Art Lover’s: Washington, DC

Explore Washington, DC, with the MAG Council this spring! The District of Columbia spans sixty-eight square miles and boasts more than 160 monuments and memorials, dozens of museums, libraries, and theaters, and countless festivals and street fairs. Once touted as “The American Rome,” the city’s gridded streets are graced by grand facades and animated by the energy of seasoned politicians, bright-eyed students, and everyone in between.

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: MEDIUM. The trip will spend considerable time in museums and will require being able to be on your feet for extended periods of time, walking for 15 minutes or more and using stairs. The trip is not suitable for those who have mobility problems.

Trip Description

Our program begins in Washington, DC, where the group will arrive and make their own way to the Royal Sonesta Washington DC Dupont Circle. Tucked inside the cosmopolitan Dupont Circle neighborhood, this boutique hotel offers a prime location within minutes of the Phillips Collection, the White House, and Embassy Row.

On our first afternoon use public transportation to get to the National Gallery of Art for a private tour. The Gallery’s extensive collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas. There will be a chance to explore the Sculpture Garden which features works by major artists including Chagall, Miró, Calder and Lichtenstein Planted with perennials, ground covers, shrubs, and flowering trees, the mature landscape design offers a verdant setting for art.

End the day with a simple dinner at a local Italian restaurant before heading out after dark to see the iconic monuments of Washington, DC, lit up for the night. This evening tour takes you on a scenic ride past the Capitol, the Washington Monument, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and other sites. Seeing the monuments at night is always a memorable experience no matter how often you’ve seen them! Return to the hotel on public transportation.

Begin our second day with a docent guided visit of the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, and the building itself is a work of art, with a beautiful, intricate reading room and other fine architectural details. Founded in 1800, the library is the United States’ oldest federal cultural institution. Its collections contain approximately 173 million items, and it has more than 3,000 employees. Its “collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages.”

After enjoying lunch on your own, we have arranged a very special visit to the Phillips Collection where Chief Curator Elsa Smithgall will lead the group on a private tour though the museum’s Bonnard’s Worlds exhibit. The exhibit will reunite some of the artist’s most celebrated works spanning his entire career from museums across Europe and the United States, as well as many less-exhibited works drawn from private collections worldwide. Governed neither by chronology nor geography, but by measures of intimacy, the exhibition will transport the visitor from the larger realms in which Bonnard lived—the landscapes of Paris, Normandy, and the south of France—to the most intimate interior spaces of his dwellings and his thoughts. Also meeting the group will be our former MAG Director, Dr. Jonathan P. Binstock, who was appointed Vradenburg Director and CEO of the Philipps Collection in March of 2023. Enjoy a free evening with an optional excursion to see Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center.

Our final day begins with a guided walking tour of Embassy Row. Gilded Age opulent mansions and grand embassies line the streets of one of Washington, DC’s most fashionable neighborhoods—Dupont Circle. As we stroll along Embassy Row, learn about the architecture, history, stories and scandals that helped shape the Nation.

Continue on to enjoy a docent led tour of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The National Museum of Women in the Arts advocates for better representation of women artists and serves as a vital center for thoughtful leadership, community engagement, and social change. The museum’s collections feature more than 5,500 works from the 16th century to today, arguably the first museum of contemporary art in the United States, the Museum is one of the most dynamic major art institutions in America. After the docent tour there will be time to explore the museum further on your own. Enjoy a farewell dinner with the group this evening.

The following day make your own way to the airport for return flights home. It will be possible to arrive early or stay later in Washington, DC—please feel free to request hotel rates if you would like to stay at the Royal Sonesta Washington DC Dupont Circle.

Our ART LOVER’S tours are organized and sponsored by the MAG Council to benefit MAG and are open to all interested travelers.

For a detailed, full itinerary or more information, email Michelle Turner at mt1@rochester.rr.com.

For questions or assistance, please contact the MAG Council at magcouncil@mag.rochester.edu or 585.276.8910.

Anyone unable to attend a MAG Council Art Tour must make their request for a refund by contacting the MAG Council Office prior to the event registration deadline. For international/overnight tour refunds, the policy of the managing travel agency will take precedence. 

If it is necessary for the MAG Council to cancel an Art Tour, all payments made will be refunded in full.

The Memorial Art Gallery’s tour operator, Distant Horizons, is a California Seller of Travel (CST #2046776-40) and a participant in the California Travel Restitution Fund. Information regarding the rights of California residents to make a claim may be found at tcrcinfo.org. California law requires certain sellers of travel to have a trust account or bond. Distant Horizons has a trust account.