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Home>Exhibitions>2026>Niagara Falls: Mist and Majesty

Niagara Falls: Mist and Majesty

Upcoming Exhibition

April 18 – September 20, 2026
West Building, Main Floor, Gallery 72

Niagara Falls has long been considered a national icon. Learn how the layered histories and meanings of this landmark have changed over the last 200 years. In this installation, explore some 20 paintings, photographs, and other works on paper. 

Tseng Kwong Chi, Niagara Falls, New York, 1984, printed 2022, gelatin silver print, Gift of Funds from the Kend Family Fund and Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund, 2023.12.2, © Muna Tseng Dance Projects Inc.. Courtesy Yancey Richardson, New York

We hover over the bottle-green surface of a river as it rushes toward a horseshoe-shaped waterfall that curves away from us in this horizontal landscape painting. The water is white and frothy right in front of us, where the shelf of the riverbed changes levels near the edge of the falls. Across from us, the water is also white where it falls over the edge. A thin, broken rainbow glints in the mist near the upper left corner of the painting and continues its arc farther down, between the falls. The horizon line is just over halfway up the composition. Plum-purple clouds sweep into the composition at the upper corners against a lavender-colored sky. Tiny trees and a few buildings line the shoreline to the left and right in the deep distance.

Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara, 1857, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.10

Organization
Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington

Curated by Sarah Cash, associate curator, department of American and British paintings; Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head, department of photographs; and Diane Waggoner, curator of photographs, department of photographs, both of the National Gallery of Art. 

Passes
Admission is always free and passes are not required

Banner detail: Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara, 1857, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.79.10