Renwick Gallery

Renwick Gallery Review

The Renwick Gallery is a luscious French Second Empire-style mansion across the street from the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. But even with such lofty neighbors, this fancy-gingerbread house, which has the words dedicated to art engraved above the entrance, is still the most appealing architecture on the block. Designed by James Renwick in 1859 to hold the art collection of Washington merchant and banker William Wilson Corcoran, the building today is a branch of Smithsonian American Art Museum, housing the museum's collection of decorative art and crafts. The building's interior matches the architecture—much red velvet and gold trim—but the exquisitely crafted works on display have a modern and witty edge. Larry Fuente's 1988 sculpture Game Fish is a marlin fashioned entirely out of vintage toys—Superman and Gumby are represented, as well as dice, yo-yos, and dominoes. Best of all is Kim Schahman's 1955 Bureau of Bureaucracy: a beautifully crafted wooden cabinet full of cupboards to nowhere, bottomless drawers, drawers within drawers, hidden compartments, and more. This wonderful metaphor for the labyrinthine workings of government is appropriately set in a room with a view to the Executive Office Building, providing the perfect tongue-in-cheek commentary to the activities within. The Grand Salon houses a newly opened permanent collection of landscapes, portraits and allegorical works.