Artists featured in the exhibition will be joining the gallery on Saturdays beginning September 18th.

Looking back over the last forty years, we at Addison/Ripley take a great deal of satisfaction in having created something lasting and in helping to support and nurture the art infrastructure in Washington. From our modest beginnings in a large but unfinished alley-bound carriage house behind the Phillips Collection, two partners with a great deal of enthusiasm but little business experience managed to attract and exhibit a wide array of artists, many of whom we still represent today.

The former owner of that first building, himself an artist and gallerist, had installed a lighting system with the help and advice of art legend Walter Hopps, but the floors remained rough concrete and the walls were still crumbling brick. Working throughout that first summer, we removed stall dividers and installed walls, carpet, additional lighting and a barely functioning air conditioning system. At the same time, we moved into the equally unfinished loft space on the second floor.

Our first opening, featuring paintings by Washington artist Michael Smallwood, was attended by over 600 people. Distinguished collectors like Joe Hirshhorn and Seymour Knox attended. It was an important time for Washington art, with multi gallery venues in both Dupont Circle and on 7th Street. This year, continuing to move forward, we will open an exhibit of works by our newest gallery artist Yuriko Yamaguchi, a woman whose work we have long admired.

Over the years we migrated to a street space in Georgetown pioneering that art area and, for a time, ran two spaces simultaneously. Averaging more than eight exhibits a year, the gallery has mounted more than 400 shows, primarily one person exhibits. Artists came from Korea, China, Latin America, France, England, Canada and a host of other countries but we continued our core mission of displaying work by significant DMV artists.

It was a daunting task to select only forty artists for this show. We tried thinking of the exhibit as a tapestry of the talents and relationships we have enjoyed over the last four decades. Many works were commissioned exclusively for this exhibition. Others were from artists, since deceased, who works we considered characterized their art. Some, like Woong Kim, for instance, have not exhibited in Washington for many years. Others, like Kay Jackson, Lou Stovall and Nancy Sansom Reynolds have been regular exhibitors over the years.

We offer our thanks to the family of artists who make up the core of our gallery, the many, many collectors and institutions who have sustained us and them and the Washington Art community, those galleries, artists and not for profit spaces, who make up the fabric of creative life here. Special thanks to Ms. Romy Silverstein, our Gallery Director, who has kept it all running smoothly and professionally.

The gallery is located in Upper Georgetown at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Reservoir Road.

Gallery hours:

• Tuesday – Saturday: 11 – 4
• and by appointment

For further information and images please contact Ms. Romy Silverstein, [email protected] or 202.338.5180