The National Gallery of Art Holds an Artistic Mirror Up to the United States for Its Big 250th Birthday

In celebration of the semiquincentennial this year, “Dear America” looks at the country’s land, communities and revolutionary history through artworks dating back to the late 18th century

Michele Debczak | Correspondent

April 14, 2026

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A majestic mountain range. Immigrants huddling together on a boat. A gas station at golden hour. These were some of the images chosen by the National Gallery of Art to capture artists’ interpretations of the American experience in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary. The rest of “Dear America” is just as varied, comprising more than 100 prints, drawings and photographs from the late 1700s to today.

Distilling 250 years of American history into a single exhibition was an intimidating job for curators at the Washington, D.C. museum. They started by sifting through the museum’s own collection of American art, highlighting iconic pieces by the likes of Andy Warhol and Ansel Adams as well as lesser-known works.

“This exhibition really grew out of the discussions among the curators of how to think about the American experience, and really to present and place the role of artists and the visions of artists at the center of that,” the museum’s chief curator, E. Carmen Ramos, tells CNN’s Jacqui Palumbo.

“Dear America” is organized into three sections. “Land” looks at the places that make up the country, highlighting the diversity of the 50 states. Subjects include America’s natural wonders, like mountains and canyons, as well as structures like skyscrapers and hydroelectric dams.

In the “Community” section, the American people take the spotlight. Here, visitors can see the work of artist Tom Jones, of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, whose contemporary pieces juxtaposing historical postcards of Native Americans with the lyrics to “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” inspired the title of the exhibition.

Jones says in a video from the Museum of Wisconsin Art, “I saw it as a kind of a form of propaganda for myself to expose the history—I guess the real history of Native America—to get those things and to educate people about who we are.”

This section also features artwork from Richard Avedon’s The Family, a collection of 69 photographs of media magnates, bankers, politicians and other American elites originally put together for the country’s bicentennial in 1976.

The final section, “Freedom,” weaves together different chapters of America’s revolutionary history. Paintings depicting the Revolutionary and Civil Wars are displayed, as are Faith Ringgold’s screenprints of events from the civil rights movement that accompany Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham City Jail.”

“Artists have long helped us see America not just as a place, but as a living idea shaped by many voices,” Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, says in a statement. “Through these remarkable works from the National Gallery’s collection, visitors to the nation’s art museum can witness the power of art to illuminate our shared past, illustrate the experiences of our lives, and inspire our collective future.”

The National Gallery of Art isn’t the only institution celebrating America’s semiquincentennial. For example, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has teamed up with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to put on its own exhibition titled “A Nation of Artists,” on view now through the middle of 2027. Consisting of more than 1,000 pieces across the two museums, it’s one of the largest single exhibitions of American art ever presented to the public, Peter Crimmins reports for WHYY.

“Dear America” is on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through September 20, 2026.

Michele Debczak | Read More

Michele Debczak is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. She appears in seasons four through six of History Channel’s “The Food That Built America,” and her work has been featured in Mental Floss, IndieWire, Eater and Vice.