Alice Pike Barney: Bringing Culture to the Capital

Close
Usage Conditions Apply
The Smithsonian Institution Archives welcomes personal and educational use of its collections unless otherwise noted. For commercial uses, please contact photos@si.edu.
Print
 

Summary

Article portrays the life of Alice Pike Barney (1857-1931), who was not only a wealthy patroness of the arts in Washington, D.C., but one of its practitioners through her own art and theater projects. Barney was viewed as a lively and colorful character in her day; the author comments that the word "unusual" was the adjective most often used by the press when writing stories about her. She was a recognized artist whose paintings are in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) and her Washington home, Studio House, was bequeathed to the Smithsonian. Barney sought to broaden culture and the arts beyond Washington's elite to the general public and was instrumental in the 1917 founding the first federally funded theater in the nation, the National Sylvan Theater on the Washington Monument grounds.

Subject

  • Barney, Alice Pike 1857-1931
  • National Sylvan Theater
  • National Museum of American Art (U.S.)
  • Barney Studio House (Washington, D.C.)
  • Smithsonian American Art Museum

Category

Smithsonian Institution History Bibliography

Notes

Sixteen photographs accompany the article.

Contained within

Washington History Vol. 2, No. 1 (Journal)

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu

Date

Spring 1990

Topic

Biography

Physical description

pp. 68-89

Full Record

View Full Record