Home & Design Magazine

Handmade: Creating Textiles in South Asia
2021-11-01 - 2022-04-10 | George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum, 701 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20052
A GW art history professor invited artists and cooperatives in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to create new textiles inspired by works in The Textile Museum Collection. This show displays the results, as contemporary makers have interpreted century-old patterns and techniques in novel ways.

Man Ray: The Paris Years
2021-11-01 - 2022-02-21 | VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
Marking the 100th anniversary of Man Ray’s 1921 arrival in Paris, this exhibition assembles portraits taken by the photographer of the city’s avant-garde residents between the two world wars. Among the 100-plus subjects on display are Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau and Aldous Huxley.

Ansel Adams: Compositions in Nature
2021-11-01 - 2022-01-02 | VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
Tracing the career and life of the beloved American landscape photographer, this retrospective displays more than 70 photographs taken by Ansel Adams over five decades. Visitors will not only peruse Adams’s most famous and lesser-known works but will also learn about his passions for conservation and classical music.

Betty Cooke: The Circle and the Line
2021-11-01 - 2022-01-02 | THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM
This retrospective spotlights Baltimore artist Betty Cooke’s jewelry creations, dating from the 1940s to the present. Cooke’s iconic work—collected by museums around the world—is inspired by nature and kinetic forms. About 160 objects drawn from public and private lenders are on view.

Jeff Wall
2021-11-01 - 2021-11-08 | Glenstone Museum
This survey of work by Canadian artist Jeff Wall showcases nearly 30 photographs made between 1978 and 2018. Ranging from everyday moments to urban scenes and landscapes, Wall’s enigmatic, carefully crafted images convey the depth and gravitas of paintings seen through a camera’s lens.

New Glass Now
2021-10-22 - 2022-03-06 | Renwick Gallery, Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20006
This global survey on glass-making features objects, installations, videos and performances by more than 50 artists, designers and architects from 23 countries. Works on view include Promise (right), made of blown and sculpted glass and mirror by Nadège Desgenétez. americanart.si.edu

Clouds, Ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings
2021-10-17 - 2022-02-27 | National Gallery of Art
Pieces in this show depict a cross-section  of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish life. Among the 27 paintings on view: landscapes by Jacob van Ruisdael and  Salomon van Ruysdael and winter scenes by Jan van Goyen and Adam van Breen.

Anil Revri: Into the Light
2021-10-16 - 2021-12-12 | AMERICAN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM
Anil Revri’s complex geometric abstractions embody spiritual ideas from the East and West. Born and raised in India and a U.S. resident for nearly 40 years, the artist employs tantric  visualization techniques in his paintings and drawings that  tap into unexplored realms of the unconscious.

David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History
2021-10-16 - 2022-01-09 | Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20009
This exhibit features more than 50 paintings, collages, prints and drawings by artist, educator and art historian David Driskell, who died last year at the age of 88. A 1955 graduate of Howard University who later taught at University of Maryland, Driskell focused his own work on abstraction, the natural world and the Black Christian church. phillipscollection.org

Sargent, Whistler, and Venetian Glass: American Artists and the Magic of Murano
2021-10-08 - 2022-05-08 | Smithsonian American Art Museum
This exhibit documents the Venetian glass revival on the island of Murano between 1860 and 1915, which coincided with Grand Tours of Europe made by American luminaries. The period produced a wellspring of art depicting Venice and its illustrious glassblowing studios. Works by Sargent (right), Whistler and many others are on exhibit alongside exquisite hand-blown Murano glass objects (far right). americanart.si.edu

A Modern Influence: Henri Matisse, Etta Cone, and Baltimore
2021-10-03 - 2022-01-02 | BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
During a 43-year friendship with Henri Matisse, Baltimore collector Etta Cone acquired more than 700 works by the French master—the majority of which she bequeathed to the museum upon her death in 1949. This exhibit chronicles their relationship and the evolution of the renowned Cone collection.

Parade of Homes
2021-09-25 - 2021-09-26
Northern Virginia’s largest self-guided home tour encompasses properties in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince  William Counties. Visitors are welcome  to view houses from 11 am to 5 pm  both days.

Unsettled Nature: Artists Reflect on the Age of Humans
2021-09-23 - 2022-03-31 | Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, United States
The work of seven contemporary artists reveals the profound ways in which humans impact the planet. A photograph by Edward Burtynsky (above) documents the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sukkah City x DC
2021-09-18 08:00 - 2021-10-03 17:00 (America/New_York) | NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM
This event puts a modern spin on the ancient Jewish festival of Sukkot, which celebrates the fall harvest. During the holiday, families build temporary structures with partially open roofs called sukkahs, where they share meals, rejoice and even sleep. Notable DC architects have taken on the challenge of designing sukkahs of their own that explore the themes of “welcoming the stranger” as well as housing insecurity and displacement. Visitors who enter these structures, on view outdoors at the National Building Museum and the DCJCC, can reflect on these ideas and what it means to have a roof overhead. Participating firms include a complete unknown, Escoff & Ng Architects, hord | coplan | macht, Knu Design and Cedar Architecture, Shinberg.Levinas, SmithGroup and A. Robert Zweig.

Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival
2021-09-10 - 2021-09-12 | RESTON TOWN CENTER
Now in its 30th year, this festival will showcase the work of more than 200 artists in the fields of fine art and craft. Visitors will have an opportunity to engage with artists from around the country and will also enjoy dance performances, a family-friendly art park and more. The event is hosted by Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art.

Amalgama Phillips
2021-09-08 - 2022-01-02 | Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20009
In celebration of The Phillips’ centennial, Spanish-born artist Daniel Canogar  created a digital work that seamlessly “melts” together pieces from the  museum’s permanent collection in an ever-changing abstract animation.  Following its September 8 YouTube debut, “Amalgama” opens in the  gallery on September 14.

Diane Burko: Seeing Climate Change
2021-08-28 - 2021-12-12 | AMERICAN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM
In 2006, artist Diane Burko switched her focus from landscape painting to work that captures the effects of global warming. Informed by science and technology, pieces on view include Sphere 4 (right) and a 56-foot-long “World Map” series  documenting changes in glaciers and reefs.

Reveal: The Art of Reimagining Scientific Discovery
2021-08-28 - 2021-12-12 | AMERICAN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM
Rebecca Kamen’s paintings and sculpture explore the confluence of art and science. Working with scientists and researchers,  she creates abstractions that shed light on the world  around us.

Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands
2021-08-27 - 2022-05-29 | National Portrait Gallery
In her depictions of immigrants seeking a better life abroad, contemporary Chinese-American artist Hung Liu speaks volumes about exile, identity and the Asian Pacific American experience. Her multi-layered portraits, many based on photographs, will be on view in the artist’s first major East Coast exhibit.

Inside Outside, Upside Down
2021-07-17 - 2021-09-12 | The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection asked DC-area artists to submit work created between March 2020 and February 2021 that expresses the struggle and resiliency of the human spirit in the context of the pandemic and recent social upheaval. Many of these submissions are now on view in a juried exhibit that carries on museum founder Duncan Phillips’ mission to champion the work of local artists.

Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle
2021-06-26 - 2021-09-10 | The Phillips Collection
From 1954 to 1956, Jacob Lawrence painted a 30-panel series entitled “Struggle…From the History of the American People.” It depicts early decades of the republic through the words and actions of founding fathers as well as enslaved people, women and Native Americans. Assembled for the first time in 50-plus years, the panels—including We crossed the River at McKonkey’s Ferry... (inset)—can now be seen through a 21st-century lens. phillipscollection.org

Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture
2021-06-24 - 2021-07-11 | Smithsonian American Art Museum
In 1804, Prussian naturalist and author Alexander von Humboldt spent six weeks in the U.S., exchanging ideas about art, science, politics and nature with luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson and Charles Willson Peale. This exhibit examines von Humboldt’s impact on American cultural development through 100 sculptures, maps, artifacts and paintings—including Albert Bierstadt’s 1864 Valley of the Yosemite.

The Long Sixties: Washington Paintings in the Watkins and Corcoran Legacy Collections, 1957-1982
2021-06-24 - 2021-08-08 | Katzen Arts Center at American University
Museum director Jack Rasmussen curated this exhibit that assembles works by 32 Washington-area artists, including Sam Gilliam, Lisa Montag Brotman and Gene Davis. In an illustrated catalog available online and in print, Rasmussen reflects on the period, when, he writes, Black and women artists were “systematically underrepresented” and examines how memories of this formative period in his own life influenced his selections for the show.

Intersections: Marley Dawson
2021-06-24 - 2021-09-05 | The Phillips Collection
Modern Australian artist Marley Dawson has created ghosts, a two-part kinetic sculpture installation that riffs on The Phillips Collection’s art and architecture. One installation consists of five chairs in brass, suspended from the gallery’s domed stairway (above), while the other is a wall-mounted work made of hundreds of brass rods, hung to spark a dialog with a Morris Louis painting.

Tschabalala Self: By My Self
2021-06-24 - 2021-09-09 | BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self explores the significance of the Black female form in contemporary culture through her work. Two sculptures and 13 paintings that incorporate stencils, tracings, prints, casts and mechanically stitched lines of thread are on view.

Sharon Lockhart: Perilous Life
2021-06-24 - 2021-09-19 | BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
Over a decade, American artist Sharon Lockhart documented the lives of children in Lodz, Poland. Over time, she produced a film, photographs and sculpture based on workshops she conducted in a center for young women. Now on exhibit, the series creates a profound sense of place and a commentary on children’s resourcefulness.

Alan Karchmer: The Architects’ Photographer
2021-06-24 - 2022-06-05 | NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM
Though he earned a degree in architecture, DC-based Alan Karchmer has devoted his career to photographing buildings rather than designing them. This show presents images of structures Karchmer has captured around the world—including Washington National Cathedral’s Visitor Gateway (below), designed by SmithGroup Architects—and sheds light on his creative process.

Edward Hopper and the American Hotel
2021-06-11 | VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
Edward Hopper often conveyed a sense of loneliness and isolation by painting subjects in hotels, motels and boarding houses. This Richmond exhibit highlights 65 paintings and works on paper by the artist depicting such settings, plus 35 pieces by John Singer Sargent, David Hockney and others who explored similar themes. vmfa.museum

Lisa Yuskavage: Wilderness
2021-02-28 - 2021-09-19 | BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
This exhibit focuses on 15 large-scale landscapes by contemporary painter Lisa Yuskavage. Noted for their exuberant, ethereal flair, the works encourage viewers to immerse themselves in the mysterious worlds Yuskavage creates. artbma.org

Translations and Transitions / Traducciones y Transiciones: A Celebration of Mexican and Central American Independence (1821-2021)
2021-02-14 - 2021-08-08 | THE WALTERS MUSEUM
This exhibit commemorates Mexican and Central American independence from Spain while exploring cultural exchanges between indigenous and European peoples. Perusing 19 works of art including books, gold adornments and ceramic vessels, viewers can reflect on the vibrant societies that once flourished in what today are Mexico and Central America. thewalters.org
