2011 Annual Report - National Gallery of Art

24
� The Pre-Raphaelite
Lens: British Photography
and Painting,
1848–1875
� Venice: Canaletto
and His Rivals
Exhibiting
On loan from the Mariners’ Museum in
Newport News, Virginia, a rare nineteenthcentury
gondola, once owned by American artist
Thomas Moran, was installed at the entrance to
the exhibition. Within the exhibition, a didactic
room displayed two eighteenth-century camera
obscuras, one possibly owned by Canaletto, and
three modern camera obscuras that gave visitors
a view of the East Building atrium. A documentary
film on Canaletto, produced by the National
Gallery, London, and re-edited for an American
audience, was shown. An audio tour offered
insights into life in eighteenth-century Venice.
Gauguin: Maker of Myth met visitors with the
vivid colors and exotic depictions of faraway
lands. Organized by Tate Modern, London, in
association with the Gallery, the exhibition
brought together nearly 120 works in the first
major look at the artist’s oeuvre in the United
States since the Gallery’s blockbuster retrospective
of 1988–1989, The Art of Paul Gauguin.
Organized thematically, the exhibition
examined the artist’s use of religious and
mythological symbols to tell stories as well as the