Please take the time to visit the links below to learn more about the history of Dumbarton House and to explore galleries and exhibitions in the greater D.C. area that are dedicated to educating the public on Black arts and cultures across hemispheres.
To Visit: Black Owned Art Galleries in D.C.
Mehari Sequar Gallery
Located at 1402 H St. NE, Washington, DC 20002, Mehari Sequar Gallery is an independent gallery dedicated to vocalizing narratives of the African Diaspora through contemporary art. The gallery highlights a range of established, emerging, and international artists who explore conceptual approaches across a variety of mediums. As a hub, the Mehari Sequar Gallery aids artists and scholars to interrogate the influence of Black arts and culture across the globe.
11:Eleven Gallery
Located at 10 Florida Ave NW, Washington D.C, 20001, 11:Eleven Gallery specializes in UK and contemporary art. The gallery is an homage to owner, director, and curator, Nicola Charles’s London roots and exhibits art from established and emerging contemporary artists. She states that “art should be inclusive to all and exclusive to none.” Such inclusivity as at the heart of 11:Eleven’s mission.
To View: Afro-Atlantic Histories
Currently on view at the National Gallery of Art, Afro-Atlantic Histories exhibits more than 400 works by more than 200 artists from the 16th to the 21st Century to express and examine the “ebbs and flows” between Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe. Instead of a singular history, Histories are plural and enable the exhibition to deliver a myriad of narratives that inserts diverse and marginalized characters within the art-historical canon. Distinctly exhibited in the West Building, Afro-Atlantic Histories presents a challenge that disrupts the strict discipline of the art historical canon. The centrality of Western art museums and institutions such as the National Gallery of Art hinges on establishing their roots within the canonical European masters and geniuses who were primarily white and male. Afro-Atlantic Histories directly severs that narrative and, in opposition, begs the cannon and society to confront the marginalized, forgotten, and discriminated pasts and presents.
To Read: "Representations of Slavery in Washington, D.C.: A Case Study on Presenting Slavery at Dumbarton House."
Christopher Charles Celauro’s Masters Thesis, explores the representation of slavery in house museums. The thesis includes an overview of urban slavery in D.C., a critique of representations of slavery in museums, analyses of other D.C. historic houses, and includes a chapter on Dumbarton House. Celauro argues a similar conclusion as our group in which Dumbarton House “trivializes the significance of slavery to the overall functioning of the house as an urban farm during the Federal period” (37). Explore this work in depth below.