse as abstract expressionism, pop art, minimalism, conceptualism, and land art. In her earliest days as a dealer, Dwan brought New York art and artists – Larry Rivers, Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, among others – to a West Coast audience and supported young French artists, including Yves Klein. The opening of a New York location in 1965 made Dwan Gallery the country’s first bicoastal gallery. There Dwan’s aesthetic shifted toward the spare, restrained look of minimalism. In 1971 she abandoned her career as a dealer and focused on supporting ambitious earthworks, such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty – a 1,500-foot coiled sculpture on the shore of Great Salt Lake in Utah. The film includes a new interview with Virginia Dwan, comments from Claes Oldenburg and Charles Ross, whose work she supported, and archival footage of the exhibitions and happenings she sponsored in the 1960s. The film was made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Narrated by Adrien Brody, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition El Greco in the National Gallery of Art and Washington-Area Collections: A 400th Anniversary Celebration. El Greco (1541 – 1614) was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete. He began his career as a painter of icons for Byzantine churches. Moving to Italy and then to Spain, his work fused lessons learned from the glories of Byzantium with the ravishing color of Venetian art and the elegant artificialities of Roman mannerism. Settling in Toledo, he created a passionate outpouring of work. He painted haunting portraits of saints and scholars, biblical scenes, martyrdoms, and miracles in a highly personal, visionary style charged with emotion and drama. His work puzzled many contemporaries, but later artists, including Picasso, considered him a prophet of modernism. This film was made possible by the HRH foundation

Narrated by Willem Dafoe and with Alfred Molina as the voice of Paul Gauguin, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Gauguin: Maker of Myth. Gauguin (1848–1903) abandoned impressionism to create an art driven less by observation than by imagination. His gifts as an artist were matched by a talent for creating myths about places, cultures, and most of all, himself. This film explores his search for an authenticity he felt missing in modern Europe, a search that took him to ever more remote lands: Brittany, Martinique, and Polynesia. Never finding the paradise of his dreams, he recreated it in his paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints. The film is available for sale at the National Gallery of Art. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Adam Greenhalgh, exhibition curator and lead author on the team producing the catalogue raisonné Mark Rothko: The Works on Paper, National Gallery of Art. For centuries artists have made multipart series, undertaking subjects on a scale not possible in a single work. This engagement was especially prevalent in the 1960s, as artists dedicated to conceptual, minimalist, and pop approaches explored the potential of serial procedures and structures. Many prominent artists since then have produced serial projects at the renowned Los Angeles print workshop and publisher Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited). In honor of The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L., an exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Art on October 4, 2015, Adam Greenhalgh provides an overview of 17 series created at Gemini by 17 artists over the past five decades. On view through February 7, 2016, the exhibition includes seminal early works by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella as well as more recent serial projects by John Baldessari, Julie Mehretu, and Richard Serra.

For over 20 years, Lynsey Addario has covered major conflict zones across the globe creating powerful and evocative images that bear witness to pressing humanitarian issues. A regular contributor to National Geographic, The New York Times, and TIME magazine, her perilous work documenting both the front lines and the individual experience of war has changed the way we see world conflict. Addario has been the recipient of numerous international awards including a MacArthur Fellowship or “Genius Grant” and the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

The new ongoing film series American Originals Now focuses on the work of internationally recognized filmmakers from the Americas, and offers visitors an opportunity to interact with and share in the artists' production methodologies and current practices. The inaugural program brought recent short works by filmmaker Jem Cohen and a screening of his award-winning 1999 documentary Instrument, made in collaboration with DC-based band Fugazi. Cohen was present for both events; during the latter of the two he was joined by Fugazi frontmen Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto

This excerpt is from a new documentary chronicling the rise of one of the greatest landscape painters of all time, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), who rendered the subtle effects of light and atmosphere in revolutionary ways. A barber's son, he entered the Royal Academy art school at age fourteen and became, over the course of six decades, the leading British artist of his era. This overview of Turner's career and influences includes footage of locations important to him in Wales, Switzerland, and England, and readings from writers and artists of the era, including John Ruskin and Lord Byron. A 30-minute version of the film may be purchased at the National Gallery of Art. Narrated by Jeremy Irons and produced by the Gallery in conjunction with the exhibition J.M.W. Turner, the film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

This documentary, narrated by Ed Harris, was produced by the National Gallery of Art in conjunction with the exhibition Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape . Joan Miró was passionately committed to his native Catalonia and its struggle for independence from Spain. But he also longed to escape into artistic freedom. This tension drove his art in strange and beautiful ways. Miró was by turns influenced by Dada, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. His changes in styles and subjects also reflected the horrific events of the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the dictatorship of Franco. This documentary includes original footage shot in Barcelona and Catalonia, images of Miró's paintings and sculpture, and archival footage and photos.

Kevin Beasley, artist. Kevin Beasley (b. Lynchburg, Virginia, 1985) creates sculptures and performances out of found objects of cultural and personal significance—anything from housedresses and do-rags to Air Jordan sneakers and football helmets. He combines these with polyurethane foam and resin, mashing, squeezing, or ripping them to create new, sometimes haunting forms. Sometimes he embeds audio equipment in his sculptures, making them listen or speak. Through clothing or sound, performance or sculpture, Beasley’s practice identifies the point at which concepts in apparent conflict—like past and present, sports and politics, or play and violence—begin to blur. Since earning his BFA from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, in 2007, and his MFA from Yale University in 2012, Beasley’s work has been featured at the 2014 Whitney Biennial and in exhibitions in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; in Cleveland at the Museum of Contemporary Art; and in Los Angeles at the Hammer Museum. Beasley lives and works in Queens, New York. He is a cocreator of ALLGOLD, an artist/designer group that facilitates community and enables exploration and exchange in New York City and abroad. Beasley shares his practice in this multimedia presentation held on September 17, 2017, at the National Gallery of Art. This program is proposed and made possible by Darryl Atwell.

This film captures the power of faith in the face of danger, illustrated in the famous Old Testament story of Daniel in the lions' den and in Peter Paul Rubens' full-scale painting at the National Gallery. Daniel's travail in a closed cave unfolds here through a series of comparative frames: Rubens' preparatory drawings, painted lions with human bones at their feet, and footage of actual lions, similar to those Rubens saw at the royal menagerie in Brussels.

In 1979 Lonnie Holley (American, born 1950) began to make and exhibit sculptures that drew on his hardscrabble life experiences and his ruminations on lessons to be found in everyday materials—discarded junk. Soon much of his energy was devoted to creating an environmental work on the one-acre property he owned on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama. In 1997 city authorities claimed the land and ultimately destroyed everything on it in preparation for an airport expansion.

Made in conjunction with the exhibition Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, this nine-minute documentary explores Mann’s use of collodion wet plate negatives, a process used by many Civil War photographers. But unlike her predecessors, who worked hard to create perfect negatives, Mann readily embraced the flaws—such as specks of dust or pools of chemicals. These very imperfections, Mann explains, enable her to capture a sense of the South, where “the very air is redolent with the spirits of the past.” Produced by the department of exhibition programs. Made possible by the HRH Foundation.

The centenary of the birth of Paul Mellon (1907–1999), philanthropist, art collector, founding benefactor, and trustee of the National Gallery of Art, is celebrated throughout 2007 with exhibitions, gallery talks, lectures, concerts, and a new documentary. Paul Mellon's visionary leadership of the National Gallery of Art spanned more than six decades, from 1938, when he was first elected to the Board of Trustees, to his death in 1999. During that time he watched over and nurtured the museum's growth from a single grand building to a mature institution with two monumental structures, a sculpture garden, and a world-class collection. More than 1,000 works of art given by Paul Mellon and his wife Bunny form an extraordinary legacy. In addition, he generously contributed funds for acquisitions, education, archives, and the Gallery's Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

Narrated by Liev Schreiber, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World , on view at the Gallery from December 13, 2015, to March 20, 2016. Produced by the department of exhibition programs, it explores artistic achievements of the Hellenistic period from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the rise of the Roman Empire. Bronze, with its gleaming surfaces, tensile strength, and ability to capture fine detail, became the preferred medium of Hellenistic sculptors for lifelike portraits expressing character and individuality, innovative images of deities, and dynamic expressions of movement. The film includes footage shot on location at archaeological sites in Greece—Delphi, Corinth, and Olympia—and was made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Narrated by John Lithgow, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Stuart Davis: In Full Swing. Stuart Davis (1892 –1964) was an American original. Trained as a realist painter, he became a pioneering abstract artist after seeing works by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, and other European modernists at the Armory Show in New York in 1913. Davis’s exuberant, colorful compositions echo the dynamism of the American scene and the rhythms of jazz, the artist’s lifelong passion. This documentary surveys his career and includes original footage shot on location in New York and Gloucester, Massachusetts; interviews with scholars and a musician; images of Davis’s paintings; and archival footage and photographs of the artist. Produced by the department of exhibition programs. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Jacopo Tintoretto (1518/19 – 1594) changed the face of Venetian painting. His loose, fast and furious brushwork was compared to a thunderbolt. Combining the rich colors of Titian with the dramatic muscularity of Michelangelo’s human figures, Tintoretto covered the walls of his native city with pictures that astounded his contemporaries; one critic declared him “the most extraordinary brain that the art of painting has ever produced.” This documentary includes original footage of Tintoretto’s works in the churches and palaces of Venice and interviews with curators and scholars. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation.

USCO, also known as the Company of US or US Company, was a group of artists, poets, filmmakers, engineers, and composers who formed a multimedia collective in 1963. Two of its cofounders—Michael Callahan (b. 1944), an electronics innovator and president of Museum Technology Source, and Gerd Stern (b. 1928), a poet, media artist, and president of Intermedia Foundation—reflect on their lives and the creation of USCO. Callahan and Stern discuss their artistic journeys and initial collaborations, which led to the formation of this innovative and technologically prescient multimedia collective. They provide insight into USCO’s influences and activities during the 1960s. Archival footage and behind-the-scenes access to their visit to the National Gallery of Art in preparation for their performance on March 3, 2019, provide a greater context for understanding USCO’s collaborative spirit, rich history, and art practice.

Vermeer: Master of Light is a visual pilgrimage in search of what makes a Vermeer a Vermeer. It is a journey of discovery, guiding the viewer through an examination of three of Johannes Vermeer's paintings and exploring the "secrets" of his technique. Utilizing the potential of x-ray analysis and infrared reflectography as well as the power of computer technology, the program delves beneath the surface of the paintings to unveil fascinating insights into Vermeer's work. This film celebrates one of the most extraordinary painters in the history of art. Narrated by Meryl Streep, with commentary by Arthur Wheelock, curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art, and David Bull, conservator. This compilation video combines all 5 parts of the Vermeer: Master of Light video podcast series.

Seventeenth century Dutch artists created remarkably naturalistic effects in their genre paintings through their careful handling of paint and sensitivity to the effects of light and color. Given the frequent similarities in their subject matter, artists such as Johannes Vermeer, Gerard Ter Borch, Gabriel Metsu, Frans van Mieris, Caspar Netscher, Gerrit Dou, and Jan Steen must have observed each other’s works. Yet they also had distinctive approaches for modeling their figures and objects and rendering materials and textures, owing in part to the differences in their training and the different artistic climates of the towns in which they lived, from Delft and Deventer to Leiden and Amsterdam. National Gallery of Art curator Arthur Wheelock narrates this video, made in conjunction with the exhibition Johannes Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting , which features up-close comparisons of similar works by these artists to show the various ways they painted elegant costumes, costly furnishings, soft plumage, smooth faces, and other details.

Made in conjunction with the exhibition Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence, this 17-minute documentary explores the career of an exceptionally versatile artist. Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435–1488) gained fame as a sculptor whose masterpieces in bronze rival ancient sculpture in their naturalism and expressiveness. A favorite of the Medici, the de facto rulers of Florence, Verrocchio was also a celebrated painter and draftsman whose workshop became a training ground for the preeminent painters of the High Renaissance, including his apprentice and pupil, Leonardo da Vinci. Narrated by Academy Award nominee Glenn Close, the film includes new footage of the original settings of the artist’s works in Florence, Pistoia, and Venice. Produced by the department of exhibition programs, National Gallery of Art. Support for the film was provided by the Embassy of Italy in Washington, DC. The film was also made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435–1488) was one of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. His works in bronze and marble rival ancient sculptures in their naturalism, expressiveness, and sophisticated design. As a true “Renaissance man,” he was also a gifted painter and draftsman whose innovations deeply influenced the young artists of his busy workshop, including his prize pupil, Leonardo da Vinci. This film tells the story of Verrocchio’s career as a favored sculptor of the Medici, the most powerful family of Renaissance Florence, and explores his collaborations with Leonardo. It includes new footage of the original settings for his works — the beautiful churches, palaces, and public spaces of Florence, Pistoia, and Venice. Support for the film was provided by the Embassy of Italy in Washington, DC. The film was also made possible by the HRH Foundation.