Picasso Black and White

Pablo Picasso in front of The Kitchen (La cuisine, 1948) in his rue des Grands-Augustins studio. Photo: Herbert List/Magnum Photos.

The Guggenheim Museum's Picasso Black and White exhibition focuses on the Spanish artist's lifelong exploration of a black-and-white palette throughout his career. Claiming that color weakens, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) purged it from his work in order to highlight structure and form in his art. 

Pablo Picasso, Accordionist (L'accordéoniste), Céret, summer 1911. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, by gift. Copyright 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Kristopher McKay copyright The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York. 

This chronological survey, spanning 1904 to 1971, includes paintings, sculptures and works on paper. The recurrent motif of black, white and gray is evident in his Blue and Rose periods, investigations into Cubism and neoclassical figurative paintings. In his later works he continued to apply a reduction of color. 

Pablo Picasso, The Milliner's Workshop (Atelier de la modiste), Paris, January 1926. Musée national d'art moderne/Centre de création industrielle, Centre Pompidou, Paris, gift of the artist, 1947. Copyright 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY. 

Managing a complicated composition without having to organize contrasts of color, Picasso created such masterpieces as The Milliner's Workshop (1926). The graphic quality of his black-and-white works harks back to Paleolithic cave paintings, grisaille and European drawing. 

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them. Everything you can imagine is real. --Picasso

Pablo Picasso, The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velázquez) (Les Ménines, vue d'ensemble, d'après Velázquez), La Californie, August 17, 1957. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, gift of the artist, 1968. Copyright 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Gassull Fotografia. 

Picasso used this distinctive motif to explore a centuries-long tradition of Spanish masters, such as Diego Velázquez, El Greco and Francisco de Goya, whose use of black and gray was predominant. While his work is often seen through the lens of his diverse styles and subjects, this exhibition presents a perspective on a lesser known aspect of his art. On view through January 23. 

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.

Freedom Plaza

Freedom Plaza's entry to Pennsylvania Avenue. A site for festivals and events, the plaza was designed by Venturi, Rauch & Scott Brown in 1980 and displays Pierre L'Enfant's original plan for Washington in black and white stone. Around the edges of the map are inscriptions with quotes about the District from Walt Whitman and President Wilson, among others. 

Woodrow Wilson House

The Woodrow Wilson House is a National Historic Landmark and house museum located in the Embassy Row section of Washington. President Wilson retired to this Georgian Revival townhouse on March 4, 1921, at the end of his second term. A time capsule of President Wilson's Washington years (1912-1924), it offers visitors a glimpse into the life of a scholar, educator, governor, and statesman. Above, sheet music and Steinway piano in the drawing room.

Photo credit Robert A. Enholm.

 

The Woodrow Wilson House transports us back to the early twentieth century when electricity, telephones, automobiles, radio, airplanes, and silent movies were novel and the world was dominated by kings and emperors with vast colonial holdings. President Wilson's administration saw many of the changes that created what we know as the modern world.

--Robert A. Enholm, Executive Director, Woodrow Wilson House Historic Site

 

The house contains memorabilia and original furnishings including portraits, books, commemorative china, furniture, and autographed photographs of world leaders. Above, view through the arched window on the stairway landing to the solarium and upper terrace of the garden.

 

  

President Wilson had no ghostwriter and only rarely dictated letters. Most of the time he composed messages, notes and addresses and typed them out on his own typewriter. Many of these papers were drafted on an old portable typewriter which he took with him into the White House.

 

 

The library holds the leather chair Wilson used at Cabinet meetings, numerous personal effects and volumes related to or dating from the Wilson era.

 

The Woodrow Wilson House is located at 2340 S Street, NW, Washington, DC. Open Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 4pm. Maintained and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Serial Portrait

Lee Friedlander, New York City, 1966, gelatin silver print, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Trellis Fund, copyright Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery.

Drawn primarily from the National Gallery of Art's collection, the Serial Portrait exhibition features 20 artists who photographed the same subjects--friends, family or themselves--numerous times over days, months or years.

Starting in the early 20th century, some photographers began to question whether one image could adequately capture the complexity of an individual. Photographers began to use the camera serially, creating studies that sought to redefine the expressive possibilities of portraiture. 

Francesca Woodman, House #3, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976, gelatin silver print, National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, copyright George and Betty Woodman, courtesy George and Betty Woodman.

Lee Friedlander (b. 1934, first image), Francesca Woodman (1958-1981, above image) and a number of other photographers in the exhibition have made serial self-portraits that explore the malleability of personal identity, photographing themselves as shadows, blurs or partial reflections. 

Milton Rogovin, Mrs. Lopez and Six Confirmation Girls (Lower West Side series), 1974, gelatin silver print, National Gallery of Art, Washington, gift of Dr J. Patrick and Patricia A. Kennedy, photograph copyright Milton Rogovin, courtesy Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona Foundation. 

Milton Rogovin's (1909-2011) photography documents the social and personal histories of people over lifetimes. His best-known pictures, from the '70s, offer a visual legacy of a community spanning three decades--serial portraits of Lower West Side residents, Buffalo, New York. 

On view through December 31. National Gallery of Art, on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue N.W., Washington, DC.

The Civil War and American Art

Frederic Edwin Church, Cotopaxi, 1862, oil on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, Gibbs-Williams Fund, Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Fund, Merrill Fund, Beatrice W. Rogers Fund, and Richard A. Manoogian Fund. The Bridgeman Art Library. All images courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum. All rights reserved. 

A new exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, "The Civil War and American Art," examines how America's artists represented the impact of the Civil War and its aftermath. 

Genre and landscape painting captured the transformative impact of the war, not traditional history painting. "This exhibition shows how our artists responded in the moment to a great national crisis and how it changed our ambition for America's civilization, reinventing the Founders' ideals for a new age," says Eleanor Jones Harvey, Senior Curator. 

Timothy H. O'Sullivan, A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, July 1863, albumen print, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Museum purchase and partial gift of Carol L. Kaufman and Stephen C. Lampl in memory of their parents Helen and Carl Lampl.

The exhibition includes battlefield photography. The new medium was used as an art form to interpret and document events. 

On view through April 28, 2013. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Eighth and F Streets, N.W., Washington, DC

Barbara Kruger: Belief+Doubt

Artist Barbara Kruger's site-specific installation at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum, "Belief+Doubt" (2012), fills the lower-level lobby. Walls, floor and escalator sides covered in text-printed vinyl address the social relations and power networks that define daily life.

When the value of certitude is taken for granted, Kruger says she is interested in introducing doubt. Swaths of the floor are covered in open-ended questions ("Who is free to choose? Who speaks? Who is silent?"), while other areas explore desire and consumption ("You want it. You buy it. You forget it.").

Assistant Curator Melissa Ho says, "Kruger's command of architectural space and her ability to engage an audience amidst busy, lived experience make her the ideal artist to work with this site. 'Belief+Doubt' takes advantage of the constant movement through the lobby. As visitors descend the escalators, they are surrounded by language that beckons from all sides but only fully reveals itself as they pace and circulate through the entire space." 

In the '80s, Kruger's signature photomontages, composed of old magazine and book images and text banners, helped bring photographic illustration and the techniques of mass media into the mainstream of contemporary art--an influence on the development of visual art, graphic design and street art. Since the '90s, Kruger has focused on creating environments that surround the viewer in language, as at the Hirshhorn, with the enclosure of a space with text. On view through 2014. 

Hirshhorn Museum, Independence Avenue and Seventh Street S.W., Washington, DC

FotoDC

The 5th annual FotoWeekDC festival, held across the Washington, DC region in November. FotoDC presents fine art photography, photojournalism, exhibitions, seminars, workshops, and book displays. 

Autumn

The leaves in Washington, DC. Beautiful fall foliage.

Louvre

Lampposts in the Louvre courtyard, Paris.

Pont de la Concorde

The Pont de la Concorde was built by engineer Jean-Rodolphe Perronet in 1791, with stone recovered from the Bastille demolition during the Revolution. It links the Tuileries Gardens and Place de la Concorde, one of the main public squares in Paris, with the Quai d'Orsay across the Seine. From the Left Bank side, the Obelisk of Luxor defines the square, with the Hôtel Crillon to the left of it, the Naval Ministry to the right and between them in the background is the Madeleine at the end of rue Royale. 

Île Saint-Louis

Île Saint-Louis and its quays along the Seine, in the center of Paris. A small island of architectural ensembles with significant examples of Parisian construction, many originating in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Pont Neuf

The Pont Neuf (New Bridge) is the oldest standing bridge across the Seine and one of the first modern bridges in Paris, built with no houses in 1603. Pont Neuf joins the Right and Left Banks by the western point of the Île de la Cité. Its design features a series of short arch bridges with bastions for pedestrians to step aside for carriage pass. 

Cimetière de Montmartre

In the 18th arrondissement in northern Paris, Montmartre Cemetery is built below street level on a quarry site, opened in 1825. 

On its pathways pay your respects to--artist Edgar Degas, actor/screenwriter/director François Truffaut, novelists Alexandre Dumas and Stendhal, choreographer/dancer Nijinsky, and painter/writer Francis Picabia. 

Pont Notre-Dame

Pont Notre-Dame is located at one of the oldest historical crossing points on the Seine in Paris. 

An ancient structure, Grand Pont, occupied the present bridge's site up until the Norman invasions in the 9th century. A new stone bridge was built in 1853, its middle arches were later replaced with a metal arch. 

Sacré-Coeur

View from Sacré-Coeur Basilica, Montmartre, Paris. 

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

A neo-Pantheon on the far side of the Tidal Basin, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial (1938-43, architect John Russell Pope) evokes City Beautiful classicism in Washington. A side view glimpse of Jefferson's statue, created by sculptor Rudolph Evans, silhouetted against the sky. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

On the National Mall's western edge, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial ties into the Mall's other monuments and landscapes, aligning on the axis of the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. Designed by Devrouax + Purnell/ROMA Design Group and McKissack & McKissack, the  memorial's composition and landscape is envisioned as a contemplative space for visitors to reflect on positive change and active citizenship. Sculpture by the Chinese artist Lei Yixin. 

Arlington National Cemetery

Just outside the boundaries of the District of Columbia, Arlington National Cemetery (est. 1864) overlooks Washington. The first person buried there was a Confederate prisoner, followed by thousands of Union soldiers. Today, Arlington includes the graves of three hundred thousand war dead, dignitaries and high-ranking government officials.

President Kennedy is buried on a site he admired, a beautiful hillside, beneath a Cape Cod fieldstone slab.

Karelle Levy

I've always been into arts and crafts, I got really into the knitting process and figured fashion was my best avenue to continue this love. I make interesting textiles that are wearable--interchangeable and convertible knitted pieces with unique color and yarn combinations. My designs bring you from night to day with a playful palette of neons and nudes. We go from comfort to chic, glamour to surf. -- Karelle Levy, designer

DiscGlo Collection, photo credit Andre Gabb.

Greenwich Village Historic District

Doorways on Perry Street, Greenwich Village. A picturesque New York City historic district, with its blend of architectural styles and building types--Federal houses, Greek Revival, walk-up apartment buildings, and Italianate brownstones. 

Some with weathered façades and cracked paint. 

24 Fifth Avenue

Revolving doors at 24 Fifth Avenue, a Greenwich Village landmark building constructed in 1928, formerly the Fifth Avenue Hotel (its apartment renovation preserves its prewar elegance). Much of the surrounding neighborhood is part of the Village's historic district, with tree-lined streets and elaborate gardens.