Displaying items by tag: national mall

Before it was located on the National Mall and was still an independent museum on Capitol Hill, the Museum of African Art included both African and African-American art in its collection. That changed in 1979, when it became the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, focused on Africa, not the American diaspora. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the museum, and to celebrate it the museum has returned to its roots, supplementing its own collection with works by African-American artists in the collection of Camille and William Cosby, Jr.

Yes, that Bill Cosby.

The long-delayed effort to build a memorial honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower near the National Mall has won a key approval, despite ongoing objections to architect Frank Gehry's design.

The federal agency that oversees planning for the nation's capital approved the preliminary building plans for the memorial project Thursday. The National Capital Planning Commission debated the design and voted 10-1 to approve the concept.

The enormous face emerging on the Mall in Washington is laid out on six acres of open space next to the Reflecting Pool and just west of the National World War II Memorial. Although workers were still constructing the image last week, using dark potting soil on a background of lighter-colored sand, an eye and the nose and chin of a young man were already clearly visible from high in the Washington Monument.

From ground level, Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada’s “Out of Many, One” looks like an eccentric landscaping project; but from the windows of the obelisk, more than 500 feet above the Mall, the work reveals an attractive young man in three-quarter profile, seeming to stare through a large gap formed by trees.

Frank Gehry, the American architect known for his expressive, sculptural buildings, has revised the design for a memorial honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Gehry’s original concept for the memorial, which will be located near the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was rejected by the National Capital Planning Commission back in April.

Representatives for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission presented the design to the Planning Commission on September 4, and were met with largely positive responses.

Set to open on D.C.’s National Mall in 2016, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture received a major donation toward its current capital campaign on July 4. The Ford Motor Company pledged $1 million to the under-construction museum to go toward future programming.

“We are so pleased that the Ford Motor Company Fund has chosen to join hundreds of donors from across the country to build a groundswell of support for the National Museum of African American History and Culture; we recognize this as a vote of confidence,” Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the museum, said in a release.

A major exhibition of paintings and etchings by James McNeill Whistler opens in Washington this weekend—but don't expect to see his mother there.

"An American in London: Whistler and the Thames" spotlights the 19th century American artist's many years in the British capital and his fascination with the storied river than runs through it.

Starting with his vivid depictions of life along the Thames, the show—at the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries on the National Mall—progresses to the moody, virtually abstract twilight images, or Nocturnes, that Whistler began creating around 1871.

Washington, D.C.’s National Mall, which includes the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Freer Gallery of Art, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of Art, and the National Museum of African Art, will be closed due to the first government shutdown in 17 years. A number of non-government run museums including the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Phillips Collection plan on staying open during the shutdown. The National Mall attracts millions of visitors from across the globe and generates millions of dollars in tourism business per day.

The government shutdown was spurred by Congress’ inability to reach an agreement on spending. There is no end date for the closure, which began on Tuesday and has forced approximately 800,000 federal workers to stay home from their jobs.