The American Artist and Water Reclamation

March 25 – May 5, 1972
Ground Floor, Cafeteria Corridor (1,000 sq. ft.)

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

Overview: A selection was shown from the more than 300 paintings, watercolors, and drawings commissioned by the Bureau of Reclamation of the United States Department of the Interior to record projects in the western United States. The pictures, resulting from visits to Reclamation projects in 9 western states, were by Lamar Dodd, William Gropper, Fletcher Martin, Billy Morrow Jackson, Peter Hurd, Joseph Hirsch, Richard Diebenkorn, and other leading artists at that time. Lloyd Goodrich, former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, recommended the artists who were invited to participate in the program.

The exhibition was installed in the newly refurbished cafeteria corridor. A group of the pictures was later circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

Attendance: 146,200