A new publication by Gallery curator John Oliver Hand, focusing on the Gallery's painting collection, is available beginning in September. The book showcases the world-renowned collection of European and American painting housed at the National Gallery, and includes new information and illustrations of the paintings acquired in the last two decades.The National Gallery of Art in our nation's capital houses one of the foremost collections of European and American painting in the world, covering more than seven centuries of art-from Byzantine to contemporary-and numbering more than 3,000 works. This sumptuous volume gathers together some of the greatest art in the world, nearly 400 masterworks of the collection, from Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci to Jackson Pollock's magisterial Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) .
The model for this volume is John Walker's National Gallery of Art, Washington (1984), hailed in its time as a landmark publication. The new book features stunning reproductions and enlightening commentary by John Hand for a new selection of works, including acquisitions of the past 20 years by artists such as Cézanne, Degas, Matisse, Newman, Rothko, and Van Gogh. Shown together with the masterpieces from the Gallery's core collections-by Botticelli, Corot, Giotto, Goya, Homer, Manet, Picasso, Raphael, Rembrandt, Renoir, Rubens, Titian, Van Eyck, Vermeer, and many others-the entire group testifies to the growth and remarkable quality of the nation's art collection.