While the National Gallery of Art’s East Building galleries are closed for renovations, the Modern masterpieces that usually reside within their walls have headed from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. “Modernism from the National Gallery of Art: The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection” is currently on view at the de Young Museum and presents 46 paintings and sculptures by postwar masters, including Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. The show marks the first time that the Meyerhoff Collection has been exhibited outside of the greater Washington, D.C., and Baltimore metro areas.
The exhibition is divided into three generational groupings, creating a sweeping view of American Modern art from the end of World War II through the close of the 20th century. Highlights from the show include Stella’s geometric canvas “Flin Flon IV” (1969), Johns’ haunting encaustic “Perilous Night” (1982), Lichtenstein’s Pop art gem “Painting with Statue of Liberty” (1983), and Barnett Newman’s “The Stations of a Cross” (1958-66), a series of paintings, widely considered to be the Abstract Expressionist artist’s most import work. The canvases will be displayed in their own intimate gallery so that they can be experienced as a single work, as the artist intended.
