A new sculpture garden will be on display at Fort Hunt’s River Farm until late October.
The sculpture garden installation was initially showcased at a gala for the American Horticultural Society at River Farm on Sept. 30 and will remain on the site until Oct. 20, exhibit curator Nepenthe Gallery said in a release.
The new installation contains 14 large-scale works from a variety of artists, according to the release:
This wildly talented group of artists includes Villagers in India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in conjunction with “The Great Elephant Migration Project,” Kevin Carman (Ventura, CA), David Turner (Onancock, VA), Vadim Kharchenko (Ukrainian), Dorothy Gillespie (American 1920-2012), Brandon Reese (Oklahoma City, OK), Staci Katsias (Norfolk, VA), Michael Alfano (Hopkinton, MA), and Charles Smith (American 1936-2023).
The exhibit is open to the public free of charge, but donations to River Farm are appreciated. The sculpture garden is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Any sculptures that haven’t sold will return to Nepenthe Gallery when the temporary exhibit closes.
“It has been such a joy to curate this special exhibit — from visiting the artists all across the country and picking up their sculptures to working with everyone at AHS to bring this project to life at River Farm,” Nepenthe Gallery owner Carrie Garland said in the release. “Sculpture is such a dynamic medium and brings boundless energy to a space. Honestly, this experience has been exhilarating!”
According to Nepenthe Gallery, the sculpture garden pop-up is the first art installation of its kind to appear at River Farm.
Once part of the farmland owned by George Washington, River Farm has hosted the American Horticultural Society’s headquarters since 1973. The organization explored selling the 27-acre property in 2020 to address financial challenges, but a community campaign to preserve the farm as a publicly accessible resource ultimately convinced new AHS leaders to retain and reopen the site.
