Home & Design

Artist to Artist

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Rather than working in a vacuum, many artists seek feedback and criticism from their peers. Eight pairings of works on view shed light on how artists support each other outside the purview of patrons, curators and dealers. Paul Cadmus’ Night in Bologna (pictured) is part of the show.

A Better Way Home: The Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge

NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM

The museum shares the work of six winning teams that participated in a three-year, $20 million initiative to find innovative ways to close the economic gap in the affordable-housing market. Conceived by MASS Design Group, the exhibit shares the winners’ novel ideas in the areas of housing finance, construction and resident services. Pictured: Breakthrough Challenge […]

Abundance: Too Much, Too Little, Just Right

AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM

This Baltimore exhibition focuses on the joy of the here-and-now with more than 200 daring works created by self-taught artists using found or discarded materi- als. The show promotes the idea that instead of yearning for more things, people can find fulfillment by applying ingenuity and imagination to what’s already in their grasp.

John Akomfrah: Purple

HIRSHHORN MUSEUM AND SCULPTURE GARDEN

Addressing themes surrounding climate change, this hour-long video features new and archival footage of disappearing landscapes from Greenland and Alaska to the Tahitian peninsula. Created by London-based artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah, the work plays across six screens, accompanied by an original score and spoken word.

A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ASIAN ART

This assemblage of paintings on paper and cloth created between 1700 and 1900 celebrates the palaces, lakes and mountains of Udaipur, a city in northwestern India, illustrating the region’s cultural and political evolution.

Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass

VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, RICHMOND

This immersive, 10-screen film installation by Sir Isaac Julien focuses on 19th- century abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the influences of technology and images on human relations. Spanning space and time, the display interweaves Douglass’ speeches and writings with reenactments of his travels around the globe.

Looking Up: Studies for Ceilings, 1550–1800

National Gallery of Art

For centuries, some of the most ambitious and compelling art in Europe was painted on ceilings in styles ranging from Baroque to Neoclassical. The National Gallery spotlights 30 examples of remarkable ceiling decoration, from preliminary studies to large-scale models.

Anne Lindberg: what color is divine light?

THE GWU MUSEUM AND THE TEXTILE MUSEUM

This immersive installation combines thousands of fine chromatic yellow and blue threads to create a color scheme that the eyes and mind cannot perceive. In what she calls an “imaginary, mysterious, unnamed space,” the multi-media artist pushes viewers to contemplate the divine—which, like these colors, she says, “is unnamable, untouchable, intangible.”

Madayin: Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM AT THE KATZEN ARTS CENTER

This ground-breaking show is not only the first major exhibition of Aboriginal Australian bark-painting in the U.S., it’s also the largest display of Aboriginal Australian art to be seen in the Western Hemisphere in 30 years. The Yolngu people in northern Australia’s Yirrkala region tell stories about the interconnectedness of man, animals and the land; […]

I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women, Part II

National Portrait Gallery

Like the first installation of this exhibit, which remains on view through January 29, the second part also presents portraits by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Brian Lanker of Black women who changed America. Subjects include seminal figures such as Cicely Tyson, tennis champion Althea Gibson (pictured) and Oprah Winfrey.

In Quiet Beauty: The Watercolors of Léon Bonvin

THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM

Léon Bonvin (1834-1866) is known for his exquisite watercolors, inspired by Japanese prints, photography and trends of the day. Following the French artist’s tragic suicide, Baltimore patron William Walters began to acquire Bonvin’s paintings, amassing what became the largest collection of his work in existence; Walters’ son later bequeathed the collection to the city of […]

Determined Women: Collectors, Artists and Designers at Hillwood

HILLWOOD MUSEUM

An accomplished businesswoman and legendary arts patron, Hillwood founder Marjorie Merriweather Post applauded female artists and designers. Hillwood displays art and objects from its collection that depict women whom Post admired, along with work created by women—from an 18th-century Fabergé pencil holder to a 1790 French painting of Princess Elizabeth (pictured).

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