Hollywood, guerrillas, recycled tires, cities and Mexico’s Frida Kahlo are some of the topics on display in Washington this fall in exceptional museum exhibitions.
Free entry is found at several of these venues, and for those charging admission, free times and discounts for seniors, students, military and children are usually available.
Curators everywhere know that, like the music of Rachmaninoff, the public can’t get enough of Frida as in Kahlo as in Richmond at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
I can’t ever recall hearing so much talk about an exhibition at VMFA like that about “Frida: Beyond the Myth.”
At least three Washington institutions have sponsored trips down the dreaded I-95 (it’s worth it) to see the show, the only East Coast venue and one of only two places in the U.S. hosting “Frida,” but hurry since Sept. 28 is her last day in Richmond.
It’s doubtful that all 60 plus of her works at the exhibition are familiar to most visitors since the show covers her lifetime (1907-1954) with images, paintings, sculpture, photographs and still lifes, some rarely seen outside Mexico.
Frida developed polio when she was 6 and at age 18, suffered traumatic injury in a bus accident in Mexico City where she was a student.
The accident almost killed her and left lifelong effects on her physical, mental and emotional health, her artistry revealing the pain and anguish she endured until she died.
Interpretive text and audio tours in both English and Spanish support the program with rarely seen film footage including several minutes with her on-again, off-again amante Diego Rivera, whose art is now judged by some to be inferior to Frida’s.
The Dallas Museum of Art, the organizer of the exhibition, has published a magnificent softbound color catalogue filled with full pages of photographs and her works, most in color, and available ($35) in the museum shop with 114 other Frida items in all price points, including furniture, apparel, jewelry, puzzles, stationery, dolls, embroidery, and self-portrait socks.
General admission to VMFA is free but “Frida” is $20 for adults (excepting members) with several discounts. Open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 200 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd., Richmond, 23220.
While there, don’t miss the Romanov pieces.
In Washington two Black artists, Vivian Browne (1929-1993) and Chakaia Booker (b. 1953) have up their own solo shows at the Phillips Collection and the National Gallery of Art, respectively.
Their art is different but their backgrounds have similarities.
Booker has spent most of her adult life in New York like Browne who actively participated in the 1960s’ and 1970s’ protests against the absence of Black art in museums.
Browne studied in Africa where Booker participated in an artist exchange, incorporating African culture and dance in her work.
Browne was a faculty member in the art department at Rutgers University for 21 years; Booker graduated from Rutgers during Browne’s first few years there, and although Booker’s major was sociology, they may have met.
Both have associations with the New York’s Whitney Museum of Art, not altogether pleasant.
Browne was an original director of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, an organization created in response to museums’ exclusions of Black artists (please read on for “Guerrilla Girls”), specifically, the failure of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to include a single Black Harlem-based artist in its 1969 exhibition, ‘Harlem on My Mind.”
In 1971 the BECC organized “Rebuttal to the Whitney Museum Exhibition: Black Artists in Rebuttal” to protest that museum’s refusal to appoint a Black curator for its 1971 survey of “Contemporary Black Artists in America.”
Browne had been considered for the Whitney show, but Robert Doty, the Whitney curator and a White man, left without a word after visiting Browne’s studio to see her “Little Men.”
Browne’s work was not selected.
But, decades later Booker’s was, in 2000 when her “It’s So Hard to Be Green” was chosen for the Whitney Biennial.
It’s a large piece on view at the National Gallery, one of Booker’s three large sculptures in the East Building Tower in the exhibition, “Treading New Ground.”
To use the vernacular, Booker is a “recycled tire sculptor,” who shapes art from rubber and steel, her works found in museums and outdoor arenas around the world.
Browne was born in Laurel, FL and the Phillips’s ‘”Not My Kind of Protest” is a perfect title for her show which opens with her famous “little men” series which I found most intriguing of all her pieces because for women “of a certain age,” most of us have experienced “little men” in our professional lives.
She based “little men” on the ones she worked with at New York’s Department of Education from 1966 to 1971. Like many artists, she painted after work, satirizing her subjects by exaggerating them in various positions of dress and emotional states.
They do remind me of horror movies but, sadly, real ones.
Browne said her works were “emotional landscapes” and “deeply personal reflections of the world around her,” including her love of nature.
A Vivian Browne hardcover catalog is available in the shop for $44.95.
Adult admission at the Phillips is $20; free for members and discounts. The Phillips has “pay what you can” every day beginning at 4 p.m., and on third Thursdays when the Phillips is open until 8 p.m., there is free admission beginning at 4 p.m. 1600 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20009. Closest Metro station: Dupont Circle. Take the Q Street exit.
The National Gallery always has free admission every day 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Closed on Christmas and New Year’s days. West Building: 6th and Constitution; East Building: 4th and Constitution; Sculpture Garden, 7th and Constitution; all, Washington, D.C. 20565. Metro station: Archives-Navy Memorial- Penn Quarter.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the “Guerrilla Girls” with a small show, “Making Trouble,” one every parent should take their daughter to see.
These “Guerrilla Girl” artists and feminists are an anonymous group born in 1985 to draw attention to the absence of women artists in New York, a campaign which continues today.
Their name comes from their lack of identity since they want to be known as a group, not as individuals drawing attention to themselves. They wear masks, rather like members of the National Guard on the streets of Washington today.
Spawning their organization, like the BECC’s birth, was a 1984 international exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art of 165 modern art and sculptures which included only 13 female artists.
As many as eight artists of color were reported, but none were women.
Soon afterwards, the Guerrillas adopted racism as another cause to combat in films, contemporary culture and politics.
A 2019 study of 18 major American museums found art by male artists represented 87% of collections.
“Women Artists from Amsterdam to Antwerp 1600-1750” opens at NMWA Sept. 25 and Guerrillas close Sept. 28.
NMWA is open Tuesday – Sunday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. with free admission on the first Sunday and second Wednesday of every month. Otherwise, adults, $16. 1250 New York Ave., NW Washington, DC 20005. Metro stations: Metro Center and Gallery Place.
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery hosts a stunning photo show of Hollywood stars from the “Golden Age” of the 1930s and 1940s when Metro Goldwyn Mayer photographer George Hurrell (1904-1992) captured beauty, good looks and everything glamorous with enhancements, distinguished lighting, apparel and backgrounds.
MGM used the portraits in what we call “branding” today to market the film figures, but overtaken by technology and new cameras after World War II, Hurrell’s own brand ceased to be the kind the studios desired and his glamour takes changed to more realistic renderings.
Glamour had faded.
The Portrait Gallery quotes Hurrell: “They were truly glamorous people… the image I wanted to portray.” And he did. “Star Power” closes Jan. 4, 2026.
Admission is free at the National Portrait Gallery, open 11:30 a.m. – 7 p.m. every day, except Christmas, at 8th and G Streets NW, Washington 20001. Metro stations: Metro Center or Gallery Place.
The National Building Museum opens a new exhibition Sept. 27 about cities called “Coming Together: Reimaging America’s Downtowns” to explore “lessons learned and opportunities embraced in the wake” of Covid-19 and how it transformed work, housing, mobility, entertainment and recreation.
In a multimedia presentation of data, digital interactives, and video, the project, the first of three, convenes urban leaders, residents, employers and others to meet and produce strategies to improve citywide spaces and make a rosy future.
Down the hall at the museum, a “Brick City” of Legos is ongoing, a treat for children and parents alike.
Another show there is “Mini Memories,” selections from a one-of-a-kind collection of souvenir buildings on view by the public for the first time. From a donation to the museum by Margaret Maj and architects David Weingarten and Lucia Howard, 400 buildings from more than 70 counties are on display.
The National Building Museum is open Thursday – Sunday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Adults, $10 but no charge for the Great Hall or the gift shop. 401 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20001. Metro station: Judiciary Square.
And if you can make it to only one museum or gallery, make it the Falls Church Arts Gallery at 700-B West Broad to see what local artists have made, and where you may vote for your favorite. Open daily except Monday. Hours vary. Check the website. Enjoy!
