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Past as Prologue: A Historical Acknowledgment Part I will focus on landscape and territory, featuring works that document U.S. expansion in the 19th Century. Opening on February 6 and on view through April 26, 2025, Part II will center on identity, with artworks engaged with abolitionist movements, national identity including race and indigeneity, protest and political action, social fabric and community as well as labor. Both parts will be exhibited at the National Academy鈥檚 recently launched exhibition space at 519 West 26th Street in Chelsea.

Past as Prologue: A Historical Acknowledgement brings together politically potent historical works from the Academy鈥檚 collection with contemporary works from the National Academy's current community of esteemed National Academicians and contemporary artists from beyond the National Academy. The exhibition explores themes of representation of race and indigeneity, political and social commentary, landscape, colonialism, migration, and borders. With selections from the Academy鈥檚 vast collection, which spans nearly 200 years, Past as Prologue: A Historical Acknowledgement is staged to raise questions about how the contemporary cultural landscape has shifted and will continue to transform in the future, serving as an apt lead-up to the National Academy of Design鈥檚 200th anniversary year, which officially begins in the fall of 2025.

The first part of the exhibition is focused on landscape and territory. Included artworks depict scenes of grand tours and expeditions in which several early Academy members took part, as well as the formation of ideas of the United States abroad, with works depicting colonialism and imperialism and the notion of 鈥榤anifest destiny.鈥� Additional works in the exhibition highlight idyllic images of nature, in dialogue with projects that examine the effects of extraction - impacting both natural and cultural landscapes - and the complexities intertwined with policies that have determined geographical borders and migration.

Additionally, the first part of the exhibition will include early examples of portraiture from the National Academy鈥檚 collection that contributed to the construction of the United States鈥� national identity, while recognizing how cultures that have been degraded in the process of U.S. development have been depicted by white artists, as well as by artists who identify as Indigenous, Black and Brown, and women, none of whom were represented in the Academy at the time of its inception.