Focus on the Corcoran: Works on Paper, 1860–1990

February 6 – May 3, 2015
West Building, Ground Floor, Galleries 22 and 22A

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview:  On view on the ground floor are 26 outstanding European and American drawings, watercolors, and prints from the Corcoran collection. The installation begins with three hushed, pastoral scenes by Barbizon school artist Jean-François Millet and continues with the satirical Le Défenseur (Council for the Defense) (c. 1862–1865) by Honoré Daumier and two vibrant pastels by Edgar Degas—Café-Concert (1876/1877) and Two Women Performing (c. 1878–1880). Other celebrated works include Winslow Homer’s renowned watercolors Young Woman Sewing (1876) and Hudson River, Logging (1891/1892); Charles Demuth’s Rooftops and Trees (1918) and In Vaudeville, the Bicycle Rider (1919); Marsden Hartley’s Berlin Symbols #6 (1914–1915); Arthur Dove’s charcoal drawing, #4 Creek (c. 1923); and Street Musicians (1940) by William H. Johnson, an exemplary screenprint in the artist’s faux-naïf style. Dat Ol’ Black Magic (1981) by Betye Saar―a collage from the Evans-Tibbs Collection—incorporates vintage game cards and items that underscore the artist’s concern for the past and demonstrate her interest in the mystical. Anchoring the installation is Drawing for “Ghost Dance” (1974), a beautiful, large watercolor by Robert Stackhouse, who exhibited at the Corcoran and taught at the Corcoran College of Art + Design from 1966–1987.

Attendance: 52,106