library - National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C

You may have seen this painting by Mary Cassatt before, but have you ever *really* looked at it? Try and spend 60 seconds taking in all its details. What do you notice? Imagine what you might observe if you spent 60 minutes. Friday at 1:00 p.m. ET join us for a (virtual) session of The Art of Looking as we spend an hour looking at Cassatt’s Woman with a Sunflower (c. 1905). We’ll build on our first impressions and hone our visual literacy and perspective-taking skills b...y sharing observations, interpretations, questions, and ideas. The Art of Looking is offered on the first and third Friday of every month. Register: go.usa.gov/x7WMv Mary Cassatt, Woman with a Sunflower, c. 1905, oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 29 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection

We’re so glad to see you back in the galleries! Free, timed passes to visit parts of the West Building’s Ground and Main Floor are now available through November 15: go.usa.gov/x7WMT And don’t forget, the Ground Floor and True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 17801870 will close after November 15.... by @kathywhee on Instagram of @glennharveyart with Jacques-Louis David’s The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries (1812).

In honor of artist, writer, and educator Margaret Taylor-Burroughs, born on this day in 1915, an her poem Homage to Black Madonnas (1968): Venerable black women You of yesterday, you of today. Black mothers of tomorrow yet to be...Continue reading

May your #Halloween be filled with more treats than tricks. Wayne Thiebaud, Candy Apples, 1987, woodcut on Tosa Kozo paper, Natinoal Gallery of art, Washington, Gift of Kathan Brown

The past lives of paintings. Many Italian Renaissance panel paintings have scratches. Not accidental ones though, but intentional markings made by people who engaged with the works of art when they hung in Italian religious, domestic, and civic spaces in the 15th and 16th centuries. These markings tell us more about the earlier lives of these paintings and their beholders, revealing a more complex history of the art of the Italian Renaissance and informing how we might inte...ract with art objects today. Watch the premiere of this year’s Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art, Telling the Past Differently: Italian Renaissance Art in the Hands of the Beholder delivered by Megan Holmes, professor of Italian Renaissance art history at the University of Michigan. This is the twenty-fourth annual lecture offered by the National Gallery of Art in this endowed series named after Sydney J. Freedberg (19141997), the great specialist of Italian art.

Hey all you cool cats and kittens! Cats have served as both companions and subjects to artists across the centuries. Celebrate #NationalCatDay and learn more about our feline friends in a lecture exploring cats in works from the Gallery’s collection: go.usa.gov/x7bQZ American 19th Century, Cat and Kittens, c. 1872/1883, oil on milboard, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

In addition to making her own award-winning films, Pearl Bowser has dedicated much of her life to preserving, collecting, and documenting the work of Black filmmakers. In 2012, Bowser donated her collection of motion picture films to Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, where they are now cared for by the Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts (CAAMA). Through November 3, stream a selection of three short films from... the Pearl Bowser Collection that explore the diversified roles of Black women as filmmakersproducers, editors, directors, designers, sound artists, and writers: go.usa.gov/x7bam Hands of Inge (1962) is a short portrait of the sculptor Inge Hardison, edited by Hortense Tee Beveridge, a pioneer in her field who worked in the commercial industry and on independent non-commercial films. Edited by famed filmmaker Kathleen Collins, Statues Hardly Ever Smile (1971) follows a group of middle-school children during a six-week program at the Brooklyn Museum, where they collectively discover and respond to the Egyptian collection. Made by renowned filmmaker Julie Dash during her studies at UCLA’s film school, Four Women (1975) features dancer Linda Martina Young interpreting Nina Simone’s song of the same name. Special thanks to Dr. Rhea L. Combs, curator of photography and film, and Ina Archer and Blake McDowell, media conservators from Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Pictured: a still from "Four Women" (1975) by Julie Dash.

More to explore. The Main Floor of the West Building has partially reopened, and you can now explore American, French, and British paintings and sculptures. Reserve your free, timed pass and don’t miss your last chance to visit the Ground Floor and True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 17801870 before they close on November 15: go.usa.gov/x74AZ Pictured: Augustus Saint-Gaudens, "Shaw Memorial," 1900, patinated plaster, Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park

A perfect portrait of pumpkins for #NationalPumpkinDay. Are you carving a pumpkin this year? If not, consider an artful arrangement of gourds inspired by this 1941 painting by American artist Walt Kuhn. Walt Kuhn, Pumpkins, 1941, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 1/4 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of the Avalon Foundation

In 1826, Richard Parkes Bonington was traveling through Italy on his way from Milan to Verona when he was convinced to stop at the picturesque lake town of Desenzano del Garda. Bonington was impatient to get to Venice and not initially interested in stopping. Thankfully he did, because the result of that detour is this oil sketch, Desenzano, Lake Garda. Bonington, born on this day in 1802, was only in his mid-twenties at the time, but was already well known for his talented... handling of light and atmosphere and deft control of oil paint. The British born artist had begun painting quite younghe first exhibited his paintings at the Liverpool Academy at the age of 11. When he was 16, Bonington moved with his family to Paris, where he studied under Antoine-Jean Gros and began practicing plein air sketching. Over the next 10 years before he died of tuberculosis at the young age of 26, Bonington traveled around Europe creating watercolors and oils that revolutionized French landscape painting and influenced other painters including Eugène Isabey. See this work and others in "True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 17801870," now on view through November 15 before it moves on to the Fondation Custodia and The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Reserve your free, timed pass: go.usa.gov/x7C7g Richard Parkes Bonington, Desenzano, Lake Garda, 1826, oil on millboard, 25.6 33 cm (10116 13 in.), The Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Some chrysanthemums for your Saturday bouquet. This flower, native to China, was introduced into Japan in the fourth century, where it became so admired that the Japanese flag once bore a stylized chrysanthemum. With the forced opening of Japan to the West in the mid-19th century, the chrysanthemum entered the consciousness of Western artists, and beginning around 1880 it became a popular still-life subject in Europe and America. Unknown, Chrysanthemums, fourth quarter 19th century, oil on canvas, 26 15/16 x 44 3/4 in, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale collection