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Exhibitions

ON VIEW

Come be inspired by the Corcoran Gallery of Art's expansive collection, dynamic exhibitions, and innovative programs and events.

David Levinthal: War Games

May 11, 2013–September 1, 2013

David Levinthal, a central figure in the history of American postmodern photography, has staged uncanny tableaux using toys and miniature dioramas for nearly 40 years. This exhibition, organized by a team of Corcoran College of Art + Design undergraduate students in collaboration with the Gallery’s photography curators, features work on the subject of war, spanning the artist’s entire career. War Games is presented in celebration of a major acquisition of work by the artist.

Roots and Links: Gifts from the Women’s Committee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art

March 23, 2013–July 14, 2013

For nearly sixty years, the Women’s Committee has been one of the key drivers in building the Corcoran’s collection of contemporary art. Roots and Links brings together a selection of photographs and works on paper by Manon Cleary, Chuck Close, Robert Frank, Glenn Ligon, Elizabeth Murray, Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, and others, in a thematic exploration of identity, portraiture, and self-expression.

How Is the World? Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Photography

March 9, 2013–May 26, 2013

This exhibition of recent acquisitions features works by photographers Edward Burtynsky, Paul Graham, Kate O’Donovan Cook, Hank Willis Thomas, and others.

Cynthia Connolly: Letters on Top of Buildings

March 2, 2013–June 23, 2013

Cynthia Connolly’s series Letters on Top of Buildings is rooted in childhood memories of riding in the backseat of her mother’s car, with a view across the building tops from Los Angeles’s elevated freeways. These typographic signs, which advertise resident businesses, seem like relics of a bygone era, exemplars of a more colloquial period of commercial marketing and civic pride. The twelve photographs that comprise Letters on Top of Buildings are a promised gift to the Corcoran’s collection.

Selections from the Collection of Historic American Art

The historic American collection spans the history of American art from colonial times through 1980. These holdings include remarkable paintings by such distinguished artists as John Singleton Copley, Frederic Church, Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, George Bellows, and Edward Hopper, which were purchased as the finest examples of contemporary art of their time. The historic American collection has been further strengthened by other significant acquisitions; for example, in 1996 Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr. donated 34 works by African-American artists, including Aaron Douglas' masterpiece Into Bondage (1936).

American Bronzes from the Corcoran Gallery of Art

This installation of more than 30 bronze sculptures from the Corcoran’s world-renowned collection of American art highlights works dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries by such masters of the medium as Elie Nadelman, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Alexander Phimister Proctor (sculptor of Washington’s Buffalo Bridge).

Ideal Busts

Installed in the Atrium are six ideal busts, four of which belonged to Washington, D.C., banker and philanthropist William Wilson Corcoran (1798–1888), founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, whose portrait bust by William H. Rinehart appears nearby.

Modern and Contemporary Art Since 1945

The new permanent collection installation highlights the strengths of the modern and contemporary art holdings. These galleries provide a sense of the breadth of practice and the range of ideas that animate postwar and contemporary art. Major works are presented by Lee Bontecou, William Christenberry, Robert Colescott, Rob Fischer, Ellsworth Kelly, Martin Puryear, Sean Scully, Jessica Stockholder, Anne Truitt, Andy Warhol, and others.