Image by Nancy Cohen. Estuary: Moods and Modes. Handmade paper, wire, 2007. Photo by Ed Fausty.
>> One of the most opulent rooms in D.C., the Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery has been restored to its appearance in 1908, when museum founder Charles Lang Freer used it to organize and display more than 250 ceramics from all over Asia. The Peacock Room Comes to America emphasizes the relationship among the museum’s diverse collections. April 9.
>> Also on April 9, the United States Navy Memorial will open The Art of Naval Aviation. The exhibit will feature 35 original artworks, illustrating the history and evolution of Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard aviation. View paintings, prints, posters, and sculptures from World War II and the Vietnam War.
>> Nature, soothing, jealousy, environmentalism. These are all words that can describe the color green. The Textile Museum celebrates this versatile color with the exhibit Green: the Color and the Cause. See work from the Museum’s collection, along with work by contemporary artists and designers from five continents along with two site specific installations ― a handmade paper sculpture of the eco-system of coastal New Jersey and a lace-covered arbor in the Museum’s garden embedded with grass seed. April 16.
>> The Natural History Museum gets excited about this fall’s opening of Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt by previewing three cases. See a recreation of a tomb with a mummy and its coffin, the step-by-step process of mummification and six mummy masks showing the chronologic style changes of these coffin decorations. April 5.
>> Capital Portraits: Treasures from Washington Private Collections, 1730-2010 showcases 60 portraits that reside in private Washington, D.C., collections, many of which have never been on public display before. The exhibit reveals a wide range of styles, images, and most importantly, stories. Subjects range from famous individuals to family members by include many well know artists such as Mary Cassatt, Andy Warhol and Chuck Close. National Portrait Gallery. April 8.
>> The National Building Museum hosts 2011 Charles H. Atherton Memorial Lecture with
Jan Gehl. Gehl will examines how D.C. can help transform L’Enfant’s plan to create more successful urban spaces while encouraging more walking and biking and less driving. April 7 at 6:30 p.m. $12 members, $20 non-members.
>> The Black Box Theater at the Hirshhorn opens two short films by Laurent Grasso: Polair and Les Oiseaux. Grasso often depicts strange interfaces between the natural and manmade world. April 4.
>> Also at the Hirshhorn later in the month, Directions: Grazia Toderi opens. These video installations focus heavily on light with Toderi manipulating her imagery with computer animation, combining satellite and military footage with her own films and photographs in an effort to visualize the infinite. April 21.
>> In 1898, inspired by a grand parade of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West troupe en route to New York City’s Madison Square Garden, photographer Gertrude Käsebier began a project to photograph Sioux Indians traveling with the show. In Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier, see approximately 60 original platinum and gum-bichromate photographs printed from original glass negatives, pictograph drawings made by the Sioux Indians while in the studio, historic camera and studio equipment, and items representing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West from collections of the museum and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Ripley Center. Opening mid-April.
>> To celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month, The American History Museum will feature Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet, Herbie Hancock’s keyboard, Mongo Santamaría’s conga drum and Tony Bennet’s oil painting of Ella Fitzgerald. Jazz Treasures will be on display starting April 14.
>> The Natural History Museum once again hosts Natures Best Photography Awards 2010. This exhibit showcases the winners from 2010, including the Grand Prize, Conservation Photographer of the Year, Youth Photographer of the Year and selected Highly Honored images. The annual awards honor the best amateur and professional nature photographers from around the world. April 16.
>> Civil War buffs will find this interesting: the National Portrait Gallery will mark the 150th anniversary of the war with a series of four alcove exhibitions – one each year – commemorating this period of American history. The first in the series recounts the death of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth in Alexandria, Virginia. Ellsworth was the first Union officer to be killed in the four-year-long struggle. The exhibition brings together a select grouping of once-prized mementoes, including portraits of Ellsworth and Lincoln, as well as Alonzo Chappel’s historic painting The Death of Ellsworth. 150th Commemoration of the Civil War: The Death of Ellsworth opens April 29.
