"Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery"
2005-08-27 until 2005-01-02
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Washington, DC, USA

The Corcoran's collection of pre-1945 American paintings is characterized by exceptional quality, depth and breadth. Encouraging the American Genius features more than 80 iconic works from this world-renowned collection, and focuses on its three areas of greatest strength in American painting: Hudson River School landscapes, canvases from the Gilded Age and early twentieth century realism. Highlights of the exhibition include celebrations of the New World terrain and its promise: Thomas Cole's famous two-canvas cycle The Departure (1837) and The Return (1837), Frederic Church's majestic Niagara (1857) and Albert Bierstadt's operatic Mount Corcoran (c. 1876-1877). The exhibition also highlights figural and landscape works documenting American artists' varied reactions to - and escapes from - the Gilded Age and, later, the pulsating energy and change of the twentieth century.

A number of outstanding individual works complete the selection, including well-known examples by early masters like John Singleton Copley and Joshua Johnson and striking modernist compositions by Maurice Prendergast, Thomas Hart Benton and Aaron Douglas.

Wachovia Presents

Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art

This exhibition is organized by the Corcoran and presented by Wachovia

Related educational programming is made possible by The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston and Altria Group, Inc.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of District of Columbia

Other Important Exhibitions in Washington