The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978

Temporary exhibition, Oct. 7–Dec. 31, 2007. 3,000 sq. ft. Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photographs; Diane Waggoner, assistant curator of photographs. Traveling exhibition, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Tex., Feb. 16–April 27, 2008. The Mona Lisa is not currently displayed at the National Gallery of Art. This, I knew, would be the obvious fact discovered by five young men who were entering the West Building as I was leaving, late in the afternoon on the last day of 2007. “If I'm going in, the Mona Lisa better be there!” declared one of the college-aged men. I did not think I should be the one to tell him the bad news. Yet truth be told, I think he did know that Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece hangs in the Louvre (though the painting was exhibited at the National Gallery in 1963). His mock threat suggested reluctant compromise in joining his friends on a visit to this museum dedicated (according to its mission statement) to “preserving, collecting, exhibiting, and fostering the understanding of works of art.”

Art · Art gallery · Art history · Compromise · Exhibition · Painting · Political science · Visual arts · Art History and Market Analysis · History · Law