Alexandria, VA – Dynamo art impresario and curator of the Women Artists of the DMV, Lenny Campello continues to expand this landmark survey exhibition. The January 10 opening at Falls Church Arts with a packed crowd of enthusiastic art aficionados marks its 19th gallery venue. The line to view the newest additions to the archive of Washington-area fabulous female artistry went out the building and onto the sidewalk.
The indefatigable Campello told the blockbuster audience that pieces by 400 women out of the over 4,000 women who submitted applications have been shown since the inaugural exhibit in August of 2025. Women earn 70 percent of the visual art degrees in the US while comprising less than half the working artists in the US. Yet they continue to be underrepresented in collections and exhibitions at major galleries and museums across the country, if not the world.
According to Lenny Campello that’s a chasmic gender gap of 11 percent. Susan Fisher Sterling, Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, says, “People in the art world want to think we are achieving parity more quickly than we are.” Despite Ms. Sterling’s appreciation that the numbers don’t lie, she has, to Mr. Campello’s dismay, been largely disinterested and unsupportive of his SHEroic undertaking.
The Zebra actually has two writers currently honored to be exhibiting in the Women Artists of the DMV show in Falls Church. Nina Tisara, who writes the Memories and Musings monthly column, has her mosaic Dancing Vines on view. Arts Editor and columnist Kelly MacConomy’s photograph Kiss the Sky is also hanging among the amazing array of female artistry.
Photos Steve Halperson (above) and Kelly MacConomy (below).
These sixty vibrantly diverse works of art, expressed across a wide spectrum of media, deftly convey the empowerment of women in the creative process. Campello, who owned the Fraser Gallery in Georgetown and Bethesda, masterfully interplays the eclectic nuance of emerging artists juxtaposed with mid-career veterans. As the underpinning theme is singularly “art by women,” each of his 19 art exhibits have unequivocally shown without a doubt that female art is fabulous!
The exhibit is on view at 700-B West Broad St. (Route 7), Falls Church, VA, through February 22, 2026 – with the People’s Choice Award announced February 7. Closed Mondays and admission is free.
ROBERT F. MURRAY: A TRIBUTE
Art NewZ regrets to report the passing of an Alexandria art legend. Robert Francis Murray, art dealer, artist, author, founder of the von Brahler, Ltd. Gallery in Old Town and Georgetown, as well as a former art columnist for The Zebra, passed away last month at 90. Bob was a veritable modern-day Renaissance man. His tireless capacity for art promotion was shadowed only by his generosity and perspicacious nature.
Known for his year-round George Hamilton tan – and smile – Bob was ever the charmer.
He represented many of the leading artists of the DMV: José Salazar, Paul Wunderlich, Arlen Kankanian, Yuri Kokoyanin, Otari Shiuk, and many other Russian and Eastern Bloc-born artists. Painting still lifes while wheeling and dealing in art well past even a protracted retirement age, Bob continued to curate shows at River Farm and partnered with Nepenthe Gallery in Alexandria as recently as this past year.
Mentioned in his obituary were quotes from Zebra reviews of his own oftentimes “whimsical works”: “Murray’s use of color is understated, cautious, yielding to the movement so as not to upstage the vibrant, kinetic expression of the brushwork. Together they conjure magic.”
Again, quoting The Zebra in a recent tribute, “Bob was more than an art impresario; he’s the real deal in a town that has seen established Washington art glitterati fade to near extinction.”
Farewell to a man who was truly one-of-a-kind and not soon forgotten. You are missed, Bob.
