American Icon: The U.S. Flag in Art

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. marks the 250th anniversary of the United States with 'American Icon: The U.S. Flag in Art,' a new exhibition that opened the week of Flag Day 2026. The show traces how the Stars and Stripes, first adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777, became far more than a piece of bunting across two and a half centuries of American history. The exhibition gathers works in which generations of American artists used the flag to explore the nation's anxieties and highest hopes, as a symbol of patriotism and valor and, at times, as an object deconstructed or deployed ironically to protest injustice. It is organized by E. Carmen Ramos, chief curator of the National Gallery of Art.