To celebrate our 60th anniversary this year, The Art League has a slate of activities planned, including special events and exhibits. We also took the opportunity to dust off six decades of Art League archives, an exercise that not only reminded us how much we’ve grown, but turned up lots of strange and interesting tidbits.

Earlier this month, we debuted the fruit of our labors: the second floor of the Torpedo Factory is now a visual tour of The Art League’s growth, in the form of a huge timeline. Come in and see it!

Some of the highlights:

• the first-ever Art League exhibit, held in a Barnes & Kimel furniture store
• the first permanent gallery space in the Parkington Shopping Center (today’s Ballston Common Mall)
• classes with famous Washington Color School painters like Gene Davis, Paul Reed, Lou Stovall, and Leon Berkowitz
• spearheading the creation of the Torpedo Factory Art Center
  
• the first computer, travel workshop, art camp, Art on the Rocks, and more!

Of course, there wasn’t room for every interesting item from the archives, so you can expect to see more bonus facts here on our blog and our Facebook page throughout the year.

Our 60th anniversary timeline is reproduced below. Click here to start and then you can use your arrow keys to scroll through each panel.

Have an Art League memory to share? Reminisce with us here via the contact form, and we’ll compile the community’s memories as we go through the year.