Textile Museum

The newest exhibit at the Textile Museum captivates, whether you like dragons or not.

Dragons Roar at the Textile Museum

It’s amazing what simplicity can do. Though the latest exhibit in the Textile Museum, “Dragons, Nagas and Creatures of the Deep,” holds fewer than 20 of the museum’s 19,000 pieces, the impact is in no way diminished.  

Provided

Annie Leibovitz's newest exhibit is simple, in all the right ways.

Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage

Shot on the outskirts of the Hudson River School, a print of folk singer Pete Seeger’s disheveled workroom hangs at the entrance of “Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage,” the newest exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (8th and F Streets, NW).

The Seeger photo signals to the museum visitor that he’s about to see a different sort of Leibovitz exhibit. This is not the stuff of life-size prints featuring the latest frocks, rock stars or elaborate sets, but of something else entirely.

Neil Leifer

3 Winter Exhibits to Love

Pictures of Our Lives

Chris Martin

Chris Martin's vibrant, fun paintings are begging to be explored.

Chris Martin Goes "Big" at the Corcoran

It’s not everyday you see an artist welcome chickens and skunks to stomp across his masterpieces.

But then again, Chris Martin isn’t your everyday artist. The D.C. native (he now lives in New York), 56, strives to connect nature and humanity, even if that means a few unwanted guests are part of that equation.

You’ll find paw prints and chicken scratches from Martin’s choice to work in unusual settings—the rooftop of his New York townhouse, his back lawn in a summer home—but they add quirkiness to the vibrant paintings adorning the walls of the Corcoran.

Courtesy of The Textile Museum; Jóh Ricci, Earth Day

These artists show the many ways that green can be captured, both as a color and as a call for action.

New 'Green' Exhibit Opens at the Textile Museum

The newest exhibit from the Textile Museum, “Green: The Color and the Cause,” proves that—at least for the talented artists featured—it’s actually not that hard being green.

The exhibit, the third and final installation in the museum’s exploration of color as a medium (the previous exhibits were “Red” and “Blue,” in 2007 and 2008, respectively), showcases verdant hues in all shapes and sizes.

Courtesy of NASM

Learn about flight's biggest stars in the "new" exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum.

New at Air & Space: Pioneers of Flight Gallery

I was 10 when I took my first flight. We were traveling to France, and I remember it dawning on me that we were somehow thousands of feet  above the ground. To a child—actually, even to this adult—the physics behind this feat is astounding and, yes, eminently cool.

New at the National Gallery: Birth of British Photography

In a world filled with iPhones, Flip cameras and Skype, it’s hard to imagine how the average person reacted to the first photograph ever taken back in 1839. Even more interesting: How did those first photographs affect other artists and their medium at the time? Think about it: For the first time ever, a portrait or a painting of a landscape could be compared to a photograph of the real thing. A monumental moment in art history, and the folks at the National Gallery of Art (4th St. & Constitution Ave., NW) thought so, too.

Kevin Allen

Vibrant ikat fabrics show that with (a lot) of hard work, beautiful  pieces such as these can be made.

This Is Bold: Central Asian Beauty at the Textile Museum

Don’t think for a minute that the 19th-century equivalent of a Milan catwalk didn’t exist on the plains of Central Asia. One peek at the new exhibit “Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats” at the Textile Museum (2320 S St., NW) will dispel any notion that riveting colors and textures were limited to the West and its penchant for boldness.

Elias Goldensky, (American, 1867–1943) provided by the Phillips Collection via The George Eastman House

Photos such as this one of three women captivate in The Phillips Collection's newest exhibit, TruthBeauty.

When Photos Became Art: "TruthBeauty" at the Phillips Collection

In a world fraught with technological point and shoot digital cameras, it’s easy to forget the beauty of true art. Serving as a gentle reminder of when photography first was inducted into this genre is “TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945,” now showing at the Phillips Collection.

More than 120 works are on display at the just-opened exhibit (through Jan. 9), where viewers will find breathtaking photographs from Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, who later renounced themselves from the art of pictorialism.

Courtesy of Fiona Tan and the Frith Street Gallery, London

"Rise and Fall" captures the lives of two women, one young and one old, and coaxes viewers into examining the finer points of memory.

The Art of Memory: Fiona Tan at the Sackler Gallery

When I was a child, I walked to school on a pine-shaded trail that followed a creek. And the creek waited for me in the afternoons, as it gobbled the flat stones I tossed like a skinny, utterly serious Nolan Ryan.

At least that’s how I remember it.