The current issue of the Washington City Paper has one of the best articles about an artist that I have ever read in the Washington press.

The article is by John Metcalfe and it is about Manon Cleary, in my opinion, not only the best artist in the Washington area, but perhaps the most powerful realist brush in the nation.

Manon is represented locally by Addison/Ripley Fine Art and in Baltimore by Light Street Gallery and her life and work read like an artist's life should read - including all the suffering and destruction that goes along with being a creative genius.

John Metcalfe has done a terrific job in re-creating the lifestyle and the life led by Cleary, although I wish the article had included some images of Cleary's artwork.

Let this be the first call for a Manon Cleary retrospective at either the Hirshhorn Museum or the Corcoran.

It is long overdue for one of those two Washington museums to give a well-deserved show to Washington's best-known and most talented artist.