There’s something special about spending Thanksgiving Day doing something a little different, and we decided that this year meant trading the crowded buses for the comfort of our car and diving deep into the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. Plus, free parking on a holiday? That’s basically a gift from the universe.

The drive down from our place was smooth, no traffic to stress about, no packed Metro cars, just us, the road, and the promise of some seriously incredible art. We found parking on a nearby street, (hello, gratitude for free parking on Thanksgiving), and headed inside.

We’d booked a guided tour, which honestly is always the move. There’s something about having someone who really knows their stuff walk you through a space that just elevates the whole experience. Our guide was fantastic and knowledgeable, engaging, and genuinely passionate about what we were looking at. They didn’t just tell us what we were seeing; they told us why it mattered, and that makes all the difference.

The Heart of the East Wing

The moment we stepped into the main atrium, we were stopped in our tracks by Alexander Calder’s monumental Untitled mobile, which is the last sculpture Calder ever made. This thing is absolutely massive, spanning 85 feet across the atrium, yet somehow it looks weightless. Our guide explained how Calder originally designed it to have a motor, but with those advanced, lightweight materials, it didn’t need one. The mobile moves entirely on air currents, and watching it shift and float almost feels like watching the space itself breathe. It’s the kind of piece that just sets the tone for everything else.​

From there, our guide steered us toward the Tower galleries, where we encountered Mark Rothko’s stunning abstract expressionist paintings. Walking into a Rothko room is its own kind of meditation—these aren’t just paintings you look at; they’re pieces you kind of sink into. The colorful canvases floating across those sky-lit walls had this way of making everything else fade into the background. Our guide pointed out how Rothko spent years exploring color relationships, and being in the presence of these massive works made that obsession completely understandable.​

We also got to see works by Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, and artists from the Washington Color School, which was a fascinating movement from the late 1950s and ’60s that we hadn’t spent much time with before. Each gallery revealed new approaches to abstraction, symbolism, and what painting could actually be in the modern era.​

The Australian Indigenous Art Moment

But the real standout moment came when we stepped into The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art—a landmark exhibition that just opened and represents the largest display of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art ever shown in North America. With nearly 200 works spanning 65,000 years of continuous creativity, walking through these galleries felt like stepping into an entirely different world.​

What absolutely grabbed us were the iconic dot paintings and ochre bark works, but also the contemporary pieces—video installations, experimental weavings, neon—that show how alive and evolving this tradition is. Our guide highlighted how the exhibition’s title draws inspiration from the concept of visible and invisible stars, representing both the cosmos we can see and the vast, infinite universe beyond our sight. It was this beautiful philosophical frame for understanding the scope of what Indigenous Australian culture represents.​

Leaving Full

We left with our brains full, our hearts happy, and this lingering sense of gratitude for the chance to experience something this significant. The East Wing isn’t just a collection of art; it’s a conversation spanning decades and continents about what it means to create, innovate, and express the human experience.

If you’re in DC (or planning to be), the East Building is an absolute must-see. And if The Stars We Do Not See is still showing (it runs through March 1, 2026), don’t miss it. Seriously, book a guided tour—it’s the difference between seeing art and actually understanding it