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Night Moods

Past Exhibition

June 30 – December 31, 2022
East Building, Ground Level, Gallery 106A

Shrouded in smoky grays and velvety blacks, marked by deep shadows, or shifting reflections illumined by the glow of moonlight, the night has been a continual source of artistic inspiration. These prints and photographs, exhibited with George Ault’s painting, were created by American artists between 1897 and 1955 and are evocative of night’s many moods: playful, menacing, tranquil, foreboding, mysterious, or contemplative. Together they explore urban, suburban, and natural environments and suggest the many ways in which the night was changing.

Artists used a variety of printmaking processes to create dramatic dark and light effects, ranging from Beatrice Levy’s soft passages of aquatint tones conveying a Rainy Night, to the precision of line in Paul Landacre’s wood engraving Laguna Cove. Photographers, aided by increasingly light-sensitive film, reveled in the play of dark and light, whether sharply contrasted, as in Ilse Bing’s Circus Acrobat, New York, or meticulously modulated, as in Roy DeCarava’s Car behind building.

By 1925, only half of American homes had electric power, yet in the cities, glimmering gaslights were being replaced by bright electric lights. The Federal Writers’ Project Guide to 1930s New York (1939) noted of Times Square:  “Here midnight streets are more brilliant than noon, their crowds on ordinary evenings exceeding those of large town carnivals.” Headlights, streetlights, lit interiors, and the ever-brightening night skyline were altering both the appearance and the experience of the night.

Selected Works

Night Moods

Paul Landacre, Torch Press, The Woodcut Society, Laguna Cove, 1941, wood engraving, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.5324
Night Moods

Martin Lewis, Ha'nted, 1932, drypoint and sandground in black on wove paper, Gift of Addie Burr Clark, 1946.9.109
Night Moods

Peter Marcus, Dawn, c.1920, etching, Gift of Addie Burr Clark, 1946.9.138
Night Moods

Alfred Stieglitz, Night—New York, 1897, printed 1929/1932, gelatin silver print, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.3.246
Night Moods

Alfred Stieglitz, Lake George, 1926, gelatin silver print, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.3.667
Night Moods

Alfred Stieglitz, From My Window at the Shelton, North, 1931, gelatin silver print, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949.3.1250
Night Moods

Julius Bloch, Night, c. 1937, lithograph in black, Rosenwald Collection, 1950.17.12
Night Moods

Gene Kloss, Print Club of Albany, Clouds at Sunset, 1953, drypoint and aquatint in black, Rosenwald Collection, 1964.8.1814
Night Moods

Ansel Adams, High Country Crags and Moon, Sunrise, Kings Canyon National Park, California, c. 1935, printed 1979, gelatin silver print, Gift of Virginia B. Adams, 1986.3.13
Night Moods

Milton Avery, Night Nude, 1953, color woodcut on wove paper, Gift of the Avery Family, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.233.54
Night Moods

Harry Callahan, Eleanor, early 1950s, gelatin silver print, Gift of Susan P. MacGill, 1997.125.2
Night Moods

Roy DeCarava, Car behind building, 1953, gelatin silver print, New Century Fund, Fund for Living Photographers, 1999.67.1
Night Moods

Esther Bubley, Girl Sitting Alone in the 'Sea Grill,' a Bar and Restaurant, Waiting for a Pick-up, Washington, D.C., April 1943, printed 1989, gelatin silver print, The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography, 1999.108.1
Night Moods

William Klein, Selwyn, 42nd Street, New York, 1955, printed 1980s, gelatin silver print, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2001.67.121
Night Moods

Louis Stettner, Times Square, New York City, 1952-1954, gelatin silver print, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2001.67.208
Night Moods

Ilse Bing, Circus Acrobat, New York, 1936, gelatin silver print, Gift of Ilse Bing Wolff, 2001.147.48
Night Moods

Ilse Bing, Dead End II, 1936, gelatin silver print, Gift of Ilse Bing Wolff, 2001.147.50
Night Moods

Gertrude Käsebier, The Bat, 1902, platinum print, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2008.65.14
Night Moods

Martin Lewis, Arc Welders at Night, 1937, drypoint and sandground in black on wove paper, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Florian Carr Fund and Gift of the Print Research Foundation, 2008.115.190
Night Moods

Eugene Bennett, Night Lights, 1951, color screenprint on black construction paper, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.842
Night Moods

Kyra Markham, Night Club, 1935, lithograph, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.3346
Night Moods

Gerald Geerlings, Bertha Evelyn Jaques, Frank A. Nankivell, Chicago Society of Etchers, Electrical Building at Night, 1933, etching in black on wove paper, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.2013
Night Moods

Eugene Camille Fitsch, Broadway Rush: Cotton Club, 1943, lithograph, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.1772
Night Moods

Kevin B. O'Callahan, Untitled (Frontyards at Night), 1935, etching, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.3766
Night Moods

Rachael Robinson Elmer, Woolworth Building June Night, 1916, linocut, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.1621
Night Moods

John Taylor Arms, West Forty-Second Street, Night, 1922, aquatint and etching in blue black and yellow on FJ Head & Co cream laid paper, Donald and Nancy deLaski Fund, 2010.52.1
Night Moods

Weegee, Sleeper in a Bar, 1939, gelatin silver print, Gift of Norman S. Carr and Carolyn K. Carr, 2012.149.1
Night Moods

Clarence H. Carter, Railroad Avenue, 1931, color aquatint on wove paper, Gift of Bob Stana and Tom Judy, 2015.115.11
Night Moods

Beatrice S. Levy, Rainy Night, 1914, etching and aquatint on wove paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2018.90.3
Night Moods

William Klein, Elsa Maxwell's Toy Ball, March 1955, printed 1978, gelatin silver print, Gift of Robert B. Menschel, 2019.180.2.12

About the Series: American Art, 1900–1950: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

During a period fueled by enormous urban growth and technological changes, riven by world wars, and rocked by new modes of thought, American artists explored many diverse means to express their changing experience and environment. Prints, drawings, and photographs were vital media through which artists pursued radical experiments in form, figuration, and abstraction. Reevaluating European traditions, they developed new ways of seeing the modern world around them. 

Complementing the American modernist paintings and sculptures in the adjacent galleries, these rotating installations feature prints, drawings, and photographs by American artists working in the first half of the 20th century. By looking at pairs or groups of artists, or at broader themes such as abstract portraiture or the Machine Age, the installations spark conversations between established and lesser-known figures in American modernism and highlight the era’s full range and complexity.

Past Exhibitions from this Series

Organization
Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington

Passes
Admission is always free and passes are not required

Banner detail: Esther Bubley, Girl Sitting Alone in the 'Sea Grill,' a Bar and Restaurant, Waiting for a Pick-up, Washington, D.C., April 1943, printed 1989, gelatin silver print, The Marvin Breckinridge Patterson Fund for Photography, 1999.108.1