Paranormal Problems?

Spot any supernatural occurrences on campus lately? Witness any paranormal activity during your lectures? Ghost problems at your residence hall? Who you gonna call? Does Ghostbusters immediately come to mind, or the crew of Ghost Adventures? Think again. Artist, sculptor, and draughtswoman, Alice Aycock, can come to your rescue.

Alice Aycock’s captivation with the many ghosts that inhabit contemporary work that involve technology, physics, and the contrast between mind and body, led her to create the site-specific sculpture, How to Catch and Manufacture Ghosts: Collected Ghost Stories from the Workhouse. Aycock was inspired by devices and apparatus found in history books from the 18^th and 19^th centuries and claims that her piece is “…her interpretation of the history of invention…”[1] Although Aycock’s device constructed of metal, glass, steel and wood was dismantled in the early 1990s, if you are having problems with the paranormal, a number of prints and drawings were created that document the work and its process with diagrams and quotes, and one drawing is a part of GW’s Permanent Collection.

Aycock’s medium of work ranges from architectural drawings to sculptures to photo documentation. Growing up with a father who owned a construction company influenced Aycock’s interest in constructing sculptures and creating drawings based off of architecture. As an artist, she strives to create a transcendental experience for her audiences and what she calls the “glance of eternity”, an allusion to Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of eternal return. In an interview with White Hot Magazine, Aycock expands on this, by stating that art that has this effect on you keeps you coming back to revisit the piece. [2] She compares it to that gasping moment one experiences when a wave comes in and takes you under.  If you are interested in experiencing the “glance of eternity,” you can find her works in many collections aside from the GW Permanent Collection, such as the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She also has public works displayed in various locations throughout the United States, among them are New York, Washington D.C. and Sacramento.

If you are in need of a remedy for your supernatural snag, Alice Aycock has you covered. Despite the sculpture of her work, How to Catch and Manufacture Ghosts: Collected Ghost Stories from the Workhouse, no longer being in existence, her drawing can provide you with detailed insights on how to take care of your pesky paranormal problems. With that said, put down your cellphone and your television remote! Forget about the outrageous and bizarre methods used by the Ghostbusters and the crew of Ghost Adventures and instead take a few pointers from Alice Aycock’s print to resolve any supernatural occurrences you may face on campus!

- Taylor Schmidt, Gallery Assistant

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[1] Alice Aycock. Institute for Research in Art at the University of Southern Florida.

[2] Nietzche’s concept of eternal return is the idea that events recur again and again infinitely. Aycock notes this concept in hopes that her art has an eternal return impact on her audience. 

The Birds

Hawks, eagles and crows – oh my – and all lurking on the campus of GW! Do not be spooked - these are not the unnerving birds from the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, but the carved stone bird creations of artist Ben Cabot. These eerie birds may look lifelike, but we promise you that they do not come to life at night!

In October of 2001, the first of the four bird sculptures landed on campus. President Stephen Tratchtenberg purchased this work, Hawk on a Granite Post, from the Granary Gallery while visiting Martha’s Vineyard.  There is no need to take cover; the hawk can be found at his usual resting place on his post on the southeast corner of the University Yard. The second bird to flock to campus was an eagle, titled, Eagle Bearing Inscription 91101. The eagle sculpture is inscribed with “91101”, to honor September 11^th and the lives lost. The eagle recently took flight from its home at Eye Street because of construction of the “super dorm” and is in search of a new location to call home. At the same time of the purchase of the eagle, a second hawk made its way to the GW Mount Vernon campus. The final addition to this flock of birds was the crow on a post titled, The Raven. The crow was dedicated on January 19^th of 2006, on the birthday of Edgar Allen Poe. Keep a lookout for the crow, which can be spotted perched in front of Old Main Building located on 1922 F Street.       

Stone carver, Ben Cabot, began exploring his craft by the landscape of Martha’s Vineyard inspiring him to construct freestanding stone walls. He is completely self-taught in the art of stone carving and currently works as a stone mason on Martha’s Vineyard. Many of Cabot’s works are of animals, such as seals and penguins, however his main muse for his creations are birds. His mastery in creating birds is due to his extensive knowledge of bird forms, coming from his interest in hunting and his research of old decoys. Cabot shows at the Granary Gallery and the Field Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard. Aside from his works present of the campus of GW, his sculptures can also be found in private collections in the United States and Europe.

Do keep an eye out for the hawks, the eagle and the crow as you travel the campus of GW! When you happen to spot one of the eerie birds on campus, do not be wary! Do get up close and personal to examine the precise carvings of the bird sculptures, which transcend pieces of stone to life. We promise they do not peck!      

                                                                                                                                                                        Written by: Taylor Schmidt, Gallery Assistant

The New Media

       Every day artist Gabriel Orozco takes a walk [1]. He meanders around whatever city he is in and notices the intricacies of the sidewalk, the people, and the surroundings. He will snap a few photos here and there—but mostly, he engages with the objects around him. At one point during his walk—he stops at a trashcan full of hay-like bushels of paper ends and fumbles them through his hands.
“I try to be intimate with everything.”
Orozco coos these words to us in his documentary entitled, Loss and Desire. That’s his advice to us—notice everything. Interact with everything. Truly see everything.

  Gabriel Orozco, Fluttering Flowers, 2011. Pigment ink and acrylic on cavas, 23 5/8 x 31 1/2 inches.

      This is a much more difficult task than we realize. Nowadays, we hardly live in our current moment. We are either somewhere nostalgically looking in the past or glaring way too far forward into our future—and most of the time we are looking at a screen. So what is the remedy for this predicament? How can we really be engaged with our here and now when our here and now is so spread all over the internet and in our cell phones and in cubicles and in photographs?
                 Art is the answer. As philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believes, art is an escape into the eternal [2]. It takes us out of the moment and into one which spans the course of time. Modern artists have taken this belief a step further and have made their lives into art—expanding their interaction and engagement with life. They seek to live in the moment by synthesizing life and art and in the process. By materially making an object that defines a period or moment in their life—artists are able to produce a more bearable and more beautiful form of life in art.
                But, modern artists are now faced with the fact that our reality is irrevocably intertwined with technology. To be an artist now means to be a master of almost every technological platforms—video, sculpture, product manipulation, sensory distortion, performance, writing, film, sampling [3], photography, painting. It seems you cannot stay relevant unless you dabble in them all.
                In the current Luther W. Brady Art Gallery exhibition, Decenter NY/DC, it is hard to find an artist who sticks to one medium. Their names are normally followed by a slew of professional descriptors [visual artist, essayist, poet, dancer, sculptor, filmmaker, etc.].  For example, Canadian artist Douglas Coupland does everything from painting to writing novels to furniture design with SwitzerCultCreative. New York based artist Andrew Kuo does everything from avid Tumblr and Instagram blogging to making humorous charts for the New York Times. New media artist Cory Arcangel tries his hand in everything from performance to video game manipulation.

Andrew Kuo, If I Could Redo Tuesday, 2013. Acrylic and carbon transfer on panel and paper, 51 x 38 inches.

           This sense of multi-dimensional inspiration stems from the fact that the forms of expression have changed. Artists are no longer expected to use paint or cast-iron molds to express their inner worlds—they are more inclined to use varying forms of technology or pull from the large surplus of found materials [which is so present in our consumerist society]. The result is something incredibly modern and beautiful—a synthesis of art and life.
                The Economist describes this new movement as artists living in a “post-studio” environment. The world is their studio and the art flows easily from their surroundings. Experiences become art and an artists’ life inevitably flows through them. For example, Decenter artist N.Dash creates her works while immersed in the world. Her pieces titled Commuter were formed and folded while she was on public transit. Instead of reading a book or glaring at her iPhone—she makes her ride interactive and provides a concrete representation of the monotony and tediousness of riding public transportation. She coats the repetitive patterns and folds of the paper in grimy graphite—representing the dirt so present in public transport [and life].

N. Dash, Commuter. March II, 2012. Graphite on paper, 20 x 22 inches.

                So, what we should we glean from all of this? These multimedia artists bring to our attention that art is in constant collaboration with life. They lead us towards a more emotional and experiential undercurrent of life—a more observational perspective. These artists and their works can show us how to live in the present and how to make sense of our rapid and ever-changing world.  
               

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[1] “Loss and Desire.” Orozco, Gabriel. Art 21, PBS. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-gabriel-orozco-in-loss-desire>

[2] Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2000. Print.

[3] Sampling is when one takes pieces from another work, reproduces or distorts it, and uses it as part of a new work. It is common in video, music, and many visual art fields.

GW Art Voyages to St. Olaf College

        Mary Edna Fraser is highly skilled as a batik artist, an ancient art form where beautiful designs created by applying removable wax to regions on fabric to repel dye, while the areas without wax absorb the dye. Fraser’s intention when creating her aesthetic designs is to raise awareness for the environment by displaying its vulnerability and beauty. Her unique outlook of the environment is a result of ventures in her grandfather’s airplane as a child, which she continues to use today to take photographs of the world from an aerial perspective, inspiring her pieces. Fraser relies on geology, topography, satellite images, maps and sailing charts to stimulate her pieces. Each area Fraser chooses as a muse, such as the Nile Desert Islands or the ancient islands of Taiwan, she researches and personally explores by hiking or boating the terrain. Fraser’s adventures allow her to base her works on realism, as she often portrays the sea, the land, or space. However, her works are mostly centered from her mindset and emotions during the process of creating her batiks.

Fraser has had her artwork displayed throughout the world – including the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, NASA, the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico and even The George Washington University. In April of 2002, Fraser’s exhibit, “Dark and Light”, was featured at the Hand Chapel on the Mount Vernon Campus and in that same year, Fraser’s batik, Venus, was acquired by The George Washington University Permanent Collection. In it Fraser provides the observer with only a mere sliver of the planet. Her intention is to illustrate the personality of the planet, which she accomplishes with the diffusion of vibrant colors, including: marigolds, salmon pinks, burnt oranges, teals, and lime greens.

 Venus, is currently being displayed at the Flaten Art Museum at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, as a part of Fraser’s exhibition, Mapping the Planets in Silkand Sound, which demonstrates her eclectic approach to nature and the universe with pieces expressing the personality of the planets. Her artwork is accompanied by ambient music composed by Mark Mercury and informative text by planetary scientist, Ted Maxwell, of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The opening reception of the exhibit included an astronomy session that involved looking through a reproduction of Galileo’s telescope at the planets and the moon, as well as a Physics Colloquium and a roundtable discussion.  Just as Mary Edna Fraser has ventured greatly, so has her work, Venus, which has journeyed from George Washington to St. Olaf.                                                                                                                            Written by: Taylor Schmidt Gallery Assistant

I began working for the Luther Brady Art Gallery to aid in its inventory at the end of June. They are conducting an inventory of all their pieces in order to sort out what needs to be moved to a storage facility in Ashburn called the Collections and Conservation Resource Center, now in the process of being built. Artwork is being moved to Ashburn because space has gotten limited on campus and the facility will provide a safer environment. In their current locations, they are not safe from flooding and some works are even at risk of damaging themselves or another artwork. The pieces that don’t go will be sorted out into a learning collection, current or pending displays, or sent to the University Archives instead. You can see what else the GW Archives has to offer here.

 

Down in the bowels of the Lisner Auditorium are two storage areas for the art besides what’s in the Gallery storage areas. They’re full of student and professional works along with some African Art and Pre-Columbian ceramics. Some of the African Art and Pre-Columbian works haven’t been on display since the 1970s while others have occasionally been places on view. The African Art is mix of ancestor totems, tribal masks and altars, with the masks varying style depending on the culture that designed it. You can see a similar variety by checking out the Smithsonian Museum of African Art’s collection of African Masks.

The Pre-Columbian ceramics are mostly bowls and dishes but also included a spoon shaped receptacle for human hearts. If discovering a ritual heart receptacle wasn’t unexpected enough there are other unique items; A Korean doll and silk hanging scroll rare evidence of international “souvenirs” in the collection and a sign of the long international ties of the University. Another surprise was a chandelier that I couldn’t even get out of its wrappings without some serious help and a bronze trident that resisted all efforts to be lifted out of the box. Unintentionally, on the back of a newspaper photograph of Gen. U.S. Grant, the collection also preserved an article applauding the biggest whale catch of the season. You certainly don’t see articles like that today in the US.

So far it’s been a really great experience and I expect it to continue to bring surprises and hands on challenges. Helping sort through this extensive collection has been a very enjoyable privilege. We are 64% of the way through and I can’t wait to see what the next box will disclose.

Melissa Meyer and Femmage

Meyer, Regale, 2005, oil on canvas, 65” x 80 “, melissameyerstudio.com

“When I’m painting, I work intuitively, physically, thinking about brushwork as a kind of choreography, a dance that happens in the wrists and arms, as well as the whole body.”[1]

--Melissa Meyer

With the gestural verve of Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler’s thin watercolor wash, and a fearless relationship with color, New York artist Melissa Meyer has often been billed as a “third-generation abstract expressionist.”[2]  Her graphic and painterly work exudes feeling, lightness, and a sense of harmonious movement.     

Meyer, Untitled, 1974, acrylic on canvas, 26” x 58 ”, melissameyerstudio.com

There is no understanding the work of Meyer without an understanding of the term “femmage”.  The term was coined by Meyer and feminist artist Miriam Schapiro in their co-authored essay Waste Not Want Not: An Inquiry into What Women Saved and Assembled – FEMMAGE[3].  The word refers to the historical use of collage techniques by women that harkens back to scrapbooks of the mid-20^th century, patterned quilts of the 19^th century and beyond.  According to Meyer and Schapiro, the act of creating compositions from fabric and paper scraps is an art form that women have embraced for centuries, in contrast to ideas that Picasso and Braque were the first to spearhead the use of collage as a formidable aesthetic technique[4].  Melissa Meyer’s work is imbued with these concepts of patchwork harmony.  Her thick swaths of bright watercolor in glyphic shapes create a color blocking effect, overlapping and bleeding together to attain rhythm and unity.  Directly addressing these feminist associations, Meyer comments, “All great artists were in touch with their masculine and feminine sides.  The best art has both.”[5] 

Detail of Midnight: The Hours of the Rat; Mother and Sleepy Child, Edo period (1615 – 1868), ca. 1790, Kitagawa Utamaro, polychrome woodblock print, 14 3/8 x 9 5/8“, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Meyer, Hartman 38, 2008, watercolor monotype, Riverhouse Editions, 27 ½ x 25”, melissameyerstudio.com

     There is joy and musicality in Meyer’s work that is immediately recognizable.  The strokes of her brush bounce and weave in bright colors whether in watercolor or oil.  Meyer muses on mediums, commenting, “Watercolor is usually connected with intimate, small-scale work… One of the pleasures of oil painting is… to make watercolor effects into something major, assertive, flamboyant.”[6]  She attests to being inspired by jazz musicians, as well as Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints[7]; both of which speak to the lively fluidity of her application.  Meyer’s works have to ability to capture the spirit of these Edo period scenes in non-representational form by effortlessly balancing her use of the dark and the light without weighing down her compositions. 

Melissa Meyer, Pannonica, 1987, oil on canvas, 70” x 68”, GW Permanent Collection, Gift of Robert and Lucy Reitzfeld

Though Meyer professes her preference for watercolor, she wields oil paint with an equally emotive and vibrant quality.  She uses thinned paint to smoothly apply pooling and sometimes dripping layers of color values.  This allows the fluid texture of the paint to lead her motions in swirling amorphous shapes.  Though her earlier oil works, such as her piece Pannonica, from the GW Permanent Collection, are much darker in spirit, they contain the same liveliness and motion of her later works.  The title Pannonica references British-born jazz music patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter who was known as the “bebop baroness” for her commitment to the New York jazz scene during the 1950’s[8].  These eclectic sources from which Meyers draws her inspiration speak to the visual vibrancy in the language of her paintings.

After attending New York University, Melissa Meyer has enjoyed a lengthy and successful career.   She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Columbus, Ohio, and Zurich, Switzerland as well as shown in many group exhibitions including at The Jewish Museum, New York; Texas Gallery, Houston and the National Academy of Design in New York, an organization of which she is a member.  Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Guggenheim, the Jewish Museum, and many others.  She has worked on various public projects including massive murals for the lobby of the Shiodome City Center in Tokyo Japan and others in New York.[9]  At age 66, Meyer is currently represented by Lennon Weinberg Gallery and lives and works in New York City.  She is a frequent artist in residence at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York as well as at the Vermont Studio Center.[10]

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[1] Melissa Meyer, “Some Notes and Thoughts on the Shiodome Project,” (January 2003), Melissa Meyer Studio, accessed March 7, 2013, http://www.melissameyerstudio.com/documents/Shiodome.pdf.

[2] Lance Esplund, “The Lighthearted Abstract Expressionist”, The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2009, accessed March 7, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123517123131836781.html.

[3] Miriam Schapiro and Melissa Meyer, “Waste Not Want Not: An Inquiry into What Women Saved and Assembled – FEMMAGE,” Heresies I, no. 4 (Winter 1977-78): 66-69.

[4] Schapire and Meyer, “Waste Not Want Not.”

[5] Melissa Meyer, interviewed by M.G. Lord, “Interview with Melissa Meyer,” In the Margins: 19 Interviews, (Minneapolis, MN: Montgomery Glasoe Fine Art, 1995-96), 34-36.

[6] Melissa Meyer, “Some Notes and Thoughts.”

[7] Ibid.

[8] Barry Singer, “The Baroness of Jazz”, The New York Times, October 17, 2008, accessed March 22, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/arts/music/19sing.html?ref=arts&_r=0

[9] “Bio,” Melissa Meyer Studio, accessed March 7, 2013, http://www.melissameyerstudio.com/press1.html.

[10] “Bio,” Melissa Meyer Studio.

Frank Wright, Painting the Civil War

Gen'l Lee Over Yonder, 1994, oil on canvas, 8" x 10"

Our exhibition After Melville and Whitman, April 9 - July 5, 2013, MPA 2nd floor cases is on view in collaboration with the GW English Department and their hosting of the Ninth International Melville Conference, June 4-7, 2013.  The exhibit gives a contemporary view of how Herman Melville and Walt Whitman have influenced American Art.  Did you know one of GW's Fine Arts Professors is also a Civil War expert?

Frank Wright prefers to express rather than reflect. This may seem quite odd, due to the fact that most of his paintings are historical representations of DC. How exactly can one express the past without reflecting? Wright does this by masterfully blending facets of his life with historical reconstructions of Washington resulting in painstakingly detailed works of art.

This DC native, whose family has been in the area for six generations, paints images of Washington ranging from the old Analostan Island (now Roosevelt) to the original Willard Hotel and Pennsylvania Avenue. It is hard not to notice the incredible amount of detail in every brushstroke, but what one may not notice is just how Wright personalizes his paintings. He explains that you can find many a face of his friends, students, or literary figures (such as Walt Whitman) amongst the various crowds he paints. Such details add a particular touch to the impersonality of history. One thing is certain – Wright is incredibly talented.

He attended American University where he then won the Paul J. Sachs Fellowship in Graphic Arts. This led him to Paris, where he studied prints and woodcuts in depth at Atelier 17.  Gallery Assistant Hannah Spector, recently sat down with Professor Wright to discuss his work, the history of Washington, DC, and where the two intersect:


Hannah Spector: Do you mainly get inspiration for your historical paintings from photographs?

Frank Wright: Well, not exactly. There's no photograph of most of these, I made them up. Mainly
pictures of Civil War reenactments and I saw a guy there that looked like Robert E. Lee, so I turned him, into Robert E. Lee.

HS: I like how you do the perspective of old DC. Have you gotten that mainly from piecing together different sources?

FW: I have a large collection of old photographs of old Washington and my family has also been here for six generations. My grandfather and my family on my mother's side have also been here for six generations. The first one who came here was Washington S. Wright and he came here in 1826 from Alexandria, from old town Alexandria. His father was a hatter and his father before him was as well. They were on Navy Yard Hill, where of course the river traffic was very important in those days. He had a business there during and before the Civil War.

Frank Wright, The Grand Review, 1990-91, oil on canvas, 48" x 96".

HS: Is that why you have such an interest in DC's history?

FW: Well yeah, but I have a general interest in it. Of course being in an early office building just one block from Ford's Theater always meant I had a great interest in that area and I was there for 26 years, across from the Portrait Gallery.

HS: That's a pretty area.

FW: It is now, but it's been through its ups-and-downs.

HS: What's your favorite painting you've done?

FW: This is my favorite image, The Grand Review, 1990-91.  It took place on Pennsylvania Avenue on May 25, 1865 shortly after the President [Abraham Lincoln] was killed and it's based on a reenactment I saw in the early 90's.  The whole cast of Glory, the movie, marched in that parade.  So I ran in front of the parade all the way from 7th street to 14th street to get this image.  It took me well over a year to do.

detail from The Grand Review

HS: Is that Walt Whitman there?

FW: Yes, Walt Whitman.

HS: The detail is incredible, how do you have the patience for this?

FW: Time, time. Well, you know when you do a major project like this it's like doing embroidery where you think it will take its time and it will be finished when it's finished. But yes, this is Walt Whitman and this other man is his friend Pete Doyle and at the time of this parade they didn't know each other, but I decided to put Pete Doyle in it. He was the closest friend Walt Whitman had, very close relationship. These here are the contrabands. You know Washington after the war, they freed the contrabands. They were people owned by other people and they kept them on Mason's Island, which is now Roosevelt's Island. During the war they stayed there.

HS: Where's the Willard in this panting?

FW: Here. It's where Julia Ward Howe wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Now, sometime after this, the present Willard was built around 1900. This is the former building that was there. When I was a child, it was quite a wonderful place filled with World War II activities. People would go down there, and it was "smokeville", everybody smoked and you could hardly see yourself through the smoke. Later on, the Willard went into disarray for a number of years it just sat there without being occupied. Then an enterprising group of businessmen brought it back.

HS: So are your paintings interspersed around different parts of DC?

FW: Yes, and Vienna. But this [The Grand Review] was one of the most ambitious paintings I ever did. Some of my friends were in the reenactment here, so they're in here. I have several of my students and friends in here. And everything is absolutely accurate because I was able to get access at the Library of Congress to pictures that were not generally known. Everybody knows the [Matthew] Brady ones, but they weren't as interesting as the ones I found that showed the streets and the stores. So, all of this is very accurate. Of course there was a welcome home sign in the parade from Washington school children. This is the second day of the parade. The first day was May the 23rd when Meade's army marched down. The second day was Sherman's army, they walked up from South Carolina... Sherman's army had suffered a great deal, but they were excellent in the parade. They marched very well and I have books about the parade.

HS: It's crazy how much history is behind each painting.

FW: I've done some paintings of the encampments along the Potomac.  This one, Watchfires in the Evening Dews and Damps, 1993, was at the Battle of Nashville, Tennessee.  It was a crucial battle in 1864 because Hood's army could never reorganize after that Battle.  It's a compilation of photographs and my imagination. 

HS: Did you ever go to art school or did you just study in Paris?

FW: I went to art school.  I went to American University, which had a great art department.  I also taught at the Corcoran for 4 years.

HS: They just partnered with Maryland.

FW: Yes.  Originally the Corocan School was the art department at The George Washington University.  When I was teaching there, there were GW students in the department.  We had a small department, just about 2 or 3 students at GW.  Then they sent all of them to the Corcoran, especially for painting, sculpture, and ceramics.  When I came in 1970, they lifted me from the Corcoran.  While I was there, they started to soar. 

HS: Do you teach painting?

FW: I am a painter, but I've always taught drawing.  Mainly because there was an opening and I took that person's place.  One of my best friends came a year earlier and taught painting, but we had our studio together, a man named [William] Woodward.  They whole time I was at the Corcoran, he was teaching painting and I was teaching drawing.  Then we both moved to GW and he taught for 32 years and I've been teaching drawing for 42 years.

HS: Can you tell me about your time in Paris?

FW: Well, I had a fellowship to Paris.  It was given to me by the founder of the printed collection of the National Gallery, named Lessing Rosenwald.  He wanted to establish a fellowship in honor of his best friend who got him started as a collector, who was Paul J. Sachs.  I was the first Paul J. Sachs fellow at the National Gallery and from there I went to Harvard and from there I went to Paris.  I didn't realize 'til much later that Paul's mother was Goldman and his father was Sachs.  So, I went to Paris at that time.

HS: Your prints are amazing.  What type are they?

A Man and His Dog, 1970, engraving, 6-3/8" x 4-3/8"

FW: They are engravings and etchings.  There's one around the corner called An Old Man and His Dog.  This fellow was a vagrant who used to go through the trashcans in front of the National Portrait Gallery.  He was an interesting looking character and I though I might be taking a chance but I invited him up to pose.  He lived in one of the boarding houses around, but he wasn't a derelict.  He was sort of an old man that used to ride the railroad.  He was from New Orleans, but I found him very interesting and bright and intelligent.

  

 

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It is evident that Wright knows an incredible amount of Washington history. By injecting history into his paintings, he is able to create pieces which are more than just an image – they are a story, an account, and a depiction of moments in time. His experience and natural ease with the brush make his works important for both the George Washington University, and Washington itself. A number of paintings by Frank Wright are currently on view on the 3rd floor of Gelman Library. For more of Wright's work, go to his website: http://www.gwu.edu/~fwright.