Corcoran Gallery

In the 1920s, Harlem on New York's Upper West Side was the "Negro Capital of the World." The migration of hundreds of thousands of Southern rural blacks to Northern cities in the first decades of the century had made Harlem the largest black community in the nation.In the Roaring '20s it was the scene of an incredible outpouring of artistic, literary and musical creativity that would be remembered as the Harlem Renaissance.Black writers such as Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston and Countee Cullen produced plays, poems and novels celebrating the "New Negro" who was emerging in the city - urbane, politically aware and relentlessly modern.

The proposed partnership announced earlier this month between the University of Maryland College Park and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington is one of the more unusual ideas floated in recent years, not least because it would involve Maryland's flagship university investing in a privately owned institution located outside the state. Yet from what is known of the plan so far the potential benefits for both UM and the Corcoran could far outweigh the risks involved in such an arrangement, and for that reason it's worth exploring further.

About two thirds of the way through the painting biennial exhibition at Washington's Corcoran Gallery, there comes a sight as refreshing as a jump in the ocean on a hot day.The show is devoted to 20th-century works that have entered the gallery's permanent collection from the Corcoran's previous 44 biennials of American painting. It starts well, but by the time the viewer arrives at mid-century, he has seen a progression of representational paintings that grow increasingly repetitious and boring.

TV 'True Blood': HBO's sultry vampire drama returns for a bloodier and seedier second season that might just give the premium cable channel a much-needed breakout hit. Blood debuted to modest ratings, but its fan base and DVD sales have been building since last season's finale. Returns 10 p.m. Sunday. FESTIVAL Baltimore Pride : It's time for Baltimore's gayest party of the year. Come for the parade, but stay for the music. The drag queens will be lip-syncing, but look for plenty of live music from acts like the Degenerettes and Brendan Velasquez.

There are two schools of thought about museum design in America today. One is that a museum should be a passive container for the art collection on display inside. The second is that a museum should be an integral part of the collection - perhaps even its most important work. A new exhibit about the museums designed by architect and artist Frank O. Gehry shows why his buildings consistently fall into the second category - and why Gehry has received worldwide acclaim for creating them.

The proposed partnership announced earlier this month between the University of Maryland College Park and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington is one of the more unusual ideas floated in recent years, not least because it would involve Maryland's flagship university investing in a privately owned institution located outside the state. Yet from what is known of the plan so far the potential benefits for both UM and the Corcoran could far outweigh the risks involved in such an arrangement, and for that reason it's worth exploring further.

WASHINGTON - Architect Frank O. Gehry has gained worldwide recognition for designing visually striking museums and other public attractions in Minneapolis, Seattle and Bilbao, Spain, where his titanium-clad branch of the Guggenheim Museum helped give the entire region a new image. Yesterday, Gehry moved a step closer to realizing his first major commission in the nation's capital when the Commission of Fine Arts gave unanimous approval to his preliminary design for a metal-clad addition to the Corcoran Gallery of Art and its affiliate, the Corcoran College of Art and Design.

Medieval family day Celebrate the life and legacy of French heroine Joan of Arc at the Medieval Merriment Family Day and Open House on Saturday at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. Visitors can step inside the world of medieval Europe at the all-day event, presented as part of the Joan of Arc exhibit, which runs through Jan. 21. Dancing, storytelling, magic shows, musical performances, art-making workshops, gallery talks and more will be part of the merry celebration honoring the woman who led the French army to victory against England in the 15th century.

The pictures taken by Dorothea Lange and other Farm Security Administration photographers during the 1930s have become iconic images of Depression-era America. In the Soviet Union during the same period, photographers pictured the collectivization of farms and industry."Propaganda and Dreams: Photographing the 1930s in the USSR and the US," an exhibition at Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art that runs through Oct. 3, compares these two remarkable bodies of photographic work for the first time.

Pictures for America In "Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People," Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art presents the first comprehensive exhibit of the artist's work since his death in 1978, including more than 70 oil paintings and all 322 of his Saturday Evening Post covers. The Corcoran Gallery of Art is at 500 17th St., N,W., in Washington. Hours are Wednesday-Monday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Tuesdays. Open until 9 p.m. Wednesday-Friday July 1-Sept. 1. Tickets are $10 adults, $8 seniors and students, $4 children under 12 weekdays; $12 adults, $10 seniors and students, $4 children under 12 weekends.

Leave aside for the moment whether Annie Leibovitz is a great artist and focus instead on what she undoubtedly is: a terrific celebrity portrait photographer - maybe, in the post-Richard Avedon era, the best there is. After seeing Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005, the 15-year retrospective of Leibovitz's commercial and personal work that opens today at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, I've got to confess I'm tired of hearing people...

Ansel Adams didn't invent the idea of the heroic American West, though he was certainly the 20th century's most persuasive photographic interpreter of it. The grand vistas of pristine wilderness that Adams recorded in his monumental landscapes of rugged mountain ranges and stands of virgin forest are among the most instantly recognizable images in all American art, and they made Adams famous even among people who knew little about photography or art....

Modern love If you're a modern-art lover, you'll want to visit the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. On display now through July 29, the exhibit Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939 presents about 400 works of modern art, architecture, graphic and product designs created during the first half of the 20th century. Works by Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Piet Mondrian, Frank Lloyd Wright and many other artists, architects and designers will be featured at the exhibit, which is the largest of its kind ever presented in the United States.

Mozart's birthday The lowdown -- Tomorrow is the 250th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an anniversary being marked around the world. The National Symphony Orchestra is doing its part by offering a semi-staged presentation of one of his earliest operatic successes, The Abduction from the Seraglio. The comic plot involves a Spanish nobleman planning to free his beloved, who has been enslaved in the Turkish harem of Pasha Selim, and it's all set to brilliantly colored music. Leonard Slatkin conducts these performances, which feature an unlikely choice in the speaking role of the Pasha -- ABC's veteran newsman Sam Donaldson.

There are two schools of thought about museum design in America today. One is that a museum should be a passive container for the art collection on display inside. The second is that a museum should be an integral part of the collection - perhaps even its most important work. A new exhibit about the museums designed by architect and artist Frank O. Gehry shows why his buildings consistently fall into the second category - and why Gehry has received worldwide acclaim for creating them.

IT WAS "the first sniper-free weekend in a month," the goofy radio disc jockey exclaimed, and I cringed as I maneuvered the van onto the highway and headed toward Washington. He was urging his teen-age listeners to get out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather, as well as stressing the fact that they were no longer in danger of being picked off by a roving gunman. Sheesh, I thought. What a way to put it. Nonetheless, that's exactly what I was doing. I had enticed my 16-year-old daughter and her friend into a field trip to the Corcoran Gallery of Art to see Judith Leiber's exotic collection of purses - rhinestone-encrusted designs of startling imagination.

Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art presents "To Conserve a Legacy," an extraordinary selection of American paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and sculpture from the collections of historically black colleges and universities, beginning Saturday. Artists represented include Aaron Douglas, Arthur Dove, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz.The project, organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art and the Studio Museum of Harlem, was developed to conserve, document and present more than 150 works of art owned by Clark Atlanta University, Fisk University, Hampton University, Howard University, North Carolina Central University and Tuskegee University.

In the year since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there has been an outpouring of images expressing the nation's shock and grief over the tragedy. In works ranging from photographs, paintings, drawings and sculptures to performances, installations and dedicated Web sites, artists and ordinary people alike have mobilized their creative energies to memorialize the victims and help heal the nation's wounds. But with the attacks still fresh in the public's mind, can these efforts truly live up to the experience?