Respected curator and gallerist Caitlin Berry has been appointed the inaugural director of the new Irene and Richard Frary Gallery scheduled to open in October at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. Berry will curate and promote the new art gallery’s rotating series of exhibitions exploring the intersection of arts and democracy that will be free and open to the public.
Berry begins her role this month in the lead-up to the official opening of the Frary Gallery on Oct. 23, with its first exhibition, “Art and Graphic Design of the European Avant-Gardes.”
Image caption: Caitlin Berry
Image credit: Will Kirk / Johns Hopkins University
Berry brings a depth of experience working with artistic communities across the museum, commercial, and academic sectors in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Before joining Hopkins, she was the inaugural director of the Rubell Museum DC, where she oversaw the launch of the new museum and established it as a hub for community and conversation through cutting-edge programming and partnerships. Her work included “Style Sessions,” a series developed with The Washington Post that featured artists and filmmakers such as Mickalene Thomas, Ava DuVernay, and Christopher Nolan in curated public talks.
“Caitlin brings creativity, passion, and a deep knowledge of the D.C. arts community that we know will help establish the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery and the Hopkins Bloomberg Center as an essential arts and culture destination for everyone on Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Cybele Bjorklund, executive director of the Hopkins Bloomberg Center. “Starting this fall, we will begin offering engaging visual arts exhibitions at the Frary Gallery alongside Peabody Institute performances and other innovative humanities programming that will foster discovery and dialogue across a range of perspectives.”
Before the Rubell Museum DC, Caitlin was director of the Cody Gallery at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, and ran an independent art advisory with international clients. Her experience in commercial art includes Hemphill Artworks, a leading art gallery in D.C. with a focus on local emerging, mid-career, and established artists and the secondary market. Specializing in the Washington Color School, Mid-Century African American Art, and Contemporary Art, Berry has also held positions at Eykyn Maclean and Cristin Tierney Gallery in New York.
“As someone who believes in using the arts as an access point to have meaningful conversations, I am excited to join a D.C. institution that is dedicated to doing just that,” Berry said. “I look forward to welcoming our neighbors in D.C, Baltimore, and the greater Hopkins community to the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery, to discover and engage with exhibitions and programs at the intersection of arts and democracy. The gallery’s proximity to incredible institutions on the National Mall also offers unlimited opportunities for the role that the visual arts can play at the heart of our nation’s capital.”
At the Cody Gallery, Berry curated exhibitions including “Nekisha Durrett: Magnolia” and “Dave Eassa: People and Places You Don’t Know How to Know;” and co-curated “Jennie Lea Knight: Women of Jefferson Place,” alongside John Anderson and Meaghan Kent. At Culture House DC, she independently curated “Eric Uhlir: Before, After and In Between” and “Joseph Shetler: Pursuit of Nothing.” A champion of local artists, Berry curated the 2019 and co-curated the 2020 editions of Art Night, an annual exhibition and fundraiser to support the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA). She holds a post baccalaureate degree in Gallery Management and a B.A. in Communication and Art History from Wake Forest University.
More about the Irene and Richard Frary Gallery
The 1,000-square-foot Irene and Richard Frary Gallery, designed by Rockwell Group, will present rotating exhibitions drawn from the university’s collections and special exhibitions in partnership with leading museums and collections. The inaugural exhibition “Art and Graphic Design of the European Avant-Gardes” will open Oct. 23 and be on view through Feb. 21, with rare books, prints, photographs, and ephemera from artists who defined some of the most influential artistic movements of the 20th century, including Futurism, Dadaism, Suprematism, Constructivism, and Surrealism.
The exhibition draws from the rarely seen private collection of art and literature assembled by Irene and Richard Frary and includes many recent gifts from the collection to the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries. It will feature 75 works from artists including El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Liubov Popova, Aleksandr Rodchenko, and more—many of which have never been on view in North America. The exhibition pairs abstract works across geographic boundaries, linguistic differences, and urban and periphery areas to demonstrate the international exchange of ideas among European avant-garde artists who helped define new visual vocabularies in response to a world transformed by the modern, post-war age.