Art in Washington DC

Richard Milhous Nixon by Norman Rockwell, 1968, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; donated to the people of the United States of America by the Richard Nixon Foundation.

I was in Washington DC last week to visit a friend—I had not seen Elizabeth Arledge since we graduated high school, and having never been to DC looked forward to a tour of her stomping ground. When asked what I wanted to see I suggested a couple of monuments and a few wine bars; but I also hoped to see some great museums while there. And boy did we! I was asked upon my return how I liked the art in Washington DC. And I can offer a simile in answer to that inquiry: Art in Washington DC is like walking into the finest restaurant and ordering everything on the menu—there is too much, it’s all good, but there is no way to take it all in.

At the outset let me qualify that the whole city is a work of art—on every block is a fabulous monument and even the architecture is erected with monumental qualities. But the specific art museums that we were able to visit were the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the Renwick Gallery. This blog post is an overview of some of these galleries. And as always, links are included below for further exploration.

Study for El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

We began with the National Portrait Gallery which includes a litany of my favorite artists. Right off the bat we saw work by Norman Rockwell, John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, Ralph Earl, and John Singer Sargent. At some point all 19^th Century portraits start to look alike but there were also Time Magazine covers and a Presidential Gallery. The National Portrait Gallery adjoins the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. When examining a particularly monumental John Singer Sargent, study for El Jaleo, I got too close and set off the alarm which troubled my buddy Elizabeth (see TroysArt – Please DO NOT TOUCH the art).

For the rest of our tour she admonished, “Don’t get too close!”

“Ok, Elizabeth, I’ll be more careful!”

While walking along the mall we needed a bathroom break, so naturally I suggested that we pop into a museum! Enter the National Gallery. And wow! I have never walked into a more beautiful museum. In the entrance is a massive rotunda with a marble fountain and fresh flowers. On to the galleries and there is no warm up, it’s just masterpiece after masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Sir Anthony van Dyck, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Edourd Manet, John Singleton Copley, Paul Gauguin, and so so many more. With towering marble columns spanning its façade, it truly is a temple of art. It was the best rest stop I ever made.

Family of Saltimbanques by Pablo Picasso, 1905, National Gallery of Art, fair use.

In one of the first galleries I admired Picasso’s The Family of Saltimbanques—I asked Elizabeth if she recognized it; it was the cover of our senior high school literature book. The massive canvas is the largest that Picasso ever did and is considered the dominant composition of his Rose Period. Picasso himself is the Harlequin, possibly holding the hand of his sister Conchita who died tragically at seven years old. Picasso bargained that he would never paint again if she would survive and her death is his first obsessive, recurrent connection between life and death in his paintings.

Self-portrait with Halo and Snake by Paul Gauguin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

I was further enthralled with a wall of paintings by van Gogh, a wall of works by Manet, and a massive assemblage of Gauguin. Gauguin’s Self-portrait with Halo and Snake is one of his most enigmatic works, with a halo painted above his disembodied head. Some scholars, in the intense analysis of his works, see him casting himself in the role of Satan.

Elizabeth was keen to visit the National Museum of Women in the Arts particularly to see the current exhibit She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World. The exhibition features artists Jananne Al-Ani, Boushra Almutawakel, Gohar Dashti, Rana El Nemr, Lalla Essaydi, Shadi Ghadirian, Tanya Habjouqa, Rula Halawani, Nermine Hammam, Rania Matar, Shirin Neshat, and Newsha Tavakolian. Each artist in She Who Tells a Story offers a provocative vision of the world she has witnessed. The images invite viewers to reconsider preconceptions about the nature of politics, family, and personal identity in the Middle East. It was particularly moving that Newsha Tavakolian, for example, recorded video of female singers from Iran but since it is not legal for women to make recordings the video was played with no sound.

Gohar Dashti, Untitled #5, 2008, Chromogenic print, courtesy of the artist, Azita Bina, and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston; © Gohar Dashti.

The Renwick Gallery is the first building in the United States built expressly as an art museum. And after a two year renovation it seems to be the hottest gallery on the mall with tourists lining up for blocks. The current exhibit transformed the entire museum into an immersive work entitled WONDER which includes nine leading contemporary artists: Jennifer Angus, Chakaia Booker, Gabriel Dawe, Tara Donovan, Patrick Dougherty, Janet Echelman, John Grade, Maya Lin and Leo Villareal. Each artist took over an entire gallery in the building to create a site-specific installation. Dawe’s created a rainbow weaving, my favorite of the installations, that appeared to be rays of light. Tara Donovan employs mundane materials in her work and created massive mountains in one gallery by stacking index cards—this seemed to interest Elizabeth greatly though I thought it looked like termite mounds.

Installation by Gabriel Dawe.

Though the work in the Renwick Gallery is not my bailiwick, we both agreed that it gave us the most food for thought.

It is a fact that we did not even scratch the surface when it comes to art in Washington DC. What’s more, the magnitude and quality of the works on view can easily overload the eyes and the brain.

Ordering everything on the menu brings to mind disgusting Mr. Creosote from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. You might not be able to eat everything on the menu, but it is fun to try. But one more wafer thin masterpiece and I might have exploded.