In Washington, there might not be a more accommodating neighborhood for contemporary visual art than Dupont Circle. It started as early as 1921, when Duncan Phillips began exhibiting his collection of modern art in special galleries at his home on the corner of 21st and Q Streets. Phillips played an important role in introducing the United States to contemporary art, exhibiting Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse when most of the country was still incensed by modernism. The Phillips Collection still stands at the site of Duncan’s old home—the original house now the southern section of the museum—and the gallery is still on the forefront of contemporary visual art (its current exhibitions of Jasper Johns and Antony Gormley are stunning proofs of that).
The foundation Phillips laid in his lifetime has only grown stronger; Dupont Circle is now a cultural mecca, housing some of the District’s most enviable performance spaces, restaurants and art galleries, nestled among honored historic landmarks, foreign embassies and international institutions. Its spirit is the living embodiment of Phillips’s lifelong focus of the continuous progress and tradition of art and culture. The galleries below have visual offerings this season worthy of multiple explorations. The owners know their stuff and enjoy sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm with interested patrons. There’s no better way to celebrate summer than with an evening walk through Dupont’s gallery crowd. For more on Dupont Circle’s gallery scene, check out the Dupont Circle Arts blog: www.DupontCircleArts.BlogSpot.com.
Studio Gallery
Studio Gallery showcases contemporary art from a variety of artists both American and international living in the DC area, and they always have a lot going on. One of their upcoming shows features the work of Jan Willem van der Vossen, whose series of abstract and wild landscapes are a swathe of color and line, taking the viewer from the red-hot landscapes of Andalusia to a minimalist forest of trees. Another show belongs to the work of Shahrzad Jalinous, whose debut exhibition with Studio will feature her large figurative oil paintings. Jalinous’s paintings are a blurred whirlwind of earthy texture and color, muted, saturated and entirely satisfying. The exhibits run June 20 – July 14.
2108 R St. NW. www.StudioGalleryDC.com. Hours: Wed. – Fri. 1 – 7, Sat. 1 – 6, or by appointment.
Hillyer Artspace
For the past six years, Hillyer Art Space has been dedicated to exhibiting underexposed D.C. area artists alongside those of established international reputation. To celebrate the occasion of six successful years, it has invited all of its previous artists to return to the gallery once more. This retrospective is a celebration not only of the gallery but of its family of artists that have come through the doors and realized great accomplishments. Each artist in this exhibition has shown in the gallery or is an Artist Advisory Committee Member. The exhibit runs through June 26.
9 Hillyer Ct. NW. www.ArtsAndArtists.org. Hours: Tue. – Fri. 12 – 6, Mon. & Sat. 12 – 5, or by appointment.
Burton Marinkovich Fine Art
Burton Marinkovich is a small gallery with a huge but well curated inventory of artwork, specializing in works on paper by modern and contemporary masters. Its collection ranges from some of the foremost artists of the past half-century—Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Richard Diebenkorn, David Hockney and D.C.’s own Kenneth Noland—to mid-career and established artists still working today. “We opened in 1993,” says Royce Burton, who runs the gallery with Andrea Marinkovich. “And, actually, we chose this location for its proximity to The Phillips Collection.”
Marinkovich told the Washington Post that the gallery is, “kind of messy, with the atmosphere of maybe a professor’s office or research library,” reminiscent of old-world European salons with intimate spaces full of treasures.
1506 21st St. NW. www.BurtonMarinkovich.com. Hours: Tue. – Sat. 11 to 6, or by appointment. Ring the buzzer to get in.
Cross-Mackenzie
Cross MacKenzie Gallery, a haven for those of us enamored by sculptural and ceramic arts, is exhibiting ceramic works by Anthony Stellaccio and paintings by Mary Armstrong. A curatorial research specialist for the National Museum of African Art by day, Stellaccio creates ceramics that are both scholarly and playful, referencing game pieces, pets and native toys and synthesizing his cultural studies with his artistic endeavors. This body of work is full of dynamic contrasts: rough, un-polished porcelain with cracked glazes atop smooth, reflective black and white Formica pedestal-like bases. The color in Armstrong’s paintings resonates with Stellaccio’s fresh green glazes and compliments the three-dimensional, hard-edged sculpture in the gallery. Armstrong’s soft paintings hover between landscapes and atmosphere, shifting back and forth from a view of a distant horizon to the drifting particles of dust and clouds. The exhibit runs through June 30.
2026 R St. NW. www.CrossMackenzie.com. Hours: Wed. – Sat. 12 – 6, or
by appointment.
Jane Haslem Gallery
Established in 1960 at the onset of the contemporary printmaking revival, Jane Haslem Gallery is well known for its thorough collection of prints by those artists responsible for reviving the medium in the U.S. after World War II. Currently on view are the works of Gabor Peterdi and Richard Ziemann. Peterdi, who died in 2001 at the age of 86, was a Hungarian-American printmaker and teacher who had a profound impact his students in the mid-20th century. Ziemann, a sort of spiritual documentarian of the natural world, has spent his life studying both the grandness and finiteness of the American landscape, focused particularly on the Northeastern woodlands. Ziemann was a student of Peterdi—in fact, the gallery was introduced to Ziemann’s work by Peterdi himself—and says of his teacher’s influence: “We all studied with Gabor Peterd… He taught us everything.”
2025 Hillyer Pl. NW. www.JaneHaslemGallery.com. Hours: Fri. 3 – 7 and by appointment.
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- Burton Marinkovich Fine Art
