WPA Registry

The Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) has announced the recent public launch of the WPA ArtFile Online, an interactive web-based image registry of WPA members’ artwork, accessible 24 hours a day through the WPA’s website.

As I recall, back in the 1900s, Jack Rasmussen, then the spry young Assistant Director of the Washington Project for the Arts established the original ArtFile Slide and Media Registry, conceived as a centrally located repository containing slides of local artists’s work.

For many decades the original ArtFile has served as a go-to resource for curators, gallerists, collectors, artists, and members of the general public to see a cross-section of the artwork being produced in and around Washington DC.

In 2005 I used it to review about 20,000 slides (twice) in order to select the artists for the "Seven" show that I curated for the then WPA/C.

Funded by a grant from the Philip L. Graham Fund and developed by database firm ClearDev, the new WPA ArtFile Online contains over 3,800 images from more than 400 artists -- numbers that are growing daily. Visitors to the ArtFile Online can:

- browse alphabetically by artist’s last name
- search for artists by name or keyword
- sort artists by media (drawing, painting, etc.)
- sort artists by style (abstract, conceptual, etc.), or
- view artists by geographic location.

Visitors also have the option of registering -- free of charge -- as a Curator, allowing them to maintain a “Lightbox” -- a saved folder of their favorite artists’ portfolios.

Portfolio pages in the WPA ArtFile Online are one of the membership benefits given to WPA member artists, who are able to log in at any time from any computer with an internet connection to update their images, image captions, artist statement, resume, contact information, and the style and media keywords that best describe their artwork. Each artist’s portfolio page displays up to 12 images, and allows the artist to provide a link to their own external website where more images and information can be found.

Direct link to the WPA ArtFile Online: artfile.wpadc.org.

For additional information, please contact David William at dwilliam@wpadc.org