Titian, Venus with a Mirror, c. 1555, National Gallery of Art

Back and Forth

Now showing26 April 2025 – 3 January 2027Free

Four paintings across six centuries — Titian, Cezanne and Rozeal. — hung together to show how artists answer the art history they inherit.

Exhibition website

More in Washington, DC

On now All of October 2026

Brown fluid runs down the face, chest and hands of Rozeal.'s goddess like a runny tanning lotion, turning her skin from light to dark as she dyes her hair blonde. Behind her, between red-outlined subwoofers, the words "back and forth" repeat: a line from Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair".

That 2011 panel shares one small round room with three paintings it was never meant to meet: Titian's Venus with a Mirror, his portrait of the young Ranuccio Farnese, and Cezanne's Boy in a Red Waistcoat. Each gets its own wall. A pedestal in the middle pairs them under Gaze, Space, Pose and Subject, so you keep turning from Venus at her mirror to Rozeal.'s goddess, and from one hand-on-hip boy to the other. It's the one gallery on the National Mall where Titian shares a room with a Willow Smith lyric.

Four paintings make this a short stop on a West Building visit. It's in Gallery M11 on the Main Floor, free with no passes needed, until 3 January 2027.

Look for

Rozeal.'s goddess mid-transformation
Look for brown fluid dripping across afro.died, T.'s face, chest, hands and leg, and her hair turning from dark brown at the crown to bright blonde.
The lyric behind her
Behind the goddess, subwoofers outlined in bright red sit among crosshatching and a repeating "back and forth" from Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair".
Ranuccio Farnese's oversized cloak
A large silver Maltese cross glints on the boy's chest while his cloak of office slides off shoulders too small for it.
Venus at her mirror
Titian's Venus admires herself in a mirror, hung with pearls, in a deep red velvet cloak with fur trim and silver and gold embroidery.
Cezanne's boy in the red waistcoat
He stands with a hand on his hip like Ranuccio, but his face is built from blotches of lavender, aqua and pink against blocks of blue and grey.