National Gallery of Art

06/25/2026

A mini Monet, tucked inside a flower 🌼

Massachusetts artist Alley McGlynn reimagined Claude Monet’s “Woman with a Parasol” as a tiny paper world nestled inside a buttercup. Crafted from layers of intricately hand-cut and painted paper, the piece pays tribute to Monet’s love of nature while inviting people to slow down and discover something unexpected.

The miniature scene is “meant to be discovered only by those who take a closer look.”

“More than a century ago, Monet captured a fleeting, tender moment and shared it with us to be experienced across time,” McGlynn says. “Through this project, I had the privilege of stepping inside that moment and bringing it to life in a new way.”
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🖼 Claude Monet, “Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son,” 1875, oil on canvas, 39 x 31 in., Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
📍 West Building, Main Floor, Gallery 85

06/24/2026

Tonight at 6 pm, National Gallery curator Eve Straussman-Pflanzer joins the Flint Institute of Arts for a free lecture on the women artists and grand duchesses of the Medici court. If you’re in Flint, don’t miss it!

Sheppy Dog Fund Lecture
Fabulous Florence: Grand Duchesses & Women Artists at the Medici Court
Dr. Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, Guest Lecturer

Wednesday 6.24 | 6p | FIA Theater
FREE Admission - Registration encouraged

Important Update: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the ASL interpreters scheduled for tonight’s lecture are no longer able to attend. We apologize for this change and any inconvenience it may cause. We remain committed to accessibility and appreciate your understanding. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact us at [email protected] .

06/21/2026

What would Vincent van Gogh’s Roses sound like? ✨

Two Philadelphia musicians just transformed one of Van Gogh’s most beloved paintings into an original audiovisual experience, drawing on the artist’s belief that painting and music share the same emotional language.

Van Gogh once wrote that great paintings are made of brushstrokes that “hold together and intertwine with feeling, like a piece of music played with emotion.” Inspired by that idea, musicians Gretchen and Thomas (Carol Cleveland Sings) translated the energy and movement of “Roses” into sound.

“We were guided by Van Gogh’s brushwork to create a composition influenced by Debussy’s ‘Arabesque No. 1.’ With a few of our tiny pianos, zithers, and glockenspiel we created a sound mosaic that follows the rhythm, motion, and emotion of the flowers in the painting.”
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🖼️ Vincent van Gogh, “Roses,” 1890, oil on canvas, 27 x 35 in., Gift of Pamela Harriman in memory of W. Averell Harriman
📍 West Building, Main Floor, Gallery 83

06/19/2026

In this tender portrait, every brushstroke reflects the artist’s love for his grandmother.

Born into slavery, Emily Sims Motley lived through the Civil War on a sugar plantation in Louisiana. By the 1920s, she was living on the South Side of Chicago with four generations of her family—including the artist, her grandson Archibald John Motley Jr.

Motley’s art studio was next to his grandmother’s bedroom on the top floor of their townhouse. He later recalled that when her health declined, he would carry her upstairs to bed each evening. Grateful for his help, she would tell him, “You’re such a sweet boy to do this for me.”

Emily Motley was 80 years old when her grandson painted “Portrait of My Grandmother.” With loving honesty, he painted her truth: her graying hair, the wrinkles on her face—hallmarks of time and resilience. Her hands, marked by manual labor and signs of arthritis, rest delicately on her lap.

Notice the simplicity of the background. We don’t even see the chair Emily is sitting on. The artist didn’t want anything to pull your attention away from his grandmother.

The only other presence in the room is her shadow, perhaps a reference to how her memories of slavery continue to follow her, even decades after emancipation.

With his admiration visible in every detail, Motley’s portrait ensured the world would remember his grandmother as he knew her: resilient and beautiful, the keeper of a legacy.

Today, on Juneteenth, we commemorate the day enslaved Black Americans in Texas finally learned they were free in 1865, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Archibald John Motley Jr.'s portrait of his grandmother Emily reminds us that behind this history were real people whose resilience and humanity endured against extraordinary odds.

🖼 Archibald John Motley Jr., “Portrait of My Grandmother,” 1922, oil on canvas, 38 × 23 in., Patrons' Permanent Fund, Avalon Fund, and Motley Fund
📍 West Building, Main Floor, Gallery 66

06/18/2026

In the 1870s, artist Frédéric Bazille painted an unnamed Black woman as a flower vendor, offering a clutch of peonies to the viewer.

But what if the flowers were meant for her?
 
In fiber artist Nneka Jones (Nneka Jones | Art)’s reimagining, the woman is no longer giving the flowers away. She’s receiving them.
 
Jones points out that even as the woman’s appearance is transformed, echoes of the original remain: the plaid head scarf reappears in a suit jacket, threading together the past with the present.
 
“Now it feels like these two women are divinely connected through the fibers of memory and identity.”
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🖼️ Frédéric Bazille, “Young Woman with Peonies,” 1870, oil on canvas, 23 x 29 in., Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
📍 West Building Main Floor, Gallery M90

06/14/2026

The algorithm said, “keep scrolling.” But Heather Werner saw a painting and made something instead.

After discovering Anne Vallayer-Coster’s “Still Life with Flowers,” hair and makeup artist Heather Werner spent weeks transforming the still life into a sculptural floral wig inspired by the original painting.

Every flower was crafted by hand. Each petal was cut, shaped, and shaded to echo the colors and textures of the painting.

In a world full of things competing for our attention, there’s something refreshing about watching someone absorbed in creating something beautiful.

is the National Gallery’s creator campaign spotlighting artists from across the country as they reimagine works from the collection through original video. You can also see Heather’s work featured in a temporary installation at the museum later this year.
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🌹 Hair, Makeup, & Wardrobe: Heather Werner Foundations Hair & Makeup
📷 Photography: VIVIDSHOT (Ash)
💃 Model: ash 𓃠
⌚️ Assistant: Amber ((ε(*´･ω･)っ†*ﾟ¨ﾟﾟ･*:..☆
🖼 Anne Vallayer-Coster, “Still Life with Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit,” 1783, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Fund

06/14/2026

Your camera roll is a time capsule.

Every once in a while, you scroll back a few years and realize you're looking at a completely different person.

You weren't trying to document your life. But somehow, you ended up with a record of who you were, who you loved, and what mattered to you.

For decades, filmmaker Barbara Hammer did the same thing with a camera. Drawing from that extraordinary archive, "Barbara Forever" is a moving portrait of memory, change, and the quiet ways we leave pieces of ourselves behind.

Catch the DC/DOX Fest premiere today at 2 pm in our East Building Auditorium. Get free tickets: https://bit.ly/3Q4FykO

06/11/2026

Meet Michelle. She’s a ceramic artist who transformed a nearly 300-year-old Giovanni Paolo Panini painting into a hand-carved sculpture.

The painting depicts the Roman Pantheon, one of the world’s most iconic buildings. One pope even called it “the most celebrated edifice in the whole world.”

Inspired by Panini’s painting, Michelle Wen painstakingly translated the Pantheon’s soaring interior into clay. Every carved detail, from the coffered dome overhead to the tiny architectural features circling the rotunda, reflects hours of craftsmanship and extraordinary attention to detail.

“Ceramics can be quite unforgiving as a medium, so it’s tempting to stick with what is comfortable once you find it,” she says. “This project was a reminder to step out of that comfort, as artistic growth often comes from solving challenges. Carving late into the night in my peaceful studio in Brooklyn is my little slice of heaven.”
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🖼️ Giovanni Paolo Panini, “Interior of the Pantheon, Rome,” 1734, oil on canvas, 50 3/8 x 39 in., Samuel H. Kress Collection
📍 West Building Main Floor, Gallery M30

06/10/2026

For this portrait, Alice Neel didn’t ask her son, Hartley, to put on a happy face. She painted him as he was: exhausted and vulnerable.

It’s clear that Alice Neel’s 26-year-old son, Hartley, was preoccupied with his thoughts as he sat before his mother, a pioneering painter who redefined 20th-century American portraiture.

But Neel was never interested in depicting people’s most flattering moments. Hartley (1966) lays bare the harsh reality of her son’s circumstances as he trudged through medical school while the Vietnam War raged on.

Neel didn’t tell her son to smile, or to put on a dressier outfit, or to correct his slouched posture in the armchair. For her, asserting Hartley’s dignity meant capturing his true state of mind.

No matter whom Neel painted (her family, famous friends like Andy Warhol, blue-collar laborers, or her own aging body in the n**e) she rendered her subjects with the same unrelenting honesty, in her signature emotive, blue-tinged brushwork.

Despite her distinctive approach, Neel went relatively unrecognized for most of her artistic journey, as emerging movements like abstract expressionism were more in vogue than portraiture. The art world finally began paying attention to her work in her 60s, during the rise of second-wave feminism and a renewed interest in realist representation.

But no matter how her career ebbed and flowed, she would always return to Hartley, whom she painted “many hundreds” of times.

Out of her love for her child and her commitment to her artistic vision, Neel painted Hartley as she truly saw him: imperfect.

In an age of edited photos and curated feeds, what might we learn from Neel’s raw, unvarnished representations of her son? And during a time of year when there may be pressure to perform cheeriness, what might it mean to allow ourselves and one another to simply feel what we feel, regardless of whether it looks picture-perfect?
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🖼 Alice Neel, “Hartley,” 1966, oil on canvas, 50 x 36 in., Gift of Arthur M. Bullowa
📍 East Building, Upper Level, Gallery E406

06/08/2026

Bruh, I am a Harvard-educated curator who cannot be nerfed. The media training mamas said don’t do this, but I lowkey snatched the account login from the social girlies to post my aura farming.

I had to speedrun these Roblox quests. Free game btw, no Robux required.

See if your aura can handle the National Gallery game: https://bit.ly/4uwkTUY

Stay goated,
Zaddy Harry

Ok publish post, Siri
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⭐️ Harry Cooper, Bunny Mellon Curator of Modern Art
⭐️ Tsione Wolde-Michael, Chief of Staff
🖼 Vincent van Gogh, “Farmhouse in Provence,” 1888, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in., Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection,📍 West Building, Main Floor, Gallery 83