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Step 1
Start in the West Building, which contains stirring and spacious sculpture halls. Check out the late-Renaissance and Baroque sculptures (from 16th- and 17th-century Italy, France and northern Europe) in Zone 8, or the expressionistic legless and headless torsos of of Auguste Rodin in Zone 2. Or visit the gallery’s exhibition rooms, where you will find a fine collection of impressionist paintings, including works by famed artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh and Edgar Degas, among dozens of others. The “impressionists,” so named for Monet’s painting, “Impression, Sunrise,” were initially criticized for their unrealistic portrayals of people and places. They attempted to elicit feelings from viewers, painting images from their own minds rather than rendering things exactly as they appeared. Other notable collections in the West Building include: Rembrandt van Rijn’s religious portraits, which were painted by this Dutch master late in his career; and the photograph collection, which includes more than 8,000 pieces (most of which are kept in storage for preservation purposes). Photographs by Americans like Alfred Stieglitz (husband of Georgia O’Keeffe) share space with the earliest works of William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of the photograph.
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Step 2
Move on to the East Building, which is made from the same pink Tennessee marble as the West Building, but boasts a totally different (though equally astounding) collection of art. As with the West Building, this area also hosts a plethora of traveling exhibits, but most of these are more modern. The permanent collection includes some of Alexander Calder's large mobiles, one of which is 76 feet long and graces the atrium, as well as works by famous 20th century artists such as O’Keeffe, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró and Henri Matisse. View Mark Rothko’s abstract experiments with color and compositional format, or delve into the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock.
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Step 3
Finish in the gallery’s Sculpture Garden, which contains 17 permanent pieces and regularly hosts loans from other collections. Some of the more interesting works include: Miró's “Personnage Gothique, Oiseau-Éclair" and Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz’s emotionally convincing “crowds,” which are headless figures meant to signify totalitarianism. The garden also boasts some fine landscaping consisting of Native American trees, shrubs and perennials, and a small café that is open year-'round.
