A pivotal figure in the history of modern painting, Richard Diebenkorn (1922–1993) was an innovator whose work inspired legions of artists and greatly advanced the lexicon of abstraction. The Corcoran is the only East Coast venue for Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series, the first major museum exhibition to focus on the artist’s most celebrated body of work. The exhibition features more than 80 works, including large-scale paintings, smaller paintings made on cigar box lids, mixed-media drawings on paper, monotypes, and prints.

Charlotte Dumas travels the world making evocative formal portraits of animals. She typically works in series, portraying animals characterized by their utility, social function, or by the way they relate to people. Anima, her first one-person museum exhibition in the United States, features a newly commissioned series of portraits centered on the majestic burial horses of Arlington National Cemetery. These Army horses, which belong to the Old Guard—the 3rd Infantry Regiment—carry soldiers to their final resting place in traditional military funerals. Between 2010 and 2012, Dumas photographed them in their stables and at work.

The exhibition also includes three earlier bodies of work that explore the inner lives of animals. Reverie (2005) depicts gray wolves, alone and in packs, in forested nature preserves in Sweden, Norway, and the United States. Palermo 7 (2006) is a series of close-up portraits showing racehorses, their heads tethered in place, in their hippodrome stalls in Italy and France. Heart Shaped Hole (2008) depicts stray dogs, adapting in different ways to the privation they experience on the streets of Palermo.