Past Exhibitions

The Dream King: Ludwig of Bavaria

See designs for interiors, objects and the famous castles commissioned by Ludwig.

January 23, 1979 – March 25, 1979

Birds of Prey: Paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes

See 30 watercolors of hawks, owls, ospreys and other birds by the American artist/naturalist, considered by many as one of the foremost bird illustrators of all time.

January 20, 1979 – March 18, 1979

Natural History Museum

Enjoy 19th century skates, lithographs of idyllic winter scenes and skating club memorabilia -- 22 objects in all -- showing how the Victorian pastime cut across social, age and economic barriers to become the country's first popular sport.

December 1, 1978 – March 1, 1979

Sales Exhibition: Rivercane Baskets

View 25 doubleweave contemporary baskets made by Eva Wolfe, a noted Cherokee basketweaver.

January 16, 1979 – February 28, 1979

Renwick Gallery

American Color Woodcuts: The Years of Transition

View 65 works that survey the transformation of the color relief print in the U.S. Included is a Provincetown artists' froup of 1916-1920, which developed a method for printing multi-colors from a single block.

November 23, 1978 – February 25, 1979

Clay Figures from Guerrero

See 45 clay works that are shaped like animals and people; all, following tradition, have been molded by the women and then decorated by the men of San Augustin Oapan.

September 29, 1978 – February 19, 1979

Renwick Gallery

New Stained Glass

View 35 objects that illustrate the use of new techniques for painting and etching glass to create works designed to be viewed as individual objects rather than windows in an architect's plan.

September 1, 1978 – February 19, 1979

Renwick Gallery

Ben Nicholson: Fifty Years of His Art

Displayed in the British artist's first major American retrospective are 68 paintings and 14 works on paper.

December 21, 1978 – February 18, 1979

Hirshhorn Museum

Brian Mason: Research on Meteorites Found in Antarctica

See a piece of the first meteorite found in Antarctica in 1912 as well as a fragment from the large 878-pound meteorite collected by a recent expedition.

January 1, 1979 – February 15, 1979

Natural History Museum

Jackson Pollock: New Found Works

Paintings, drawings and collages, many exhibited for the first time, are among the 105 works on view. Included are a complete series of early lithgraphs and pages from a newly-discovered sketchbook of 'psychoanalytic' drawings as well as bowls, copper placques and a mosiac.

December 22, 1978 – February 11, 1979

Perceptions and Evocations: The Art of Elihu Vedder

Visit a major exhibition of 350 works that presents a reevaluation of the landscapes, religious paintings, decorative arts and murals of Vedder (1836-1923).

October 13, 1978 – February 4, 1979

Facing the Light: Historic American Portrait Daguerreotypes

See a major exhibit of daguerrotype portraits of 100 notable Americans drawn from gallery collections and on loan.

September 22, 1978 – February 4, 1979

Portrait Gallery

Vienna Moderne: An Exhibition of the Arts of the Vienna Workshops

Visit all types of decorative arts, paintings, graphics and architectural drawings, created by the "Vienna Secession", members of the Austrian turn-of-the-century art nouveau movement who questioned the validity of ornamentation.

November 21, 1978 – February 4, 1979

Jay Gould: Mephistopheles of Wall Street

See cartoon commentaries on the post-Civil War activities of the industrialist alongside a portrait by Eastman Johnson.

July 21, 1978 – February 4, 1979

Portrait Gallery

Cut on Wood: The Art of Wood Engraving in America (1780-1900)

See some 70 objects, including prints and the tools and printing blocks used in wood engraving, the technique utilized in mass production of book, newspaper and advertising poster illustrations during most of the 19th century in the United States.

June 2, 1978 – January 31, 1979

The Shopping Bag: Portable Graphic Art

Admire 100 20th-century shopping bags as well as rare examples of their 19th-century precursor, the bandbox.

December 9, 1978 – January 27, 1979

Nature Images: Color Photographs of North American Flora and Fauna

See about 50 photographs taken by 4 area photographers: Heather Iler, Gable Ray, and the husband and wife team of Randall Sacilotto-Irene Hinke

November 1, 1978 – January 14, 1979

Natural History Museum

George Grosz: The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection

View 37 works by the German-born satirist: 16 watercolors, 17 drawings and 4 oils. This is the first public showing of HMSG's entire Grosz collection.

September 13, 1978 – January 14, 1979

Hirshhorn Museum

Women in Science in 19th-century America

View photographs, portraits, research tools and apparatus, and publications of pioneering American women scientists.

September 15, 1978 – January 12, 1979

Alan Sonfist/Trees

Examine the tree as a source for art, revelation and person fantasy through 30 works, combining photographs with canvas, charcoal, seeds, twigs and leaves.

October 27, 1978 – January 7, 1979

Ornament in the Twentieth Century

See ornaments for the human body, objects of daily use, posters, packaging material, corporate logos and designer initials, and ornamental aspects of garden and plaza design.

October 3, 1978 – January 7, 1979

Louis M. Eilshemius: Selections from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

See 58 paintings and 27 drawings and watercolors from HMSG's collection of 250 Eilshemius works.

November 9, 1978 – January 1, 1979

Hirshhorn Museum

Teddy and the Bear

See the original Teddy bear made in 1903 by the Ideal Toy Company, inspired by an incident in which President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear cub.

December 1, 1978 – January 1, 1979

1978 Trees of Christmas

See 13 live trees, each decorated with hand-made ornaments of different American of foreign tradition.

December 15, 1978 – January 1, 1979