One year after Johns Hopkins University dedicated its $647.5 million Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C., leaders are unveiling part of the building that hasn’t been open before, the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery.
Named for two longtime art patrons and Hopkins benefactors, the gallery is a 1000-square-foot space that will present rotating exhibitions in line with the center’s mission to foster dialogue around the arts and democracy.
The inaugural exhibition, which opens along with the gallery on Wednesday, Oct. 23, is entitled “Art and Graphic Design of the European Avant-Gardes.” It brings together 75 rare works of art, books and ephemera spanning the Eastern European avant-garde movements from 1910 to 1941, including Futurism, Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism and Surrealism.
In tandem with the gallery opening, Hopkins announced that it is launching an arts-oriented lecture series in D.C. in 2025 and that it recently added two works of art to a contemporary art gallery on its East Baltimore medical campus.
Dedicated on Oct. 19, 2023, the Hopkins Bloomberg Center is a multidisciplinary academic facility that was created using the shell of the former Newseum building at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. N. W. Hopkins built it to bring under one roof its Washington-based programs that were previously located in several buildings, to extend its visibility and reach in the nation’s capital, and to maximize the impact of its research and scholarship.
Designed by Rockwell Group, the gallery will present exhibitions drawn from the university’s collections, and special exhibitions born out of partnerships with leading museums and collections. Design of the gallery and inaugural exhibition was overseen by Dan Kershaw, senior exhibition designer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The first gallery director is Caitlin Berry, formerly the inaugural director of the Rubell Museum D. C.
Hopkins scheduled a day of festivities and a press preview on Tuesday for the inaugural exhibit, which is free and open to the public. Starting Oct. 23, gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed on university holidays. The inaugural exhibit will remain on view until Feb. 21, 2025.
The preview included a panel discussion with D.C. based-arts leaders on “Why Art is Essential to Democracy,” followed by a reception. Preceding the panel discussion was a “Music for Freedom” concert featuring Peabody Institute students performing works by Dmitri Shostakovich and Ludwig van Beethoven.
The exhibition includes works by El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Liubov Popova, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Lajos Kassak, Karel Teige and Victo Brauner. Several of the works have not previously been on public display in North America. The exhibition draws parallels between abstract works across geographic boundaries and linguistic differences, revealing ways in which avant-garde artists engaged in an international exchange of ideas to bring about new visual vocabularies in a modern, post-war age.
“We are deeply grateful to Irene and Richard Frary for their support of the Hopkins Bloomberg Center and their significant contribution to our mission to connect the worlds of research, and the arts,” said Cybele Bjorklund, the center’s executive director, in a statement. “Through its opening exhibition, programming, and future presentations, the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery will bring a fresh infusion of artistic expression and cultural dialogue to Pennsylvania Avenue. We invite our neighbors throughout the Washington community to discover the diverse array of free public events and concerts at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center.”
The exhibition draws from the Frarys’ rarely-seen private collection of art and literature and includes many recent gifts from the collection to the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries. Highlights include photography and photomontages from avant-garde artists impacted by preceding art movements, as well as works from lesser-known avant-garde publishing cultures in Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia, including a large group of rare avant-garde and modernist books in Yiddish and Hebrew.
“The juxtaposition of art from across the continent allows viewers to uncover commonalities between each of the five ‘isms,’ painting a more complex picture of artistic movements previously defined by nationality and enabling a better understanding of a time marked by major political, social, and cultural transformations,” said exhibition curator Philipp Penka, in a statement. “The Frarys’ remarkable collection offers a glimpse at one of the defining periods in European modernism. It makes visible a complex international network spanning from Paris and Berlin to the Baltics, the Caucasus, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and modern-day Ukraine, and reveals the avant-garde’s shared concern with uncovering the contradictions of an obsolete societal order, and to give shape to a more just and truthful society.”
The works on display include:
- Liubov Popova’s 6 graviur L. Popovoi (1917), a suite of multi-color linocut prints;
- One of only five copies of UNOVIS (1920), an anthology published by artists in Vitebsk, Belarus, that includes several works on paper by El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich;
- Hungarian artist Lajos Kassák’s Bildarchitektur [Picture Architecture] (1925), a 1927 india ink drawing (Composition), and a very early woodcut (1921);
- One of three known copies of Aleksandr Rodchenko’s “Composition 73,” a color lithograph printed by the Weimar Bauhaus workshops for Adolf Behne, Der Sieg der Farbe (Berlin, 1924);
- An untitled Suprematist artist book by Ivan Puni (1920);
- Dutch artist Lou Loeber’s cardboard box object with multi-color geometrical gouache design in the manner of De Stijl (1920s);
- Three original photo collages by Crimean-born graphic artist, designer, and actor Petr Galadzhev.
Irene Frary is a member of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s advisory board. Richard Frary, a member of Hopkins’ Class of 1969, has provided leadership at the university through advisory board service, and as vice chair emeritus of its Board of Trustees and chair emeritus of the Sheridan Libraries National Advisory Council.
The Frarys are avid art and book collectors with more than 3,000 objects across diverse artistic movements, and they have shared their collections with the Hopkins community. They further support Johns Hopkins through scholarship and endowment support.
“This inaugural exhibition of major works from the Frary Collections provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore a major artistic period in a new and innovative way,” said Daniel H. Weiss, Homewood Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and president emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “Through its thoughtful and ambitious program, the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery attests to the vitality and importance of the arts at the Bloomberg Center and at Johns Hopkins.”
“Irene and I are delighted to be a part of the first of many thought-provoking presentations at the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery that will inspire new conversations, ideas, and research through art,” said Richard Frary, a Class of 1969 Hopkins alumnus, donor and volunteer leader for more than 40 years “It is our hope that this exhibition, which cumulates a diversity of artistic and ideological perspectives, will advance the Hopkins Bloomberg Center’s mission to foster discovery, democracy, and global dialogue.”
Sam Gilliam Lecture Series
Hopkins officials this week announced that the university is launching The Sam Gilliam Lecture Series, which will be hosted starting in March 2025 at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C.
The series is being created with the Sam Gilliam Foundation to honor the artistic legacy and social justice commitments of the late Washington D.C.-based painter, sculptor and educator Sam Gilliam, who died in 2022 at age 88. Made possible by the foundation’s support, the series will welcome prominent artists and speakers to the Bloomberg Center to reflect on the intersections between contemporary art, academia, and public policy, and the role art plays in advancing society. Speakers will be announced at a later date. According to Hopkins’ announcement in The Hub, The Sam Gilliam Lecture Series will focus on topics in keeping with the themes and issues addressed in the artist’s life and work, including racial equity, democracy, and the transformative power of art. Consistent with the Bloomberg Center’s mission of connecting knowledge and research with policymaking, the series will provide a platform for contemporary artists and policymakers to engage in meaningful conversations about the role of art in addressing critical social issues.
“We are grateful to Annie Gawlak and the Sam Gilliam Foundation for their support and partnership on this series, which fits perfectly with the Hopkins Bloomberg Center’s mission,” said Bjorklund, the center’s executive director. “The series will create synergies between policy development and the arts, supporting important multidisciplinary conversations on key topics that will complement the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery, permanent art installations, and myriad arts programs hosted at the center.”
Tupelo, Mississippi, Gilliam was a pioneering Black artist renowned not only for his innovations in post-war American art, but also his commitment to issues of social justice, racial equity, and democratizing access to art. Having moved to Washington, D.C. in 1962 and living there throughout his prolific artmaking career, Gilliam had a long-standing and deep relationship with the city throughout the Civil Rights movement and other periods of extreme change in the nation.
The Bloomberg Center is home to a permanent, large-scale acrylic and mixed media installation by Gilliam, entitled A Lovely Blue And ! (2022). Measuring eight feet by 20 feet, it’s one of the final works created by the artist in the months before his death.
“Our partnership with Johns Hopkins University on this ongoing public program at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center highlights the role that contemporary art can play in advancing social and racial equity and supporting democracy,” said Gawlak, president of the Sam Gilliam Foundation, in a statement. “Throughout his life, Sam’s work lay at the intersection of art and advocacy, and he believed ardently in the ability of art to inspire and influence critical change. It is an honor to launch The Sam Gilliam Lecture Series in continuation of the activism Sam enacted throughout his career as an artist and educator.”
Works by Latoya Hobbs, Ernest Shaw Jr., and SHAN Wallace
In East Baltimore, Hopkins this month unveiled new paintings to its contemporary art collection in the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s North Gallery: “Sistership,’ by Latoya Hobbs, and ‘Crossing Godz 5’ by Ernest Shaw Jr. Both artists are Baltimore-based.
Hobbs’ painting uses vivid hues of green, gold, and brown to depict two Black women sharing an embrace while turned away from the viewer. In his painting, Shaw depicts two young squeegee workers who also have their arms around each other and their faces obscured. “Though they look out directly from the canvas, outlines of West African masks hide their features and elevate them to royalty,” notes author Aleyna Renta in a Hub article about the works. “To complete the image of nobility, the two boys hold their squeegees like scepters.
“Let me just say how thrilled I am to have these pieces here,” Bloomberg School of Public Health Dean Ellen MacKenzie said at the unveiling ceremony. “The art on our walls is an expression of the values we cherish. They show us the joy of human connection and reflect the power of Baltimore’s artistic voices. They are a lasting testament to the connection between our school and our city, and a very strong reminder that we want that connection to continue to deepen and to grow.”
The paintings were installed as part of the university’s new public arts initiative, which aims to uplift promising Baltimore artists and reflect the broader community by housing their works on Hopkins’ campuses. The effort, which involved an initial investment of $500,000 over two years and includes plans for future acquisitions, is an outgrowth of the university’s Diverse Names and Narratives Project. Hopkins’ Art Collecting Committee, made up of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and trustee representatives, selected the works from an artist portfolio curated by BmoreArt consultants Cara Ober and Inés Sanchez de Lozada.
Hopkins’ public arts initiative began with the installation of two black and white photographs by East Baltimore native SHAN Wallace. More artists are slated to have works displayed at the university, including painter Linling Lu, sculptor Sebastian Martorana, and photographer Elena Volkova.
