Howard Hodgkin

GW Luther W. Brady Art Gallery's 2011-2012 season culminates with Howard Hodgkin: Paintings, which includes several paintings that are Washington area debuts. This is a rare opportunity for Washingtonians to view recent works by the British artist. Sir Hodgkin will celebrate his 80th birthday in August and he remains a cultural icon today. He was commissioned to create one of the London 2012 Olympic posters.

Sir Howard Hodgkin's signature style is colorful and abstract with textural swaths of paint that incorporate the wooden frames into their compositions. He is a major British artist who has exhibited internationally for over four decades. Sir Hodgkin represented Britain in the Venice Biennale in 1984, was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize in 1985 and was knighted in 1992. His work is included in major public and private collections all over the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Tate Britain in London, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid and elsewhere.

Stay tuned for next year's exhibition schedule!

Carol Goldberg: Sculpture and Works on Paper

Carol Brown Goldberg practices a technique called assemblage- the art of combining disparate materials in three-dimensional form. She takes everyday objects and combines them spontaneously. Fragile forms are cast into durable bronze sculptures. The sculptures are then presented in groupings that evoke personal responses and suggest individual and quirky human traits.

Original mixed media works on paper accompany the sculptures. The pen and ink drawings amplify the complex themes in the sculptures; themes that relate to the artist's interest in physics and art. In these detailed and intimate drawings, the arcs and conjoined vortices represent time and space similar to map-like diagrams and symbols.

Seen in Foggy Bottom: Selections from the GW Permanent Collection & Alumni Works of Art

Drawn from the University's collection, this exhibition highlights those important people, events, and locations on campus through paintings, prints, and artifacts. It also shows works by GW students through the years, giving their own perspective of the campus they inhabited. This limited engagement will be accompanied by an exhibition in the 2nd floor cases. The public is invited to warm up at the Centennial Coffee Bar on Tuesday and Thursday morning from 10 am - 12 pm, a complimentary coffee service available outside the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery.

Let's Eat! Works from the GW Permanent Collection

This exhibition is produced in conjunction with First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! Museums & Gardens campaign and GW's Urban Food Task Force. Pairing paintings, sculptures, and prints from GW's notable permanent collection with healthy recipes related to their subjects, this exhibit hopes to demonstrate how small changes in one's diet can make a difference.
All of the recipes are available online: Let's Eat Recipes

Michael Craig-Martin: Drawings

The George Washington University's Luther W. Brady Art Gallery will present the Washington debut of Michael Craig-Martin: Drawings. The center piece of the exhibition is a large 5 ft. x 4 ft. wall drawing created on site especially for the gallery. Michael Craig-Martin: Drawings includes more than 30 drawings of subjects drawn from ordinary life, which he portrays using a mechanical line. The exhibition is free and open to the public from Jan.11 through Feb. 17, 2012.

Michael Craig-Martin: Drawings was selected from a recent exhibition organized by Alan Cristea Gallery, London, and is the artist's first-ever exhibition in Washington, D.C. His work is in the collections of the MoMA in New York City and the Tate Gallery in London. He was recently commissioned to create a poster for the 2012 London Olympics. His work is represented by Alan Cristea Gallery, London, and Gagosian Gallery, and his sculptures are exhibited at the NewArtCentre, Roche Court, Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Mr. Craig-Martin is best known for using his "universal language." He uses simple things to describe very complex ideas about form and purpose. Like Claes Oldenburg, everyday objects sustain iconic meaning as Mr. Craig-Martin manipulates material and scale to maximum impact.

Mr. Craig-Martin was born in Dublin in 1941, but he grew up in Northeast Washington, D.C., and sees himself as a prodigal son revisiting an art culture of his youth. He studied fine art at Yale University where he studied the course designed by Josef Albers, the noted Bauhaus color theorist. A key figure in the first generation of British conceptual artists, he was a professor at Goldsmith's College, where he trained many of the YBA (Young British Artists), such as Damien Hirst and Gary Hume.

On January 10, 2012, the artist created a large wall drawing in the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery. Special thanks to William Atkins and Christopher Boyes from the Office of External Relations for creating this video.

Kay Jackson

The Luther W. Brady Art Gallery is hosting an inventive exhibition of the work of Washington artist Kay Jackson, GW M.F.A. alumna. Three-dimensional gessoed box constructions and wall pieces will be exhibited as a group for the first time in this exhibition at the Gallery.

The subject matter makes a clear connection with the University's ongoing efforts for sustainability. The artist says of her boxes, "They call attention to our compromised environment and endangered species through the use of ancient gilding techniques that are on the verge of being lost or forgotten... The rare methods and medium lend poetry to the message about our fragile ecosystem." The Gallery is working with GW's Office of Sustainability to promote their focus on ecosystems during the 2011-2012 academic year and to advance a dialogue between the arts and those working to improve our environment.

The complex box constructions utilize fourteenth-century techniques, and are wood covered with chalky gesso and adorned with gold leaf, bole, graphite, watercolor, oil paint, ink, and mixed media, combining the most precious with ordinary materials.

The box and wall-hung constructions resemble religious icons in their intimate allure and attention to detail, and the images commemorate such animals as horseshoe crabs, turtles, birds, zebras, and bison. In scale and scope, they invite the viewer to meditate on the subject. One's eyes luxuriate in the technical skill demonstrated by the artist's hand. Many of the boxes have an internal golden glow.

The artist is an accomplished painter in a romantic genre. Time and maps figure prominently as subjects. Ms. Jackson has lent her paintings to the ART in Embassies Program and received a commission to paint a nocturne of the White House for President and Mrs. Clinton's holiday card in 1997.

The works in the "Endangered Species" series are treasure troves combining excellent and rare techniques with contemporary contextual studies. The various subjects become pathways into new ways of seeing our environmental situation. "As artists we are always wrestling with the age-old challenge of revealing something extraordinary by exploring the ordinary," said Ms. Jackson.

Sean Scully: Works on Paper

Outspoken and erudite New York-based, internationally-known artist Sean Scully will display works on paper culled from the artist's own collection. Many of these works on paper will be shown publicly for the first time in the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery. Twenty-seven works, spanning the years 1976-2008, in watercolor, drawing, and pastel convey the same structural composition and mastery of color as his larger paintings, for which he is best known. A brochure with an essay written by Stephen B. Phillips (MA '92), Fine Arts Program Director at the Federal Reserve Board, will accompany the exhibit. Scully spends part of the year in Barcelona, Spain and in Mooseurach, Germany, where he teaches and maintains a studio and home. His "Wall of Light" series, which was exhibited at the Phillips Collection in 2005, conveyed a desire to dissolve a fa�ade with a sense of spirit or emotion; Light representing a spiritual and emotional dialogue with painting. The misty landscapes of his German rural retreat also affect the mood of more recent work.

Scully was born in Dublin and educated at Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Harvard University, Cambridge. He has had major solo exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; and Galerie nationale de Jeu de Paume, Paris. His works can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; the Tate, London among others. Scully has been the recipient of numerous honors, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts, and honorary Doctorates from the National University of Ireland and the Massachusetts College of Art.

January 12 - February 25, 2011

The Luther W. Brady Art Gallery is pleased to present the work of these two artists. Magda Watts, an Israeli doll maker, survived the Holocaust by making and trading dolls, made from scraps of fabric, for food. Ms. Watt's character dolls have been shown in the Palace Doll Museum, Eliat, Israel and collected in Nuremberg, Germany. Malcah Zeldis is a renowned folk artist, Her paintings are included in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Luce Center and the American Folk Art Museum in New York. A new work, created specifically for this exhibition by Ms. Zeldis, featuring the university's namesake George Washington, will be on display for the first time.

Many of the works in this exhibition feature vignettes of Jewish life, including denizens of the shtetl (village) life, the Seder meal, the Synagogue and vintage New York scenes. Both Ms. Watts and Ms. Zeldis have lived or currently live in Israel, and despite the hardships in their lives, have derived personal redemption through their artwork. Ms. Zeldis has described how she almost loses herself in the work when she is painting, forgetting the time.

November 17 - December 17, 2010

South Africa Kicks presents photographs and video documenting travels within South Africa during the recent FIFA World Cup. Ryder Haske, Gabriel Seder and Tyler C. Perry chronicled stories of fellow travelers and locals from across South Africa, the first African country to host the World Cup. From Johannesburg to Cape Town to Durban, their captured material and written testimony weave a vivid perspective on the largest soccer tournament in the world.

Fusing the cultural abundance of travel with the jubilation of soccer, South Africa Kicks presents the journey of three adventurers during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Selected photographs, video segments and writings illustrate their experiences and provide an immediate and inquisitive eye for the international event, extending far beyond the sport itself.

With strong ties to both Washington, D.C. and to GW, the South Africa Kicks crew holds a diverse professional profile including videography, text and international affairs. The Luther W. Brady Gallery will showcase these photographs and video features, along with writing about the project. Dr. Brady (B.A. '46, M.D. '48) provided partial financial support for the students' travels.

September 16 - October 29, 2010

"The works of John Safer are an excellent symbol of the best that our nation can offer. They have balance, grace, strength and craftsmanship. The form is simple, the message profound."

- Henry E. Catto, U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain.

John Safer's public works today stand in over one thousand private collections and public sites and are exhibited in museums, galleries and embassies throughout the world. The Luther W. Brady Art Gallery will be exhibiting twenty-one works by this celebrated sculptor and alumnus. John Safer (CSAS '47) received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from The George Washington University in 2009.

Mr. Safer's works on the GW campus are Limits of Infinity III, 1979; Golden Quill, 1996; and Null Space, 1979, installed at the F Street House on July 29, 2010. Also on view in the Gallery is a smaller version of Ascent, a 75-foot high work that has been described as one of the great public sculptures of our time. The piece stands at the entrance of the Smithsonian Institution's Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport.

Works in Lucite, bronze, and steel span Safer's career and will include early geometric works such as Cube on Cube, 1969 and lyrical forms that evoke the movements of athletes and dancers such as Serve, 1989 and Dancer and the Dance, 1993. Another side of Safer's work is shown in the works that have been commissioned to serve as awards such as Bird of Peace, 1989, created for the National Peace Foundation or Symbol of Courage, 1986, given by the Georgetown University's Lombardi Cancer Center to a person who has faced cancer and who possesses the qualities of courage, dependability, discipline and honor; Lance Armstrong, Scott Hamilton and Jack Pardee are all recipients.

Mr. Safer's sculptures will be shown with selected installation images of his public works and documentary photographs showing the creation and installation of a major public work, Quest, installed at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in 2009. For a complete list of Safer's work in public collections see www.johnsafer.com/library/public.html.

May 13-June 25, 2010

Woody Gwyn: American Landscapes will feature paintings of landscapes in California, New Mexico and in Virginia alongside remarkable drawings and watercolors from Hawaii and the West. Bound together, these plein air studies are a veritable history of his sketches from 1995-2005.

From the perspective of his studio in Galisteo, N.M., Mr. Gwyn paints landscapes that evoke the vast horizontality of the American West, its highways and its skies, as well as the green valleys of Virginia's Piedmont. Mr. Gwyn's textural paintings are studies in relativity and scale, as well as being recognizable representations of the landscape, making him comparable to other contemporary painters outside the genre of landscape.

The exhibition's timing brings a little bit of New Mexico to Washington during the 400th Anniversary of Santa Fe. Woody Gwyn will receive the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts on September 24, 2010.

March 24-April 30, 2010

Is photography the new painting? This is the question posed in More Photographs Than Bricks, an exhibition organized by the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery. In the catalogue essay, "Beneath Every Picture: Photography in the Twenty-First Century," Virginia K. Adams, Ph.D. writes: "The complexities of photography's interaction with painting have grown as the barrier between the mediums has evaporated in the postmodern period." In this exhibition it is demonstrated how photography interacts with elements of painting while contemporizing the "noblest subjects" of art. Including work by 15 artists known nationally and internationally, the works are roughly divided into five thematic sections: Appropriation and the "Historicized Portrait," "New Horizons" of the Panoramic Landscape, Utopia and Utopias Lost, Landscape and Still Life, and The Collector (of Images).

Sean Scully moves comfortably between painting and photography, finding that details of his "Wall of Light" paintings achieve monumentality as a photographic suite Four Towers, 2004. Ana Labastida, a Mexican artist living in Berkeley, CA, studied art at the National Autonomous University of Mexico City. She is represented here by an intriguing mixed media installation of fantastical large moths with transparencies on recycled glass. She said she continues to find inspiration in the crazy, over stimulating tangle that is Mexico City, as well as the tranquil, tree-lined streets of Berkeley between which she frequently travels.

This is the second of three exhibitions supported by Clarice Smith with a focus on creating a dialogue by bringing the highest quality art for display in the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery. The photographers chosen include emerging and world famous artists: Nancy Breslin, Edward Burtynsky, Chuck Close, Kim Keever, Ana Labastida, Amy Lamb, Bruce McKaig, Megan Marrin, Abelardo Morell, Yasumasa Morimura, Martin d'Orgeval, Sean Scully, Jeffrey Smith, and JeongMee Yoon.

February 3 - March 12, 2010

Drawing from a gift of 152 Polaroid and black and white photographs by Andy Warhol to the GW Permanent Collection, the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery will showcase a number of works by the legendary painter, photographer, printmaker, filmmaker and personality. The works, which include portraits of celebrities such as Edward Kennedy, Tara Tyson, Mary Martin and Truman Capote as well as intimate photographs of Andy Warhol's friends, will be complemented by other photographs and works in the GW Permanent Collection. The exhibit will also include diary entries by Andy Warhol to illustrate the artist's involvement in the New York art and social scenes. The gift of Andy Warhol's photographs, along with the establishment of the Francine Zorn Trachtenberg Photography Fund, have significantly strengthened the photographic collection and programs of the GW Permanent Collection.

GW's Luther W. Brady Art Gallery was chosen by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as one of the institutions that would receive a large gift of approximately 150 original Polaroid photographs and gelatin silver prints by Andy Warhol. The gift, made through the Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program in honor of the foundation's 20th anniversary, consists of 28,543 original Warhol photographs valued in excess of $28 million that will be divided between 183 college and university art museums. According to Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the aim of the Photographic Legacy Program is to provide greater access to Andy Warhol's artwork and process, and to enable a wide range of people from communities across the country to view and study this important yet relatively unknown body of Andy Warhol's work. The program offers institutions the opportunity to bring a significant number of photographs into their permanent collections, while allowing those schools that do have Andy Warhol in their collections to enrich the breadth and depth of their holdings.

November 5, 2009 - January 22, 2010

Never-before-published vintage hippie clothing and artifacts are imaginatively displayed along with a narrative that outlines the decade 1963-1973 with an emphasis on portraying the political and social upheaval of the times. Frank Van Riper was in Chicago during the riotous 1968 Democratic National Convention and covered virtually all of the racial and antiwar turmoil that occurred in major U.S. cities during that period. From his perspective, it was the first time in history that large and important cohorts of the population found their voice, most specifically young people, women and minorities.

From the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, N.Y. to the Haight Ashbury, North Beach and Golden Gate Park neighborhoods of San Francisco, young people celebrated with music and personal expression, hoping for an ideal world of peace and love. These places were ideal venues for people to express themselves through their clothing. Whether handmade or bought at a thrift store, these clothes incorporated Indian, Asian, African, Mexican and Native American talismans. Denim jeans became the canvas for the rebellious soul. Clothing of the 1960s was bright, colorful, unisex and personalized to express an inner angst or euphoric joy-sometimes on the same garment. Exuberant garments as a fringed leather "flag" jacket, painted jeans, vintage love beads and tee shirts with peace signs, along with representative groupings of peace and protest pins will be displayed on mannequins. Rare historical ephemera from private collectors Gwen and Mark Hooper include an Earth Day flag for the first Earth Day demonstration, Black Panther Party newspapers, handbills, Milton Glaser's Bob Dylan poster and Sister Mary Corita Kent's Love Justice silkscreen. A "Bring the Boys Back Home" World War II helmet by a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War was worn at the first Moratorium March in Washington, D.C., and is one of several uniquely painted helmets which will be on display. From San Francisco, a city of dreams, to the political staging of reality in Washington, D.C., this timely exhibition melds personal adornment with media awareness of the times.

The show is curated by Nancy Gewirz in collaboration with Mark E. Hooper of Princeton, N.J. The essay that introduces the exhibition's catalogue was written by Mrs. Gewirz and photographer and journalist Frank Van Riper. Mrs. Gewirz has a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting from American University and a master of fine arts degree in sculpture from The George Washington University. The clothing and events of the 1950s and 1960s have always been a great interest of hers. Mr. Hooper graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor of arts degree in archeology and art history. Mr. Van Riper covered the turbulent 1960s and 1970s as a Washington reporter for the New York Daily News. He co-authored Serenissima: Venice in Winter with Judith Goodman. Mr. Van Riper was a 1979 Nieman fellow at Harvard University.

September 9 - October 23, 2009

The internationally recognized artist Nancy Graves (1939-1995) is mainly known for her sculpture but also produced paintings and drawings that parallel her three-dimensional work. The Luther W. Brady Art Gallery will exhibit works in all three media. The works, borrowed from the Nancy Graves Foundation of New York and the collection of Luther W. Brady, M.D., span three decades and show the artist's use of a variety of organic and man-made sources. Each sculpture is a complex assemblage of pieces that could be found in nature joined to the art historical remnants of previous civilizations. The largest sculpture, Herself Most Drawn, combines a large sunflower with other natural forms while a scaley texture creeps up toward a fragment of a colorful capital. This rather weighty and bold work is balanced by a delicate suite of 12 drawings on graph paper depicting snakes, Native American costume and cave paintings. Many of Graves' subjects were likely drawn from her interest in and study of anthropology. She is a graduate of Vassar College and received an M.F.A. from Yale School of Art. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring an essay by Zina Davis and produced by the Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford for their exhibition, Nancy Graves: Inspired Vision, from which our exhibition was derived.

May 14 - July 2, 2009

"Inherent in the process of printmaking is the element of suspense," wrote Judith Stein in the exhibition's catalog. The more than 40 prints by renowned color field artist Jules Olitski parallel his painting styles during his long career. Olitski began making etchings in 1956, working in both abstract and figurative modes. This retrospective of prints was organized by Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (Brattleboro, Vt.), in collaboration with Knoedler and Company (New York) and the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery is the third stop on a multi-city tour. The prints range from early self-portraits, to diaphanous screenprints from the 1970s, to intensely brilliant monotypes that were created during the last years of his life.

The Luther W. Brady Art Gallery will host a panel discussion at 5:00 pm on Thursday, May 14, 2009 in the Jack Morton Auditorium (805 21st St., NW). Panelists include Willard Boepple, abstract sculptor who worked with Olitski; Andrew Hudson, artist, art critic, and friend of Olitski; Kristina Olitski, the artist's widow; and Lauren Olitski Poster, the artist's daughter and the custodian of his art.

April 1 - May 1, 2009

New Yorkers Lucy and Robert Reitzfeld are collectors who also make art. Exploring the many storefront galleries to be found in New York's East Village and SoHo during the 1980s and 1990s, they came in contact with artists and art dealers, became their friends, and while producing works themselves, collected works by an eclectic group of artists active in this vibrant moment in the art world. With an aesthetic that grew out of a love for the streetscape of New York, pop culture, and the inspiration of comic art, together they sought out divergent but compatible works to collect.

The collection of 17 paintings includes a piece by prominent Washington, D.C., artist Robin Rose as well as works by David Carrino, Charles Clough, David Diao, Stephen Ellis, and Melissa Meyer. Three of the paintings by Lucy and Robert Reitzfeld also are on display.

January 14 - March 13, 2009

Sarah McCoubrey's work depicts the blurred line where civilization meets the wilderness. The landscapes on exhibit are populated with mundane objects such as a concrete mixer, road signs, a Weber grill, and childrens' toys. Her images are reminiscent of the Hudson River School painted with the precision of Northern Renaissance panel paintings. She turns the traditional subject of landscape painting into a statement on modern society by including vestiges of human habitation.

"Hers is the average countryside of rusted tanks and fading signs, telephone wires, and tagged trees," wrote Vincent Katz, from the essay "Sarah McCoubrey: Looking for the Normal" in the catalogue Sarah McCoubrey: A Ten-Year Retrospective.

As an associate professor at the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, McCoubrey has developed an appreciation for the gray northern skies in that region. Combined with her travels to Irelend, she has embraced the quality of northern light in her landscapes.

In 1988, McCoubrey's regional exhibition, Landscape Transformed: A Washington D.C. Tradition, appeared in GW's Dimock Gallery. Following the exhibition, McCoubrey taught in the university's Department of Fine Arts and Art History.

October 8 - December 19, 2008

The Academic Tradition: Teaching and Practice is the first in a series of three exhibitions paying tribute to the legacy of fine arts and art history up to the millennium at The George Washington University. Featured in this exhibition are artists, who are or have been, professors in GW's Department of Fine Arts and Art History. The exhibit features work representing subject matter pursued in academics: history, portraiture, genre, landscape, and still life. The artists are Arthur Hall Smith, professor emeritus of painting; Clarice Smith, assistant professorial lecturer of art; Douglas H Teller, professor emeritus of design and graphics; William Woodward, professor emeritus of painting; and Frank Wright, professor of drawing.

Under the Works Progress Administration, which was created in 1935 to provide jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression, mural painting flourished. The process of proposing and preparing studies for mural paintings is depicted in a section of the exhibition in which Guy Pene du Bois' Study for Saratoga in the Racing Season and Frank Weathers Long's tempera painting Berea Commencement in the Old Days hang next to a preparatory drawing for a mural in process at Monticello by Woodward.

The exhibit features two commissioned videos -- one documenting four Virginia mural commissions Woodward completed and another of an interview with Arthur Hall Smith in his Paris studio. An illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition.

September 10 - 27, 2008

The American flag was once a graphic device used in campaigning for the presidency. During presidential campaigns of the 19th century, the faces of Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, and Theodore Roosevelt; a raccoon and the moon; tall ships; a log cabin; and platform slogans could be found on the American flag. Although the U.S. Congress decreed in 1905 that the use of text or portraits on the official insignia of the United States would be outlawed, the practice continued for a number of years.

Mark and Rosalind Shenkman, who collected almost every flag produced during this time, have loaned their collection to the Luther W. Brady Art Gallery to display during this political season. The flags, made of wool, silk, or cotton, often are one-of-a-kind surviving examples.