Dear WAM Supporter,

The Washington Arts Museum has Accomplished much since our inception in 1998/99 working entirely with a group of dedicated olunteers.
The history committee – Dr. Elizabeth Tebow, Kevin MacDonald, Jean Meisel, Hillary Daley-Hynes, H.B. Crothers, and Nan Montgomery (chair) has focused on two areas: 1) documenting Washington art through personal interviews with artists, curators, gallery directors and other key figures in the city’s art world; and 2) organizing panel discussions for the public on special topics relating to the city’s art history. We have audiotape interviews with Bill Christenberry, Lillian Burwell, Mary Orwin, Lolo Sarnoff, Alex Gianpietro, and Anne Truitt. Plans are to interview 18 others. We have held two highly successful panel discussions – One on Washington art in the 60’s and the second on the art scene in the 70’s. Both were held at the Arts Club of Washington. Our panelists for the first event in March 2003 were painter Willem DeLooper, critics Ben Forgey and Andrew Hudson, printmaker Lou Stovall and sculptor Jennie Lee Knight. Our 70’s panelists at our November event were art dealer Ramon Osuna, critic Paul Richard, painters Michael Clark and Virginia Daley, arts administrator Jack Rasmussen and mixed media artist Claudia De Monte. This last event was supported in part by a grant from the Humanities Council of Washington, DC. We hope to organize lectures by scholars on earlier Washington history. In addition we have begun receiving donations of documents and archival materials from various private Washington collections that we will catalogue and store for use by researchers and the interested public. The exhibitions committee — Renee Butler, Jean Meisel and Ellen Sinel – has hosted two exhibitions:WAM BAM No. 1 brought together work by Tom Downing (DC-based painter, deceased ), Steve Lewis (emerging artist), Renee Stout (mid-career installation artist), and Rebecca Davenport (‘expatriot’ DC painter). This exhibition, displayed in the windows of downtown historic Woodward & Lothrop building, culminated in a closing gala for which the empty department store was transformed into a grand venue where more that 200 arts enthusiasts enjoyed the visual art, live music and hors d’oeuvres donated by six area restaurants. “Emotional Attachment“ our exhibition curated by Anne Levine at the District Fine Arts Gallery in September celebrated young new DC collectors featuring their favorite work from their collection.
We are about to launch our capital campaign and ask for your financial encouragement to help us meet the needs of the Washington area arts community with a new museum concept for a new millennium.

Thank you and best regards,
Renée Butler
WAM Co-founder

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