Past Exhibitions

California Flora: Botanical Watercolors by Mary Foley Benson

Approximately 45 works by illustrator Benson represent the flora of California.

April 30, 1983 – June 26, 1983

The Eight

This small exhibition includes paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs of an independent group of early 20th-century American artists known as "The Eight".

February 3, 1983 – June 26, 1983

Portrait Gallery

Jose De Creeft: Sculpture and Drawings

See 65 works in a retrospective exhibition that surveys the achievements of the naturalized American who was born in Spain in 1884 and died in 1982 in New York.

March 18, 1983 – June 19, 1983

The Mechanical Artist

Investigate instruments that draw and their products -- writing machines, engraving devices, a camera obscura, and a physiognotrace (silhouette-drawing machine), among others.

November 1, 1981 – June 5, 1983

Fashioned in Steel (The Steel Navy)

Commemorate the centennial of the Congressional bill authorizing the Navy Dept. to begin construction of steel ships, and trace their early development through some 7 models and several pictures, as well as the comfort (and discomfort) of people who manned the early ships.

March 22, 1983 – May 31, 1983

D.C. Day Art Contest

On view are works by student artists from D.C. city schools, including the winners of honorable mention recipients in this year's contest. The theme was aeronautics.

February 15, 1983 – May 31, 1983

Air and Space Museum

Alfred Stieglitz

View 5 photogravure prints of New York scenes from the turn of the century.

February 18, 1983 – May 31, 1983

Fighting for Freedom

Read letters written by black soldiers during the Civil War to the War Department and to their families and friends at home.

February 1, 1983 – May 31, 1983

Japanese Masks from the Noh Theater and Kyogen Performances

In conjunction with the Performing Arts' World Explorer performance and demonstration, on view are Japanese masks used in the Noh dance theater, and in the Kyogen, satirical interludes during intermissions in the Noh theater.

May 1, 1983 – May 31, 1983

Directions 1983

This group exhibition of contemporary art suggests certain concerns, or "directions," shared by artists using diverse styles or media.

March 10, 1983 – May 15, 1983

Hirshhorn Museum

Threads: 7 American Artists and Their Miniature Textile Pictures

View 26 works conceived on a small scale which use the smallest component of the textile process, the thread, as their principal element.

November 25, 1982 – May 8, 1983

Renwick Gallery

Stuart Portraits of George and Martha Washington

View unfinished portraits of George and Martha Washington by Gilbert Stuart, the most celebrated American portrait painter of his day

July 4, 1980 – May 1, 1983

Portrait Gallery

Recent Gifts: Portraits (of Alexander Hamilton and Fisher Ames)

Enjoy 2 portraits presented by former Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and his son, Harvard professor George C. Lodge: Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull and Fisher Ames by Gilbert Stuart.

January 1, 1980 – May 1, 1983

Portrait Gallery

Elihu Vedder's Drawings for the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Admire 54 drawings--in chalk, pastel, pencil and ink--created by Vedder for an 1884 English-language edition of the Persian's poetry.

April 16, 1982 – May 1, 1983

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Carnegie Mansion Embellishments

View approximately 150 fanciful modifications of a line drawing of the south facade of the Carnegie Mansion, home of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.

February 8, 1983 – May 1, 1983

Francis Lee Jaques: Artist-Naturalist

Some 54 paintings in a retrospective exhibition document the life and work of Jaques, one of America's most talented wildlife artists and a pioneer in the creation of dioramas.

March 12, 1983 – April 24, 1983

Elizabeth Nourse, 1859-1938: A Salon Career

A reappraisal of the American expatriate is provided by the 104 works on view--portraits, domestic scenes, landscapes, and drawings.

January 14, 1983 – April 17, 1983

Cooper Hewitt Design Museum

Tiffany Studios: Metalwork and Other Decorative Arts

Admire approximately 75 works produced at the Tiffany Studios, highlighting Tiffany designs in bronze, silver, gold, enamel, copper, and other metals.

January 18, 1983 – April 17, 1983

The Workers' World: The Industrial Village and The Company Town

See graphics and some small objects that explain living and working conditions in two 19th-century environments.

December 10, 1982 – April 17, 1983

The Fall of Parity

See the Wu-Ambler apparatus, which in 1956 enabled physicists to show that, contrary to a previously accepted assumption, mirror symmetry does not hold for all physical processes, and thus, the mirror image of our world is distinguishable from the world itself.

April 3, 1982 – April 12, 1983

The Prints of Louis Lozowick

Enjoy 70 lithographs and wood engravings by the 20th-century American artist.

November 5, 1982 – April 10, 1983