News

Film Screening & Discussion:

“Kindred Spirits: Artists Hilda Wilkinson Brown and Lilian Thomas Burwell”

On Saturday, June 29^th at 12:00pm, join us at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum for a screening and discussion of the documentary film, “Kindred Spirits: Artists Hilda Wilkinson Brown and Lilian Thomas Burwell,” about the lives and work of two accomplished but unsung Washington-based African American artists who were united by their love for each other, their dedication to their art, and their passion for teaching. Hilda Wilkinson Brown (1894-1981) graduated from M Street High School (later known as Dunbar), earned her BA from Howard University and MA from Columbia University, and then served as head of art education at Miner Teachers College for nearly 40 years. Her niece Lilian Thomas Burwell (1927-) attended Dunbar High School, Pratt Institute, DC Teachers’ College, and Catholic University, and later taught in the DC Public Schools, including at Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

The film will be followed by a discussion with:

• Cintia Cabib, filmmaker (“Kindred Spirits”; “A Community of Gardeners”; “Bird Walk”)
• Richard Timpson, family member and artist agent of Lilian Thomas Burwell & Hilda Wilkinson Brown
• Gail Shaw-Clemons, artist/printmaker/activist and longtime friend of Lilian Thomas Burwell
• moderated by Dr. Samir Meghelli, Senior Curator at the Anacostia Community Museum

Saturday, June 29^th
12:00pm-2:00pm
Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum
1901 Fort Place SE, Washington, DC 20020

REGISTER HERE (recommended, but not required): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/film-screening-discussion-kindred-spirits-tickets-917410187567

 

Four Overlooked Women Abstract Expressionists Are Spotlighted in London

The exhibition shows how the principles of Abstract Expression

Perle Fine 

Perle Fine in her New York studio in c. 1963. Photo: Maurice Berezov, courtesy of Perle Fine Estate and Gazelli Art House, © AE Artworks.

Born in Boston in 1905 to Russian immigrant parents, Fine showed an early interest in art and moved to New York in her early twenties to pursue an education at the Art Students League. There she opted to study under the renowned German-born artist Hans Hofmann, who was instrumental in developing the formal breakthroughs that defined European movements like Cubism into a more gestural, expressive style. Over time, Fine cultivated a number of high-profile collectors including Museum of Modern Art founding director Alfred Barr, art director and publisher Emily Hall Tremaine, and architect Frank Lloyd Wright, but also supported her practice by working as a gallerist.

By 1945, Fine had developed an interest in nonrepresentational art and joined the American Abstract Artists group. Five years later, Willem de Kooning nominated her to join “the Club,” a members-only meeting place on 8th Street where a tight-knit community of artists met to socialize, plan, and debate. The group selected her to participate in the historic Ninth Street Show, which featured artists like Philip Guston, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, and Barnett Newman; the show established Abstract Expressionism as a major American art movement. Fine exhibited in all six of the subsequent annual invite-only exhibitions until 1957.

After many years living with Alzheimer’s, Fine died of pneumonia aged 83 on May 31, 1988.

FULL ARTICLE LINK

View of the Armory Show, New York, 2023. Photo: Vincent Tullo/The Armory Show.

The Armory Show announces 235 leading international galleries exhibiting in the 2024 edition, representing 35 countries. New York’s Art Fair will return for its fourth year at the Javits Center September 6–8, with a VIP Preview on September 5.

On left: Eric Dever, "Moorlands," 2022. Oil on canvas

THE RAINS ARE CHANGING FAST: NEW ACQUISITIONS IN CONTEXT

March 23, 2024 - September 1, 2024

he Rains are Changing Fast highlights new acquisitions alongside artwork that has long anchored The Heckscher Museum collection. Meredith A. Brown, Consulting Curator of Contemporary Art, is Co-Curator of the exhibition. Here, Brown provides insight into the concept behind the show, and one example of the themes of  “paired” artworks, both newly acquired and mainstays of the collection.

Abstract Expressionist Alice Baber Advocated for Women Artists. At Long Last Her Own Work Is Taking the Spotlight

"Reverse Infinity" at Berry Campbell in New York marks the first major exhibition of works by Alice Baber in over 40 years.

Alice Baber lived, by her own account, as an artist out of sync with her times, navigating the downtown New York art scene of the 1950s and ‘60s as both insider and outsider. Her life, as she described it, existed in the “slightly uncomfortable feeling of not belonging to any place.”

A new exhibition at “Reverse Infinity” New York’s Berry Campbell aims to change that (through May 18). The exhibition is the first large-scale showing of Baber’s work in over 40 years and features a remarkable ensemble of the artist’s luminous, auric abstractions made in thin veils of radiant color. The paintings on view span from 1960 to 1982—these last works are intimate, elegant watercolors made just months before Baber’s untimely death from cancer at the age of 54. The Embarcation (1960), the earliest work in the show, meanwhile, is a stain-like almost botanical vision of purples and blues imbued with hazy atmospheric quality. Early canvases give way to more mature works, such as Blue Flotilla and Time of Day, both from 1966, platelet-like discs of colors, in deeper, often jewel-toned hues. These works can seem biomorphic or even vegetal—like looking at a plant very close up.

Montagne