WASHINGTON POST REVIEW

 

 

(Mark Jenkins October 5th review of Jefferson Place Gallery retro exhibit)

​

​

​

​

The Jefferson Place Gallery is remembered mostly for its association with the Washington Color School. But many sorts of artists exhibited there during its 18-year run.

​

All of the venue’s six originators were linked to American University, so that institution’s museum is the logical place for “Making a Scene,” a retrospective of the gallery’s first six years.

​

The show features more than two dozen artists, 11 of them founding members of the gallery, which began as a cooperative 60 years ago.

​

There are soft abstractions by D.C. colorists Tom Downing and Howard Mehring, and a picture made by Gene Davis before stripes became his field.

​

But among the other highlights are disparate pieces such as Jack Tworkov’s charcoal drawing, Fred Maroon’s photos of European scenes and Claire Falkenstein’s chrysalis-like form in welded copper. The array evokes the era but doesn’t favor a particular mode.

​

(There’s more information at jeffersonplacegallery.com, an in-development website devised by the show’s curator, John Anderson, with Day Eight, a local arts nonprofit group.)