This week’s news includes: Local chefs celebrate Black history, Baltimore’s Black art renaissance, DC exhibition picks, MICA announces new Bachelor of Design, “BMA “unprecedented demand” for American Sublime tickets at the BMA, BSO celebrates 110 years of music, the Portrait Gallery’s Outwin features four from the area, “cultural diplomacy” exhibition coming to JHU Bloomberg Center, Philip Glass to perform with BSO, and Spike Gjerde brings Ecco Market Italian to Hampden.
Header Image: “Erin and Anyah with Hydrangeas.” Acrylic and decorative paper on carved wood. 2023. — Courtesy of the artist, LaToya Hobbs, via the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.
Dinner and a movement: Baltimore chefs take on erasure of Black history
by John-John Williams IV
Published February 20 in The Baltimore Banner
Tonya and David Thomas are known for throwing large, extravagant $300 dinners where guests come dressed to the nines and celebrity chefs such as Carla Hall have been among the attendees. The evenings have included red carpet-style photos, DJ battles and decked-out event spaces.
Tonight at Stem & Vine, they will host a relatively toned-down affair for no more than 30 guests, and part of the evening will be devoted to discussing memories evoked by the food. The conversation will tie the food to the role Black Americans have played in history.
“There’s so much going on in the country where our culture and our history is trying to be erased and silenced,” Tonya Thomas said.
Baltimore Is In the Midst of a Black Arts Renaissance
by Abdu Ali
Published February 16 in Baltimore Magazine
Growing up in Baltimore, I was surrounded by Black elders who schooled me about Black history. My grandfather Frank, for instance, would scoop me every Sunday on the way to church. Blasting music from The Delfonics or Funkadelic, he would tell stories about the city in the 1970s, like nights at the legendary Odell’s Nightclub, where you could hear the latest disco tracks and party in harmony with people of all identities. To him, and in turn to me, Baltimore was a Black cultural oasis.
Beyond this oral tradition, I was also literally surrounded by reminders of Black ingenuity. My elementary school in Seton Hill was named after the Black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. I went to Booker T. Washington Middle, just like Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Every morning, I walked past the Billie Holiday statue on Pennsylvania Avenue, a street that housed the famous Royal Theatre and, for the first half of the 20th century, was the happening block for Black entertainers (including the blues singer herself, who once lived near Patterson Park). And as a pre-teen, I made trips to the Eubie Blake Center, named after the celebrated pianist who grew up near Oldtown.
10 Art Shows to See in DC This Spring
by Emma Cieslik
Published February 20 in Hyperallergic
As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday amid attacks on civil liberties and marginalized communities, museums and galleries in the nation’s capital are opening exhibitions that question what it means to be an American. The National Gallery of Art presents 115 works in Dear America while other shows focus on individual artists such as Mary Cassatt and Nick Cave, all in the pursuit of exploring “Americanism” as a facet of education, expression, and aesthetics. Meanwhile, exhibitions like Making Their Mark at National Museum of Women in the Arts complicate the idea that “American” is a uniform, monolithic identity, instead critiquing it as a social, racial, and gendered construction. Amid an urgent moment in American art and culture, art in the capital city this spring asks us to look at ourselves as works of cultural creation — and in doing so, to complicate our attachment to and belief in national identity.
MICA Launches Bachelor of Design in Interior Design
Press Release :: February 19
During its bicentennial year, the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) announces the launch of its new Bachelor of Design (BDes) in Interior Design, a significant addition to its undergraduate programs and of the College’s continued investment in professionally aligned, expertise design education. With this new degree, MICA continues to prepare designers who can thoughtfully shape the built environment and contribute to Baltimore’s growing creative economy and beyond.
“MICA’s Bachelor of Design (BDes) in Interior Design is built to equip our students with the technical art and design skills to become interior designers and join a committed community of practice,” said MICA Provost Eric Freedman. “Our strong foundation in art and design allows MICA to apply a unique creative lens to Maryland’s investment in workforce development as we launch a degree that leads to professional certification and graduate students who can thoughtfully engage with the built environment.” […]
BMA Adds Amy Sherald Tickets & Hours
Press Release :: February 25
Due to unprecedented demand, the BMA is increasing the number of tickets available for the Amy Sherald: American Sublime exhibition beginning Saturday, February 28, and adding more hours for BMA members. Tickets for the exhibition have been sold out since Monday, February 23. To date, 72,612 have attended or reserved tickets for Amy Sherald: American Sublime.
Additional timed-entry tickets will be made available first to BMA Members for 24 hours beginning at 5 p.m. Wednesday, February 25, until 4:59 p.m. Thursday, February 26. Tickets will then be made available for the general public beginning at 5 p.m. Thursday, February 26—with a limit of 4 tickets per purchase. […]
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Announces Immersive 2026–27 Season as It Marks 110 Years of Music in Maryland
Press Release :: February 24
Today, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) announced its 2026–27 season, marking 110 years since the Orchestra’s founding with a wide-ranging lineup that pairs artistic ambition with immersive experiences and new ways to engage with the symphony across its Baltimore and North Bethesda homes.
Guided by the season theme of Illuminated Through Sound, the BSO’s 2026–27 season places visual storytelling, atmosphere, and physical movement at the center of the concert experience. Immersive presentations such as Holst’s The Planets: An HD Odyssey and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition pair orchestral sound with projected imagery, while live-to-film performances including Psycho in Concert and Amadeus LIVE (featuring the Cathedral Choral Society) transform the concert hall into a cinematic space. A ballet-driven throughline featuring The Firebird, Romeo and Juliet, and The Miraculous Mandarin further emphasizes movement, color, and dramatic momentum. […]
Baltimore Artists Shine in the National Portrait Gallery’s ‘Outwin’ Exhibit
by Lydia Woolever
Published February 24 in Baltimore Magazine
Every three years, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery hosts the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, considered one of the most prestigious of its kind in the United States.
Named after longtime docent Virginia Outwin Boochever, whose endowment funds the event, the competition reviews thousands of entries from both emerging and established artists, with finalists across multiple disciplines ultimately presenting a celebration of modern American portraiture—not to mention a visual representation of this country today.
This is the competition that helped launch the career of then-Baltimore-based painter Amy Sherald, who won first place in 2016. She would go on to create the official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama—now on view in her American Sublime exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art through April 5, which was originally slated to be held at this very location.
Sam Gilliam, Ellsworth Kelly, Julie Mehretu, Martin Puryear, and Carrie Mae Weems among Featured Artists in D.C. Exhibition Exploring American Art as Cultural Diplomacy
Press Release :: February 24
This spring, Sam Gilliam, Ellsworth Kelly, Julie Mehretu, Martin Puryear, Carrie Mae Weems, and other leading artists who have played a vital role in our nation’s cultural diplomacy efforts are among the artists represented in Artistic Generosity and the American Artist Abroad at the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. On view from April 7–June 13, 2026, the exhibition reflects four decades of artistic exchange through the efforts of the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE), a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation providing permanent works of American art for U.S. embassies around the world.
Artistic Generosity and the American Artist Abroad features site-specific commissions, original prints, and photographs from FAPE’s collection, bringing together nearly 25 preeminent American artists across generations. The exhibition will present never-before-seen maquettes of Don Gummer’s Frontier for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia; and Frank Stella’s Hanoi Star for the new U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam, which was the last public work the artist made before his death; as well as photographs of Roy Lichtenstein’s original installation of the Greene Street Mural from the Leo Castelli Gallery records at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. […]
After Kennedy Center exit, Philip Glass to bring new symphony home to Baltimore
by Wesley Case
Published February 24 in The Baltimore Banner
Philip Glass pulled his new symphony in protest from the beleaguered Kennedy Center. Now, the acclaimed Baltimore-born composer is bringing the work home.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will perform the Maryland debut of Glass’ Symphony No. 15, “Lincoln,” on June 4 and June 6, 2027, at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The orchestra, which announced its next season on Tuesday, will also perform the piece on June 5, 2027, at its sister venue, the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda.
Chef Spike Gjerde wants to open a new ‘Italian-inspired market’ in Baltimore
by Clara Longo de Freitas
Published February 19 in The Baltimore Banner
Spike Gjerde, one of the biggest names in Baltimore dining, has laid out plans to open an “Italian-inspired market” in Hampden, adding to his growing roster of eateries in the area.
The new venture, dubbed Ecco Market, will be an “integrated culinary hub,” according to plans detailed on Steward, a lending platform that crowdsources funds for food producers. The market will open in a 5,000-square-foot industrial mill in Hampden, with a kitchen, trattoria, bakery, deli, two bars and retail space.
Become a Member
Print Journals, Invitations, and Newsletter – Oh My!
