NEW YORK, NY.- The National Academy of Design presents Shelter from the Storm: An Artist's Eye with Stan Allen and Polly Apfelbaum, an exhibition on view September 17, 2026 through January 16, 2027, at the National Academy's gallery, 519 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, New York City.

Marking the return of The Artist's Eye exhibition series for the first time since 2013, the exhibition brings together eighty works from the Academy's collection to examine how artists and architects have responded to periods of upheaval, uncertainty, and transformation throughout American history.

Co-curated by architect Stan Allen and artist Polly Apfelbaum, Shelter from the Storm serves as the culminating exhibition of the National Academy's bicentennial anniversary year and is the largest collection-based exhibition to be presented in the Academy’s Chelsea space since it opened in September 2023.

Launched in 1992, The Artist's Eye invites a National Academician to curate an exhibition around a theme of their choosing, drawn from the Academy's historic collection of more than 8,000 works of art and architecture donated by Academicians upon their election to the Academy. Previous Artist’s Eye curators have included Paul Cadmus, Jane Freilicher, Jacob Lawrence, Philip Pearlstein, and Judith Shea, among others. In addition to being the first time an Artist’s Eye exhibition is co-curated by two Academicians, this will also be the first time an architect is
curating.

For Shelter from the Storm, Allen and Apfelbaum draw on decades of artistic dialogue and shared inquiry as a married couple to explore how artists and architects have navigated moments of social change, conflict, displacement, loss, and renewal. With work spanning more than two centuries–from 1788 to the present–the exhibition reveals unexpected connections among paintings, sculptures, drawings, architectural works, and mixed-media pieces, one-third of which are being publicly exhibited for the first time. In total, 54 artists and architects are included in the show, 23 of whom are still actively practicing.

The exhibition takes inspiration from the National Academy's own history. Since its founding in 1825, the Academy has persevered through war, social upheaval, movements for civil rights and women's suffrage, public health crises, and profound cultural transformation. Opening at another moment of uncertainty and polarization in the United States, Shelter from the Storm considers how artists and architects have witnessed, interpreted, and responded to these experiences, offering a nuanced portrait of resilience across generations.





As Allen and Apfelbaum write in their exhibition essay,

“The works we have selected for Shelter from the Storm trace the many ways–direct and indirect–that artists have responded to [the United States’] complex two-hundred-year history: a body of work that bears witness to conflict, change and loss; to trauma, isolation, exclusion and despair...But this is not just a litany of loss…we have selected works of stubborn beauty that offer not consolation or easy comfort, but refuge and measured hope; light in dark times. Art cannot alter history, but works of art can extend the horizon of imagination, and help us to envision alternative histories and alternative futures.”

The final checklist is the result of more than a year of exploration, research, and discovery by the curators in the Academy’s expansive collection storage. By reinterpreting historic works through the distinct perspectives of an architect and an artist, Allen and Apfelbaum uncover new relationships across media, eras, and lived experiences. Their selections illuminate the ways artists create meaning in times of anxiety and invite audiences to consider the enduring role of art and architecture in shaping collective memory.

Featured works include Howardena Pindell's Autobiography: Hiroshima Disguised (1982), a powerful mixed-media installation that reflects on the enduring consequences of nuclear warfare and the political climate of its time, and Annette Lemieux's Boots on the Ground (2022), a work that employs everyday objects to examine the language and realities of military conflict in an era marked by both global unrest and domestic division.

These themes are echoed in selections from the Academy's architectural holdings, including photographs and renderings of monuments, memorials, cemeteries, and museums dedicated to preserving the memory of war and its victims. Among them is Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects' unbuilt proposal for the Museum of the Second World War, Gdańsk, Poland (2010), which demonstrates architecture's unique capacity to engage with collective remembrance and historical reflection.

Balancing these meditations on conflict are works that evoke recovery and hope. Paul Resika's The End of the Hurricane (1979) captures a moment of calm after turmoil, reflecting the artist's lifelong commitment to transforming observed landscapes into deeply personal and spiritual expressions. Together, the works on view invite visitors to consider the ways art and architecture help us confront the past, navigate the present, and imagine a more hopeful future.