From 2019 to 2022, Arlington Arts visiting artist Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. worked to bring awareness to Arlington’s civil rights history. Mr. Kennedy made seven letter pressed cards to honor the 60th anniversary of the seven lunch counter sit-ins that took place in Arlington between June 9-22, 1960. The sit-ins were peaceful protests that challenged widespread segregation policies. In 2021, to pay tribute to this history, Arlington Arts placed a stand at many of the original sit-in locations where commemorative letter pressed cards could be collected.

In 2022, Mr. Kennedy recreated the letter-pressed cards into a portfolio of larger prints on archival paper. One set of prints is currently on view at Courthouse Library, 2100 Clarendon Blvd, Arlington, VA 22201. Each print showcases a quote from a participant at each of the seven sit-in locations.

Mr. Kennedy creates prints, posters and postcards from handset wood and metal type, oil-based inks, and eco-friendly chipboard. Much of his work is inspired by proverbs, sayings, and quotes that are significant to the place where he is working.

Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.’s Arlington’s Lunch Counter Sit-ins commemorative print portfolio (2019-2022) are in the Library of Congress and the Center for Local History, Arlington Public Library’s public collections.

The archival fine art photograph, titled “North Lincoln Street, Arlington, Virginia,” by Jason Horowitz is on view at Central Library, 2nd floor.

Arlington-based fine art photographer Jason Horowitz is always looking for ways to see things in a new way. From medium format black and white to abstracted still-life images of food to close-ups of people in the studio, Horowitz loves to explore ways to engage with and interpret the world through photography. Over the past few years, he has focused on creating a series of large scale pictures using the Google Photo Sphere/Street View app to playfully bend space and time to create abstracted 360° views that reinterpret reality and are filled with a dizzying sense of wonder and mystery.

Horowitz’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. He has been the recipient of several grants including an Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Individual Fellowship, and a Franz and Virginia Bader Fund Grant.

Artist: Lisa Fedon

Installed: 1999 – 2000
Materials: Bronze plate, perforated plate, and rod anchored into a brick wall, finished with tortoise-shell patina

On permanent display at Central Library.

The sculpture was fabricated of bronze (plate, perforated plate, and rod). The finish is dark tortoise shell patina. All of the work was completed at Ms. Fedon’s studio in Pennsylvania and then transported to Arlington. The sections are anchored into the brick walls.

The artist, Lisa Fedon of Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, was chosen through a competitive process by a jury of community representatives, local artists, and staff from the Library and the Public Art section of the Arlington County Cultural Affairs Division.

In her design, Ms. Fedon combined images taken by local high school photography students with her own photographic record of “life in Arlington.” The sculpture is funded by monies raised raised in the Campaign for Excellence, by the Friends of the Arlington Public Library, and by other contributions.

Learn more about this piece from Arlington Public Art.

Artist: Alfred Ratinoff

Installed: 2000
Materials: Ceramic Tile

Created with ArtsWork students Jerryl Chandler, Brenda Keating, Julia Siple, Donna Xizo, Jerome Young and Jeannette Yue.

Permanently installed at the Columbia Pike Branch Library.

ArtsWork was a summer program for teens coordinated by Arlington Cultural Affairs from 2000 – 2003.

 

Artists: Arlington Teens

Each year the Central Library hosts the Regional Scholastic Art Awards. After the show, we buy one piece of art for the Young Adult Room collection.

 

From the Abbey Mausoleum to Westover

Artist: Louis Comfort Tiffany

Installed: 2010
Created: 1930s, restored 2004
Material: Leaded stained glass

 

Permanently installed at the Westover Branch Library in 2010.

Many thanks to Cultural Affairs’ Public Art Program for helping the Library to procure the windows, as well as the previously installed granite finial. We hope that our patrons will enjoy seeing them!

Three other Tiffany windows rescued from the Abbey Mausoleum were installed at the Arlington Arts Center (now the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington) in 2004. From an Arlington County press release:

It was the type of discovery that makes an historian’s heart quicken. Three years ago, Arlington County staff rescued 13 stained glass windows from the Abbey Mausoleum, slated for demolition.

Upon closer examination, Cultural Affairs Division and the Historic Preservation Program staff discovered a signature pane on one of the windows that read “Louis C. Tiffany, NY” which appears to be authentic, based upon typical examples Tiffany’s signature from the period and consultation with several stained glass experts.

Today, three windows have been restored to their original beauty and installed at the Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd.

Twelve of the 13 original mausoleum’s windows had a simple geometric/floral composition. The 13th and largest window is religious themed, portraying Christ extending his hand in benediction. It is this window which contains the signature pane, which confirms, at minimum, this panel’s authenticity to the degree possible absent written documentation of the commission.

The window is dedicated to E. St. Clair Thompson, a wealthy Mason who was interred at the Abbey Mausoleum in 1933, and likely commissioned by his family, possibly with the rest of the geometric windows, in memoriam. The panel (as well as all the windows when originally removed from the Mausoleum in 2001) is severely damaged from years of vandalism and neglect and in storage until an appropriate mode of deaccessioning it may be determined.

The restoration and expansion of the historic Maury School for the Arlington Arts Center provided the windows with a new home. Three geometric windows were selected for restoration and installation at the Center and were successfully repaired with the use of matching glass fragments from the other Mausoleum windows that were damaged beyond repair. The windows now appear much as they did when they were first installed at the Abbey Mausoleum decades ago.

About Abbey Mausoleum
Built on a hillside overlooking Arlington Cemetery and the Potomac River in 1924, the Abbey Mausoleum was once a grand final resting-place for Washington, DC’s elite. The mausoleum, built by the United States Mausoleum Company from 1924 to 1926, was an impressive Romanesque style structure that neighbored Arlington National Cemetery and in 1942 was included within the grounds of Henderson Hall, the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters.

With its granite exterior, marble interior, and stained glass windows, the building was said to have resembled a cathedral. With the bankruptcy of the managing Abbey Mausoleum Corporation in the 1950s, the building fell victim to vandalism and neglect.

In 2000, the U.S. Navy gained ownership of the site, which it wished to redevelop. Based upon the mausoleum’s poor condition, the Navy decided to tear it down. They then assumed the enormous task of contacting the families of those interred at the mausoleum in order to relocate remains, a process which took several years. Arlington County was given the opportunity to salvage architectural features from the historic building, including the Tiffany windows.

Learn more from Arlington Public Art.

 

Finial Finds a New Home in Westover

Artist: Louis Comfort Tiffany

Installed: 2010
Created: 1930s, restored 2004
Materials: Granite.

Permanently installed outside the Westover Branch Library.

What’s a finial? In architecture, it’s an ornament (carved in stone or wood, or cast in plaster) that is placed at the top of an arch. Ours was originally part of the old Abbey Mausoleum in Arlington.

Many thanks to Cultural Affairs’ Public Art Program for helping the Library to procure the finial, as well as the Tiffany windows.

 

About Abbey Mausoleum

Built on a hillside overlooking Arlington Cemetery and the Potomac River in 1924, the Abbey Mausoleum was once a grand final resting-place for Washington, DC’s elite. The mausoleum, built by the United States Mausoleum Company from 1924 to 1926, was an impressive Romanesque style structure that neighbored Arlington National Cemetery and in 1942 was included within the grounds of Henderson Hall, the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters.

With its granite exterior, marble interior, and stained glass windows, the building was said to have resembled a cathedral. With the bankruptcy of the managing Abbey Mausoleum Corporation in the 1950s, the building fell victim to vandalism and neglect.

In 2000, the U.S. Navy gained ownership of the site, which it wished to redevelop. Based upon the mausoleum’s poor condition, the Navy decided to tear it down. They then assumed the enormous task of contacting the families of those interred at the mausoleum in order to relocate remains, a process which took several years. Arlington County was given the opportunity to salvage architectural features from the historic building, including the Tiffany windows.