WASHINGTON — Richard Misrach's "On the Beach" exhibit, on view until the end of summer in the National Gallery of Art, is luring tourists in with large, happy-looking photos.

At first glance, these look like oversized postcards of Waikiki beaches. And indeed, on closer inspection, they are pictures of beaches along Hawai'i's most popular shoreline. (And yes, that man in the crowded beach shot is reading a copy of The Honolulu Advertiser.)

But take a page out of an impressionist appreciation guide and step back, as a couple of young women in tank tops did earlier this summer, winding their way through the exhibition. The waters soon turn troubled.

"Look at that texture!" the taller one said to her companion, pointing to "Untitled — 19-03," a photo that looks down on a darkened, turbulent ocean, knotted and rippled in ochre hues.

"It looks like wood," her companion replied.

Misrach, fielding questions during a preview several months ago, explained how the first of the photos in the project were taken from a hotel-room balcony not long after the 9/11 attacks had shaken him to his core. A longtime surfer on a previously scheduled trip to Hawai'i, he was struck by how on one side of the world, time seemed to stand still, but on the beach, people surprisingly were going about their business.

"I didn't go to Hawai'i to take the pictures," he said. "Suddenly I saw them there."

The title should also feed into the foreboding: It's also that of Nevil Shute's post-apocalyptic book.

When it comes to the installation and its timing, much was by design. Other parts were serendipity.

Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photographs for the National Gallery of Art, said she fitted Misrach's vision to the space, coaxing out a sense of foreboding beneath the first-glance prettiness. And viewers seem to appreciate it.

Greenough said she's gratified by attendance, which she called "quite good," with 5,000 to 7,000 visitors in a week during the opening months of the exhibit. The exhibition book also sold out right away.

"We have a lot of Misrach's work in our collection, so when we heard the Art Institute of Chicago was organizing this show, it was of interest to us," Greenough explained. "The slot that was open to us was this summer — and we had a hole in our exhibition schedule, as well."

She wouldn't go so far as to say she was surprised by the success, but "you never are quite sure what's going to attract people."

Big-name artists, the Van Goghs and Picassos, are a given as audience attractors in the art world. Portrait photographer Irving Penn's platinum prints brought in crowds, too, she noted. But a recent exhibition of photographs from the 1850s and 1860s? Not so much.

"With Misrach, I don't know if people know his work and are attracted, or if it's the subject of his work. You walk by the gallery, see the big pictures ... it looks intriguing."

The exhibit starts out with seemingly untroubled photos, which by turn become disturbing.

"That was intentional on my part," Greenough said. "I wanted to give almost a narrative thrust, to start off introducing the subject, (but there's a hint that) something might be slightly amiss. Then you have that menacing feeling develop as you go along."

She created a middle room of water photos, followed by a room of photos less pretty: one image can be read as if the subject has drowned; another, like a couple of bodies washed ashore.

"I consciously ended with three photos of people not at the mercy of environment, defining own spaces," she said.

There's a person doing a handstand; a couple playing in the water, and a final swimmer exalting in the calm of the ocean.

"These are people taking control of their environment, while in the earlier photos, (the subjects were) quite passive."

Her biggest challenge was the size of the works themselves.

"I hadn't ever hung anything so big in that environment," Greenough added. "(I'm used to) more traditionally sized photos — 8x10s, not 8 feet by 10 feet."

Critics have given the exhibit a mixed response. The Washington Post's Blake Gopnik didn't find Misrach's work menacing at all. Honolulu freelance writer Marie Carvalho called his photos "undeniably exquisite."

As for Misrach himself: "I think he liked it very much," Greenough said, adding that she sent him the layout many months in advance of the exhibits opening.