Carolyn Case of Cockeysville, MD, the 2018 Bethesda Painting Awards Best in Show Winner!

Pictured from Left to Right: Laura Roulet, 2018 Painting Awards Judge; Carolyn Case, 2018 Bethesda Painting Awards Winner; Bill Schmidt, 2018 Painting Awards Judge; Carol Trawick, Founder of the Painting Awards; Catriona Fraser, Painting Awards Chair

Call for Pre-Qualified Artist List

Entry Deadline: 6/15/18

The City of El Paso’s Museums and Cultural Affairs Department (MCAD) Public Art Program seeks to establish a new pre-qualified list of emerging and established artist and artist teams working in a variety of visual media and artistic approaches for its 2018–2020 Pre-Qualified Artist List. 

On November 6, 2012 the City of El Paso approved a Street Infrastructure and Quality of Life bond to include 2% for arts. The approved bond projects are a Children’s Museum, Hispanic Cultural Center, Multi-Purpose Sports and Entertainment Facility, Zoo expansion, new parks and recreation centers, Library expansions open space trail systems and streetscape projects.

Details here.

Call for Art Teachers, Schools, Non-Profits to Register in New Directory

 ArtCantina.com invites all teaching artists, workshop organizers, art schools, art centers and non-profit art groups to register in their free online directory for the visual arts.  Art Cantina is a new site that connects students of all ages with art teachers and schools, classes and workshops.

“We believe hands-on creativity is important at any age. Our goal at ArtCantina.com is to make it easier to find art lessons by providing a much-needed, worldwide marketing platform for professionals,”  says co-founder LaVonne Ewing.

Art Cantina disciplines include painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, collage and mosaics, ceramics and pottery, fiber arts and textiles, glass arts, jewelry and metalsmithing, paper arts, and photography.

Lori McNee, artist, author, and art business advisor, says, “What a great resource for both teachers and students to be able to connect for classes and workshops all in one place. Such a wonderful service. I’m excited to be a part of Art Cantina!”

It takes just a few minutes to create a free or premium profile in the online ArtEdu Directory. Listing categories include individuals and organizations who teach art (art teachers, mentors, art therapists, workshop organizers, art schools, art centers, non-profits), places that host art instruction (art galleries, art studios, community venues and more) as well as makers and distributors of art tools and supplies, how-to magazines and books.

Also available: Learn-The-Arts Calendar of Events is the place to promote upcoming art workshops, tours, on-going classes and all art-education events with specific dates.

ArtCantina.com is the brainchild of two entrepreneurs who met while volunteering at a fundraising art auction in Colorado. They share a passion for the visual arts and a conviction that art lessons should be much easier to find.

Honoring the Life and Legacy of the late Norman Parish (1937-2013)

From Millenium Arts Salon:

1. The records of Parish Gallery are now part of the National Archives of American Art and can be accessed online here: https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/parish-gallery-records-17390?utm_source=dailycampelloartnews .  The Archive includes information about the Gallery’s exhibitions between 1991 when the gallery was established by Norm (as he is affectionately called) until 2013 after his untimely transition. From online you can review background and historical information and browse the list of exhibitions -  beginning with the Gallery’s Grand Opening exhibition to its last exhibition, “Norman Parish – The Artist.”  The Archive includes biographical information about Norm, administrative records, and other details.  There is the option to select and view detail records on site, as well as request printed copies of selected files. 

2. The Art Institute of Chicago just acquired one of Norm’s paintings! The painting now hangs at the Institute and we understand will be in close proximity to the exhibition, “Charles White:  A Retrospective,” which opens at the Institute on June 8^th.  Norm named the work, “Black Pride Whitewashed” (see image attached), which symbolizes the “Wall of Respect,” a 1967 mural on the South Side of Chicago created by artists associated with the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) to celebrate Black Heroes and promote civil rights of African Americans in Chicago.  Norm was one of the artists who created the mural.  The title “Whitewashed” refers to an incident where Norm’s portion of the mural was whitewashed by another artist who wanted to be included.  The building was demolished a few years later after a fire.  You may have heard Norm speak about “the Wall” during his reflections about black art and its inspiration for positive action and change.  It is very fitting that over 50 years after the Wall, Norm’s work would hang in the prominent Art Institute of Chicago, where he graduated with a degree in art, and in the city he called home for over 30 years.

Gwen and Norman Parish III (Norm’s son) have worked tirelessly since the gallery’s closing to enable the Smithsonian and The Art Institute of Chicago to acquire these important documents and art work – Gwen worked with the Smithsonian Archives and Norman Parish III with the Institute.  These two phenomenal accomplishments seal Norman Parish’s legacy – he is one of the greatest artist, social activist, and human beings of our time!

I was Norm's neighbor in Canal Square for over a decade and can testify not only about the greatness of this human being, but also about what a supportive, really nice guy he was. 

Remembering an elegant tree

Two years ago my courageous mother died... this is my eulogy from that day:

When my father died last year, I began his eulogy by noting that another oak had fallen.

This morning, around 1:25AM, Ana Olivia Cruzata Marrero de Campello, his wife of over 60 years, and my beloved mother, passed on on the day of her 97th birthday.

If my father was an oak, then my mother was an equally strong, but also very pliable, and elegant tree.  When hurricanes attack the mainlands of the world, the strong tall trees often fall, but the pliable ones, like plantain trees, always give with the wind, and survive the storms, and thrive in the drenching rains.

My mother was like a an aged plantain tree, not only immensely strong and pliable, but also giving and nurturing.

Like many Cuban women of her generation and her social-economic background, she had never worked for a living in Cuba, and yet within a few days of our arrival in New York in the 1960s, she was working long hours in a sewing factory, putting her formidable seamstress skills, honed in the social sewing and embroidery gathering of young Cuban girls, to use in the "piece work" process of the New York sewing factories.

As soon as we saved the money, one of the first things that my mother bought was an electric sewing machine - a novelty to her, as she had always used one of the those ancient Singer machines with a foot pedal.

I remember as a child in Brooklyn, that women used to bring her fabric and a page from a magazine with a woman wearing a dress. Without the benefit of a sewing pattern, my mother would whip up a copy of the dress that was more often than not probably better made than the original. As the word of her skills spread, so did her customers and soon she was making more money working at home than at the factory - but she kept both jobs.

I once noted to her that I admired the courage that it must have taken her to leave her family and immigrate to the United States. "We didn't come here as immigrants," she corrected me. "We came as political refugees, and I initially thought that we'd be back in Cuba within a few years at the most."

When the brutal Castro dictatorship refused to loosen its stranglehold on her birth place, she became an immigrant, and from there on an American citizen from her white-streaked hair down to her heel bone (that's a Cuban saying). Like my father, she loved her adopted country with a ferocity, that I sometimes feel that only people who have been bloodied by Communism can feel for a new, free homeland.

As as I've noted before, Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation because we recognize its singular and unique greatness; perhaps it is because our forebears had the same chance at greatness and blew it.

I remember as a teenager, once I started going out to parties and things at night on my own (around age 16 or so), that my mother would wait up for me, sitting by the third floor window of our Brooklyn apartment, where she could survey the whole neighborhood and see as far as the elevated LL subway station a few blocks away, to watch me descend the station stairs and trace my way home.

My mother was always fit and, as once described by my father, "flaca como un fusil" (as slim as a rifle). She was strong and fast. She was also quiet, but never silenced, and when needed, could and would command attention.

My mother was always well dressed and superbly coiffed. When we'd go to parties and events, women would always ask her where she'd gotten that dress! The answer was always the same: she'd made it!

At least once a week, to my father's dismay, and in spite of his demands that my mother stop it, she'd get her hair done at the nearby peluqueria (hair dresser).

My dad knew, and respected his limits with my mother. 

I remember one time that my father and I were returning from shopping at the supermarket, dragging one of those wheeled folding carts that could carry four full paper grocery bags. It had been snowing, so the Brooklyn streets were wet and muddy.

When we got to our apartment my father opened the door. He then stood there.

"Go in!" I demanded.

"We'll have to wait," he said gloomily, "Your mother mopped the floor and it's still wet." This giant, tough, street-brawling Galician then looked at me sheepishly, "I'd rather walk through a mine field than step on your mother's wet floor."

I learned a lesson there.

She used to delight in telling stories how, as a child, she would often win the horse races that kids staged around the small country towns where she was raised in Oriente province, where her father was a Mayoral.

"I almost always won," she'd say, and then would add: "Even though I was a skinny girl."

Once, in her seventies, back in the days where you could actually accompany people to the departing gates at airports, we were escorting my oldest daughter Vanessa, who had come to visit, and we were running late. As we got to the airport, we ran to the gate, and to everyone's surprise, Abuela got there first. I still remember how delighted my daughter was that her grandmother could still run like a gazelle.

When I joined the Navy at age 17, my first duty station was USS SARATOGA, which at the time was stationed in Mayport in Florida, and thus my parents decided to migrate south to Florida and moved to Miami... just to be close to me.

They spent the next 40 years in the same apartment while I was stationed all over the world.

The mostly Cuban-American families that lived over the years in that apartment loved my mother, and would always tell me stories about my mother, ever the nurturer, bringing them food when she knew that they were going over tough times, or riding the buses with them, just to show them the routes.

This week, when I arrived in Miami, already somewhat knowing that this was approaching the end, I saw her with tubes coming out of her mouth and her eyes closed. When I spoke to her she opened her eyes, and in spite of the visuals that my eyes were seeing she somehow still managed to look strong. 

I showed her photos and movies of her grand children, and talked to her for a long time.

I thanked her for having the courage to leave her motherland and afford me the opportunity to grow as an American.

When she was being extubated, a young woman came into the room with a guitar and played and sang the haunting free prose of Guajira Guantanamera (The peasant girl from Guantanamo); a most fitting song, since my mother was from Guantanamo, and she came from strong Cuban peasant stock.

"Guajira pero fina (A peasant, but a very refined woman)", noted a neighbor and loving caretaker. 

The song, which can start with just about any prose, started with the Jose Marti poem:

 Yo quiero, cuando me muera, sin patria, pero sin amo, tener en mi tumba un ramo de flores y una bandera

I want to, when I die, without my motherland, but without a master, to have on my tomb a bunch of flowers and a flag.

She died without a master, a strong and pliable woman who not only gave me the gift of life, but also the gift of freedom.

And as my mother died in her sleep in the early hours of the morning, in the capital city of the bitter Cuban Diaspora, all that I could gather to say to her was mostly the same that I said to my father when he passed last year: "Thank you for your courage... from me, and from my children... and soon from their children. You opened a whole new world for them."

I love you Mami... Un Abrazo Fuerte! Thank you for your gifts to me and my children, and happy birthday in Heaven!

Call for tiny art

HOW TO ENTER
Create teeny tiny art — all mediums are welcome.

Click the image above on this page between June 4 and June 17, 2018, upload a photo of your piece, and complete the submission form. Open to US residents, ages 18 and older. Limit one entry per artist.

JUDGING CRITERIA
Judges from Artprof.org will be looking for strong cohesion in both technical execution and presence of a core concept, and how they work together to form a visually commanding presence. They will also consider the originality of the idea, innovative engagement of the materials used, and bold artistic vision. 

Small in format art sizing guidelines: artwork should under 14" in any one direction. Sculpture should fit inside an 8"x8"x8" cube including the base. 

Ric Garcia at Stone Tower Gallery at Glen Echo Park

The beautiful and historic Stone Tower Gallery at Glen Echo Park will host an artist reception for Ric Garcia and his most recent body of work. The event is free and kid friendly with light fare.

Sat, June 9  |  6 PM - 8 PM

Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture
7300 MacArthur Blvd, Glen Echo, Maryland 20812

His work explores how American culture past and present portrays gender when communicating stories about social structure, identity, and morality. Who has been the traditional hero or heroine of those stories? How do new and changing roles affect the narrative and impact of these stories?
--------------------------------
Contact
RicGarciaStudio.com
703-785-6832

Studio Store
https://squareup.com/store/ric-garcia-studio-store?utm_source=dailycampello

Location
RicGarciaStudio@passaways artist studios
6001 66th Ave #201, Riverdale, MD 20737

Are contractual agreements between artists and galleries necessary?

On Wednesday, June 13th from 11:00 AM - 11:45 PM ET, join Artsy’s General Counsel Yayoi Shionoiri for an informational session and discussion about gallery-artist agreements.

Register today to reserve your spot »

What they’ll cover:

• Why gallery-artist agreements are important
• What do Consignment and Loan Forms cover
• Advice on navigating artists who self-market
• Your questions, answered live!

If you’re not sure if you can attend the webinar live, register and you’ll receive the recording afterwards.

Weekend art listings

Courtesy of East City Art!

Friday, June 1

Gallery Underground – 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

June 2018 Exhibitions (Read More)

Glen Echo Park Partnership – 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

June 2018 Exhibitions (Read More)

Touchstone Gallery – 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

June 2018 Exhibitions (Read More)

Artists & Makers Studios 1 and 2 – 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

June 2018 Exhibitions (Read More)

Corner Store – 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Thom Goertel Finding Light (Read More)

IA&A at Hillyer – 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Gayle Friedman Measuring the Weight of Longing (Read More)

Arts Club of Washington – 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Members’ Summer Exhibition (Read More)

VisArts – 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

June 2018 Exhibitions (Read More)

VisArts – 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Group Exhibition Power Forward (Read More)

DC Arts Center – 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Renee Marcus Butler Adumbrations (Read More)

Saturday, June 2

Arlington Arts Center – 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Gallery Talk (Read More)

Wohlfarth Galleries – 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Karen Bokert (Read More)

Studio Gallery – 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

June Openings (Read More)

Addison/Ripley Fine Art – 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

E. Brady Robinson It's Complicated (Read More)

Foundry Gallery – 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Kurtis Ceppetelli and Matthew Malone Model Compositions: (conjunction of the figure) (Read More)

Susan Calloway Fine Arts – 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Katie Pumphrey Five More Minutes Pt. 1 (Read More)

TAG/The Artists Gallery – 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Linda Slattery Sherman Prints & Paintings 2018 and Patricia Stockman This Way Through (Read More)

Adah Rose Gallery – 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Joan Belmar Beguiled by Caravaggio (Read More)

Yellow Barn Gallery – 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Olga Bauer Journey of Color (Read More)

Gallery 102 – 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Stephanie Mercedes: The Ring of Freedom (Read More)

WAS Gallery – 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Group Exhibition INTIMATE gathering (Read More) 

Sunday, June 3

Washington Printmakers Gallery – 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Danny Schweers Those Who See Slowly (Read More)
Greenbelt Community Art Gallery – 1 p.m.to 3 p.m.
Anna Fine Foer Collide-o-Scope: Collages (Read More)

Art fair coming to the District

The District has attempted to host international art fairs in the past... artDC was staged one year at the convention center (about a decade ago) by the same people who run Art Miami and Art New York. Then the (e)merge art fair rans for a few years at the Skyline Hotel...

The following is from the press release from Superfine! DC:

Why a Superfine! fair in DC?

That's the question many of you have been asking. Why exhibit in Washington DC when I can show in New York, Los Angeles, or Miami? Well, you can. We're launching an LA show next spring, revisiting Miami Art Week in 2019, and launching applications for not only our May New York fair but a second fall show as well. Even London is on our 2019 radar, giving new possibilities to jump the pond and interact with a collector base there. However, we believe strongly in Superfine! DC and want to invite you to join us in the capital this fall for what promises to be a banner inaugural fair.

The Art Market is Here

There are countless ways to be a part of the Superfine! revolution but to overlook DC is to miss a terrific opportunity to be at the forefront of something new and fresh in a city hungry for a contemporary art fair to call its own. Superfine! DC is not merely an afterthought on our calendar but the culmination of a two year search to find the perfect city for not just any art fair, but our own specific take on the fair model: transparent, approachable, and most of all- fair. We look for a market that holds not only an affluent and existing collector base, but also a highly educated young professional market with high disposable income - all attributes that DC has in spades, and the reason we're so confident that our formula will resonate.

Tapping Into the Cultural Core

A smaller but still highly culturally relevant city like Washington DC affords us the opportunity to own not only 100% of the art-related digital impressions in a city (New York's fair boasted 78.5 million of them), but to establish deep and lasting partnerships with major art + culture institutions. From the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Superfine! DC is a week-long hub for all of the capital's cultural institutions and their supportive audiences. A 50% makeup of DC-area-based galleries and artists cements our position as DC's own art fair.

Take a look at our recently updated floor plan with improved flow and sight lines for each exhibitor, and consider joining us on this next great adventure.

Superfine! DC Floorplan

Superfine! DC Applications 

Coolest art call ever!

The City of Pompano Beach is looking to commission an artist/artist team to design and fabricate a sculpture that will be displayed at the beach for a one year. After a year, it will be submerged into the ocean and attached to Lady Luck in shipwreck Park.

Lady Luck is a 324 foot tanker vessel that was sunk on July 23rd, 2016 as an artificial reef 1 ½ miles off Pompano Beach’s shore. This ship is one of the biggest contributions to Florida’s artificial reef system and one of the most easily accessible major dive sites in the nation. The ship is the centerpiece of what is known as Shipwreck Park, surrounded by 16 other existing wrecks covered with marine life. Shipwreck Park is a unique underwater cultural arts park with rotating underwater art exhibits. The ship includes specific themes, exciting underwater events, artwork and rotating art exhibits to create a unique dive experience for local and international tourists.     

No entry fee!

BUDGET:              $35,000
DEADLINE:          July 2, 2018

Details here.

Downtown BID Call Box Project Request for Proposals

Deadline: July 18, 2018

The DC Downtown BID is seeking multi medium visual artists that can include but are not limited to Fine Artists, Street Artists, Graffiti Artists, Metal Workers, and Graphic Artists to design, submit and fabricate original designs to be installed on individual call boxes located in the Downtown area of the District of Columbia. Selected artists not currently residing in the District of Columbia will be required to have a District artist as a project assistant on the instillation.

There are 27 call boxes located downtown. The BID is seeking designs for 9 call boxes in 8 locations.

No entry fee!

Details here.

2019 Maryland Individual Artist Awards

Apply Now! -- 2019 Maryland Individual Artist Awards

The deadline for 2019 applications is Wednesday, July 25, 2018 at 4:30 pm EST

Each year, the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) recognizes outstanding artistic achievement and honors the contributions artists make to our state through the Individual Artist Awards (IAA) program. IAAs are accompanied by grants of $1,000, $3,000 or $6,000 to help support artists as they advance their craft. 

The 2019 IAA application is now open to Maryland artists in the following categories: 

• Creative Non-Fiction/Fiction
• Media
• Digital/Electronic Arts
• Theater Solo Performance
• Painting
• Works on Paper

MSAC partners with Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF) to administer the IAA program.

Applicants can access IAA guidelines, application, and application assistance resources by clicking the "Maryland" tab on MAAF's website. 

MSAC and MAAF will offer two webinars to guide IAA applicants through the application process. Advance registration is required. 

Thursday, May 31, 2018, 1:00-2:30 PM - Register here

Saturday, July 7, 2018, 10:00-11:30 AM - Register here

Questions about applying? Contact Kimberly Steinle-Super at kimberly@midatlanticarts.org 

Regardless of the piece’s authenticity, Hahn v Duveen set a precedent for how vital refraining from wrongly attacking the reputation of an artwork can be. 

Read and learn - click here. 

The curious case of "Negligence and Reputation Management"

While Werner Spies is an example of an individual brought to court over this tort, auction houses can also get sued for negligence. Take, for example, the case of Dickson v Christie’s in 2010.

David Dickson and Susan Priestley sold “Salome with the Head of St John the Baptist” for £8,000 after an assessment by Christie’s determined the painting was from the school of Titian, and not the artist himself. However, Sotheby’s later sold the painting having assessed it as an original. It was put up for auction with a starting price of $4 million. Dickson and Priestley claimed Christie’s didn’t do the proper research in determining the painting’s correct origin and selling price. However, this case settled before trial.

Read the fascinating article here. 

Opportunity for Artists!

Our friends at the Hyattsville CDC are looking for artists to submit designs to be considered for their traffic box art project. Selected artists will be paid a $500 honorarium and will have their art displayed on a traffic box along a major thoroughfare. 

This call is open to ALL artists, graphic designers, illustrators, and photographers who currently live or work within the State of Maryland. Submitted designs must be original artwork.

Details here.

Ric Garcia at Glen Echo Park

Ric Garcia

June 1 to July 1, 2018

Art Walk reception: June 1, 6­8 p.m.

Reception with artist: June 9, 6­8 p.m.

Glen Echo Park Partnership

7300 MacArthur blvd., Glen Echo, md
Stone Tower Gallery Hours: Sat.–Sun., 11 a.m.—6p.m.

Ric Garcia – You are not my Kryptonite  - 30 x 30 - oil on canvas

DC metro area artist Ric Garcia will exhibit new paintings, digital prints and mixed media works at Glen Echo Parks’ Stone Tower gallery in an exhibit titled “Super America”. The exhibit opens June 1 and runs through to July 1.  The exhibition is populated by iconic superheroes, atomic age monsters, and cinema icons—all portrayed in re-imagined ways with a bilingual context— and asks who has been the traditional hero or heroine of our stories and who gets to be the main character today.   

Ric Garcia sees his appropriation of American cultural images as a meditation on identity.  "I infuse my art with references to various mythos, focusing on hero worship, Latino and gender cultures, creating images about Americana filtered by my bi-cultural experience," Garcia says.

Barbara Januszkiewicz's two solos at once!

Not one, but two solo shows opening up at the same time for DMV artist Barbara Januszkiewicz. The Nitty Gritty at the Art Club of Washington will be displaying mostly works on paper appropriately name after her musical muses. 

Each work is titled from a song from the late 60s early 70s, with an “ip” in front of it. Januszkiewicz explained the ip means inspired by. This painter has taken her love for watercolors and has been able to reinvent acrylics in a new way.  Philosophically, Januszkiewicz values risk taking, experimentation, and creative collaboration which lead to  Washington Color Painter Paul Reed encouraging  Januszkiewicz to experiment with staining with acrylics. 

She has mastered this technique that offers the luminosity of watercolors, but with the nitty-gritty texture that only acrylics could offer. Also in this exhibit are some fine examples of her works on unprimed canvas using the same technique. What is astonishing is to witness her able to stain the unprimed canvas in the same manner as she paints on paper. This is not an easy task.  

"Music is my muse," she continues.  "I am inspired by the gritty undertones and rhythm patterns of the Blues and Rock.  I take the basic structure of a song’s chord progressions and play with the idea of a building a cord in the colors that I paint with.  Blending the music and corresponding color notes, I work to create luminous paintings that reflect the emotionalism and improvisational freedom that we find in music genres. I see my work as a frozen moment of the song." 

Across town at Martha Spak Gallery at the Wharf, Januszkiewicz is showing a group she calls Acoustic Fields. The artists explains that these are mostly large works, both on unprimed canvas and metal with resin.  Clearly her fascination for color reminds us of Mark Rothko’s Color Fields with her effortlessly produced zen-like brush strokes across her canvas.  Yet she is giving us something new and perhaps even changing our perception of the future of contemporary abstraction.  "I find it intriguing that there is a vocabulary of words that apply to both music and visual art, like movement, patterns, compliments, harmonies and layering," she says. These paintings from the intense color compositions to subdued shades of reverberations can visually  suggest the sensation of sound.

The Nitty Gritty @ Arts Club of Washington 
2017 I St. NW, Washington, DC 20006
Exhibition Dates: May 4 – May 26, 2018
gallery hours Tuesday - Friday: 10:00am to 5:00pm
Saturday: 10:00am to 2:00pm
Curator: Mattie Schloetzer

Acoustic Fields @
Martha Spak Gallery at the Wharf 
40 District Square, SW, Washington, DC  20024 
Exhibition Dates: April 30-May 29, 2018
Gallery hours are Thursday – Sunday 12-6pm 
Curator Martha Spak

Letter from Jack Rasmussen

Dear Museum Patrons,

I am thrilled to inform you that the American University Museum has been chosen as the recipient of nearly 9,000 works of art from the Corcoran Art Collection. If you have not seen last week’s announcement in the Washington Post, please see it here.

We plan to use this once-in-a-lifetime gift to establish The Corcoran Legacy Collection at American University. To give you a taste of this new collection, it contains some of history’s most masterful artists such as the 16th-century Italian painter Titian, American artists Ansel Adams and Helen Frankenthaler; 18th-century British portraitist Thomas Gainsborough, as well as important American collections such as those of William A. Clark and Olga Hirshhorn. 

In the spirit of our Alper Initiative for Washington art, we are very excited to expand upon our collection of 19th-century Washington art, with works from the Washington Color School and paintings by figurative artists such as Sarah Baker, Manon Cleary, and Claudia DeMonte. 

The gift will also supplement our collection of work by female artists and artists of color, in alignment with the legacy of the American University Art History department as a leader in feminist art history and the university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. 

For those who are curious, you may view the complete listing of artwork and recipient organizations in the Corcoran’s May 14th press release here.

In order to prepare for the legacy collection at AU, the university has invested in a new storage facility that will be a home to works utilized most often by the museum, complete with rolling racks and shelving. We have also upgraded our collections management software and will be working with the registrars at the National Gallery of Art to incorporate the data on the new collection. 

With every great collection comes great responsibility. We still have much work to do! American University is seeking support through a funding initiative designed to further expand our storage capacity, enhance the museum’s exhibition space to accommodate the growing collection, and safeguard the Corcoran legacy for the greater arts community. We also aspire to create a collection viewing and study room to provide increased accessibility to scholars and visitors and new faculty and staff positions to care for the collection and ensure it is shared with the world through public program offerings. 

We will continue to update you as this project progresses and look forward to celebrating this transformational milestone with you! 

Jack Rasmussen 

Director & Curator

 American University Museum

Sunny in Reston for the art fair!

Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival, Reston, VA 2018