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(08/14/08 4:00am)
People often portray Washington, D.C., as a city full of straight-laced politicos bustling from Capitol Hill to the Beltway and back again. As true as that stereotype might be, the District played the stage for one of the greatest post-World War II art movements in the U.S.Oversize vibrant canvases characterize the work of the Washington Color School, an offshoot of the nationwide Color Field movement. Color field painting is defined by expanses of color close in tonal value and intensity, large presentations and simple compositions. Color is the subject matter, and simple colors, geometric forms and compositions are arranged to make the viewer feel implied emotions without them being explicitly displayed, according to art historian David Anfam in Oxford Art Online. In 2007, curator Jean Lawlor Cohen executed a huge retrospective called "ColorField.remix" that spanned multiple museums throughout the city and displayed the best and the brightest of this movement. Though the exhibit ended more than a year ago, the movement that is the pride of the D.C. art scene still flourishes within the city's boundaries.In a statement on the exhibit's Web site, Lawlor Cohen is quick to point out that though the artists associated with this movement may have had similar results, they were never truly a cohesive group. Their methods, goals and even the circles they traveled in varied greatly.The movement began in 1965 when the "Washington Color Painters" exhibit opened at the now-defunct Washington Gallery of Modern Art and continued to flourish through the early '70s. The painters featured in this exhibit, and those considered to be the heart of the Washington Color School, included Morris Louis, Tom Downing, Gene Davis, Paul Reed, Howard Mehring and Kenneth Noland.Since the Washington Gallery of Modern Art closed its doors in 1968, art-lovers looking to be enveloped by the vibrancy of the Color School have needed to look elsewhere.The place to start for those looking to explore the Washington Color School would have to be the American Art Museum's "Local Color: Washington Painting at Midcentury." The exhibit features the work of nearly every major Color School painter.It strives to move beyond the movement's restrictive label and looks at the works of other D.C. artists, like Sam Gilliam and Alma Thomas, who worked with color during the period. Many considered artists like Gilliam and Thomas to be at the very least followers of the movement, if not members themselves.The Smithsonian American Art Museum's permanent collection also houses several works by Color School artists.The Hirshhorn Museum, the Phillips Collection and the National Gallery of Art also feature paintings by Color School artists in their permanent collections, though they are not always on display. The galleries rotate the items on display from their permanent collections.Though the heyday of the Washington Color School has come and gone, the movement left an indelible mark on the D.C. art scene. Noland taught at Catholic University's art department, and Gilliam actually taught art in the D.C. public school system. Much of the art coming from D.C. since the 1960s has felt the Color School's influence, and the movement maintains its status as the only school to come out of Washington.
(06/19/08 4:00am)
A giant North American right whale is suspended from the ceiling on the first floor of the National Museum of Natural History. It drifts softly back and forth behind temporary walls covered in signs urging visitors to return in September for the opening of the brand new Ocean Hall.
(04/28/08 4:00am)
In the complex taxonomy that is the music industry, Bombadil is one of those bands to which it is hard to assign a genus.
(04/21/08 4:00am)
Murky light filters through the trees, softly illuminating an Amazonian woman and her son as they harvest milky rubber from a tree. Captured permanently in black-and-white by the lens of a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera, the two are frozen in careful toil. For a botanist, Richard Evans Schultes has got quite the photographic eye.
(04/17/08 4:00am)
As I run from work to class to The Eagle's office and a million other places, I sometimes wonder why I choose to do so much. It would be easier to do less. But when I sink down on the couch late at night enveloped in genuine fatigue, I remember: the satisfaction of being tired for a reason is reason enough. It makes me happy and that's plenty.
(04/07/08 4:00am)
The Department of Performing Arts and the Student Government Arts Council hosted "A Day in the Studio Theatre," a series of events aimed at students looking to pursue a career in the performing arts, to coincide with National Arts Advocacy Day Friday.
(03/27/08 4:00am)
It's unusual to see acrobatic feats of modern dance partnered with ladders in any setting. But it is perhaps more unusual to see those displays for free.
(03/20/08 4:00am)
Though Black Lips' guitarist Cole Alexander repeatedly prompted use of the "magic knob" by the lighting booth at the band's show Saturday at the Black Cat, their performance was missing the band's usual magnetism. The knob turned on a display of disco ball-like lights that seemed to promise a magical evening, but something was definitely lacking.
(03/03/08 5:00am)
Splashes of color bleed across giant canvases, greeting visitors to "Color as Field: American Painting, 1950-1975." The new exhibit, which is open Feb. 29 through May 26 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, takes on the Color Field movement, one of the immediate heirs to Abstract Expressionism. It features works from several D.C. artists, including Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis, both of whom are considered members of the Washington Color School, whose work dominated the region in the 1960s.
(02/25/08 5:00am)
Though this may sound counterintuitive, Romanticism, in terms of the visual arts, is often anything but romantic. Romanticism developed in late 18th- and 19th-century Europe as an overall intellectual movement. There is no way of simply defining Romantic art in stylistic terms. What is most important about its practice is the ultimate goal of the artist to evoke emotion from the viewer. Most often, painting is the art form associated with Romanticism.
(02/14/08 5:00am)
Holidays are cause for revelry and music. Valentine's Day music, though, can be rather exclusionary for those without someone special. Fear not! The Scene has compiled a list for the Valentine-d and un-Valentine-d among you.
(02/11/08 5:00am)
Vampire Weekend, dubbed "prep rock" by the music industry because of their Ivy League origins, took the stage Wednesday night at the Rock and Roll Hotel donning oxford shirts and cardigans. The preppiest music lovers in the place had to be the band itself, as the audience on the whole was less madras plaid, more camp plaid, as far as stylistic classifications go.
(02/07/08 5:00am)
Artist William Christenberry is no stranger to odd looks from store clerks. During a tour of his new exhibit "Site/Possession," which opened Tuesday at the AU Museum, the artist recounted one such instance.
(02/04/08 5:00am)
How can you deny the brilliance of an art form Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí once accused of possessing a "terrifying and edible beauty"?
(01/28/08 5:00am)
"I am absolutely fascinating!" renowned actress Katharine Hepburn once exclaimed to interviewer Dick Cavett. Though Hepburn's appraisal might be cocky, after viewing "One Life: Katharine Hepburn," visitors to the National Portrait Gallery might have some trouble disagreeing with the starlet.
(01/28/08 5:00am)
If you've heard of Baroque, it's likely it was from Disney's animated Magnum opus "Beauty and the Beast." While giving her a tour of the castle, Cogsworth quips to Belle, "If it's not Baroque, don't fix it!"
(12/06/07 5:00am)
1. New York - Museum of Modern Art
"Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings"
(11/15/07 5:00am)
"The Hundred Dresses" may be a children's show, but its message is universal. The short, yet entertaining show, put on by the College of Arts and Sciences in the Katzen Studio Theatre, takes on the themes of peer pressure, friendship and doing what's right.
(11/05/07 5:00am)
"Snapshot" is a hunting term referring to a shot taken quickly and without a fixed target. When Kodak made photography accessible to the masses in 1888, people began hunting for the perfect shot to paste in their albums, show their friends and document their lives. The National Gallery's exhibit, "The Art of the American Snapshot 1888-1978," chronologically documents the evolution of the amateur photograph from its earliest years up through the late 1970s, when photography had become a part of everyday life.
(11/01/07 4:00am)
The AU Players are performing two complex stories of love, loss and betrayal this weekend in the Katzen Studio Theater. For fans of avant-garde theater, "Crave" is a refreshing look at the thought processes behind human motivation. For a more traditional look at life and love, check out "Closer," the play of popular movie fame.