Barbara Fendrick, a Washington art dealer who helped introduce the region to the work of luminaries such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, first by selling prints and drawings that she stored in boxes under her bed, then by opening an elegant Georgetown gallery that became a linchpin of the D.C. art scene for two decades, died Jan. 1 at her home in Chevy Chase, Md. She was 94.
Washington
Barbara Fendrick, one of Washington’s premier art dealers, dies at 94
One of her daughters, Julia Fendrick, confirmed the death but did not give a specific cause.
Through her namesake gallery, Ms. Fendrick organized the first Washington solo shows of artists including Robert Arneson, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Nevelson and Johns, the protean painter, sculptor and printmaker whom she described as her “good-luck artist.” Twenty-one of his etchings and lithographs were featured at the Fendrick Gallery’s opening, in 1970; nearly 20 years later, they were taken out of Ms. Fendrick’s personal collection and used to open the gallery’s short-lived New York branch, in SoHo.
An energetic dealer with an expansive, at times unorthodox approach to art, Ms. Fendrick began selling drawings and prints in 1960 at the suggestion of her husband, Daniel Fendrick, a research official at the State Department. They had four young children, with a fifth to come. Her husband saw a need for more Washington art dealers, and he also was looking for a way to find Ms. Fendrick work outside the home.
He “felt that I was overwhelmed with small children in diapers,” she recalled in a 2007 oral history for the organization ArtTable, “and I better do something.”
Ms. Fendrick had no formal credentials, although she got what she considered a free education in art while working as a docent at the National Gallery. She also had help from a well-connected cousin, the painter and sculptor Irena Baruch Wiley, who introduced her to a friend who was trying to offload a collection of European prints.
Before long, Ms. Fendrick was traveling the country, selling modernist works by Braque, Picasso and Miró and expanding into American art with prints by Josef Albers, Robert Motherwell, Frank Stella and Roy Lichtenstein. She hosted clients at her home, which was filled with antique French furniture and framed prints, as well as a makeshift gallery of art by her children. (“Look at this — it was definitely influenced by a Rouault print we had here,” she told a Washington Post reporter in 1962. “And this one has something of a Picasso we have upstairs.”)
As Ms. Fendrick told it, she opened her gallery in Georgetown after her children got tired of having to finish dinner early and run upstairs, “out of sight, out of mind,” so that she could meet with curators and other clients. But the business remained a family affair: Her husband, a co-owner of the gallery, wrote its monthly newsletter and designed its plexiglass display frames, while her children helped out at openings and receptions, cleaning and cooking and occasionally serving champagne.
Under her direction, the three-story gallery became a showcase for Washington artists such as Sam Gilliam, John Grazier and Andrea Way. It also featured the work of sculptors such as Albert Paley, who gained national recognition for the decorative “Portal Gates” he created for the Renwick Gallery, and spotlighted artists whose mediums were seldom represented in major galleries or museums, such as glass artist Dale Chihuly and furniture makers Wendell Castle and Arthur Cotton Moore.
“I like to do one offbeat show every year,” Ms. Fendrick told the magazine Craft Horizons, looking back on shows such as “The Book as Art,” from 1976, which explored the intersection between writing and painting. The show included work by John Cage, Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, and followed on the success of another unconventional show, “Clay USA,” which the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art deemed “the first major show of contemporary ceramics on the East Coast.”
Asked about her philosophy as a gallerist, Ms. Fendrick said that her mission was simple: “To show the best.” Yet she also suggested that with shows built around mediums such as metal, clay and wood, she had grander ambitions as well.
“I was trying to point out,” she said in the oral history, “that objects can be as interesting and as worthy as a painting.”
The younger of two children, Barbara Johnson Cooper was born in Indianapolis on Dec. 18, 1929. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a Navy lawyer whose job led the family to move to Florida and Washington, where she graduated from Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School.
At 17, she went to Lisbon to live with her cousin John Cooper Wiley, the U.S. ambassador to Portugal, and his wife, Irena, the artist who helped her launch her career as a dealer. Ms. Fendrick affectionately described them as her aunt and uncle and accompanied the couple to their next diplomatic posting, in Tehran.
Irena “taught me how to look,” she said, by taking her to European churches and art museums. Years later, she agreed to be represented by Ms. Fendrick’s gallery.
Ms. Fendrick attended Georgetown University and met her husband when they were both enrolled at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po. They married in 1953 and settled in Chevy Chase a few years later, where Ms. Fendrick began selling art while drawing inspiration from two other prominent women in the art world: Alice Denney, a Washington impresario of the avant-garde, and Tatyana Grosman, a printmaker and publisher who encouraged her interest in fine-art prints.
In addition to her daughter Julia, survivors include four other children, Lila, Peter, Anne-Marie and John Fendrick, and 10 grandchildren. Her husband died in 1992, the year after Ms. Fendrick closed her galleries in Washington and New York amid an economic downturn.
Business was bad, she said, but she was also exhausted by putting on monthly shows. She turned instead to working as an art consultant, appraiser, lecturer and guest curator. “I’m always urging people to please go out and look,” she said in the oral history, “because there’s always something there.”
On a quiet stretch of Des Moines Memorial Drive in South Seattle, the Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a/Latino/a Culture rises like a long‑overdue acknowledgment. Its brick exterior doesn’t shout; it invites. Inside, the rooms hum with the stories of families who crossed borders, harvested fields, organized classrooms, and built communities across Washington state—often without seeing their histories reflected anywhere on a museum wall.
For Rogelio Riojas, founder and CEO of Sea Mar Community Health Centers, the museum is a promise kept. “We wanted to make sure the contributions of Latinos in Washington state are recognized and preserved for future generations,” he told The Seattle Times when the museum opened in 2019. It was a simple statement, but one that captured decades of work—both visible and invisible—by the region’s Latino communities.
Walking through the galleries feels like stepping into a living archive. One of the most arresting sights is a pair of original farmworker cabins, transported from Eastern Washington. Their narrow wooden frames and sparse interiors speak volumes about the migrant families who once slept inside after long days in the fields. The cabins are not replicas or artistic interpretations; they are the real thing, weathered by sun, dust, and time. They anchor the museum’s narrative in the physical realities of labor that shaped the state’s agricultural economy.
Sea Mar describes the museum as “dedicated to sharing the history, struggles, and successes of the Latino community in Washington state,” a mission that plays out in photographs, letters, student newspapers, and oral histories contributed by community members themselves. These aren’t artifacts chosen from afar—they’re family treasures, personal archives, and memories entrusted to the museum so they can live beyond the kitchen tables and shoeboxes where they were once kept.
The story extends beyond the museum walls. Just steps away is the Sea Mar Community Center, a sweeping, light‑filled gathering space designed for celebrations, performances, workshops, and community events. With room for nearly 500 people, a full stage, a movie‑theater‑sized screen, and a catering kitchen, the center was built with one purpose: to give the community a place to see itself, gather, and grow. Sea Mar describes it as “a welcoming space for families, organizations, and community groups to gather, celebrate, and learn,” and on any given weekend, it lives up to that promise.
Together, the museum and community center form a cultural campus—part historical archive, part living room for the region’s Latino communities. Students come to learn about the Chicano activists who reshaped the University of Washington in the late 1960s. Families come to see their own histories reflected in the exhibits. Visitors come to understand a story that has long been present in Washington, even if it wasn’t always visible.
The Sea Mar Museum is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., offering free admission to anyone who walks through its doors. For many, it’s more than a museum—it’s a recognition, a gathering place, and a testament to the people who helped shape the Pacific Northwest.
Preserving Latino History and Community Life in Washington was first published on Washington Latino News (WALN) and republished with permission.
Celebrate Mothers Day with à la carte brunch at Lady Madison featuring seafood, entrées, desserts, and premium beverage options.
Celebrate Mothers Day in sophisticated style at Lady Madison, located inside Le Méridien Washington, DC, The Madison. Join us on Sunday, May 10, 2026, from 12:003:00 PM for an elevated à la carte brunch experience in downtown Washington, DC.
Enjoy a refined selection of chef-driven brunch classics, fresh seafood, seasonal salads, and elegant entrées. Highlights include a Build Your Own Omelette, Crab Benedict with lime hollandaise, Chilled Seafood Trio, and signature mains such as Roasted Rack of Lamb, Cedar Plank Sea Bass, and Marinated New York Strip Loin.
End on a sweet note with classic desserts including Crème Brûlée Cheesecake, Fruit Tart, Strawberry Shortcake, and Passion Fruit Cake.
Enhance your experience with beverage offerings, including bottomless Mimosas and Bloody Marys for $30 with house selections. Piper-Heidsieck Champagne is also available by the glass for $16 or by the bottle for $49.
Reserve on OpenTable:
https://www.opentable.com/booking/experiences-availability?rid=1426987&restref=1426987&experienceId=695240&utm_source=external&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=shared
À La Carte Menu
Les ufs & Brunch
Egg White Frittata $24
spinach, tomato, mushrooms, green onion
Served with pommes de terre rissolées or seasonal fruit
Build Your Own Omelette $24
ham, smoked salmon, vegetables, cheeses (choose up to 3)
Served with pommes de terre rissolées or seasonal fruit
Crab Benedict $24
lime hollandaise, salsa cruda
Served with pommes de terre rissolées or seasonal fruit
Brioche French Toast $17
berry compote, whipped butter, maple syrup
Les Froids & Salades
Chilled Seafood Trio $28
Jonah crab claws, shrimp, cocktail sauce
Spring Berry Salad $17
brie, berries, champagne vinaigrette
Golden & Crimson Beet Salad $18
red wine vinaigrette
Add protein: shrimp, salmon, skirt steak +18 | chicken +16
Les Plats Principaux
Roasted Rack of Lamb $42
mint sauce, huckleberry reduction, sweet potato purée, asparagus
Cedar Plank Sea Bass $49
saffron rice, spring vegetables
New York Strip Loin $42
mushroom sauce, truffle croquette potatoes, haricots verts
Les Desserts $14
Crème Brûlée Cheesecake
Fruit Tart
Strawberry Shortcake
Passion Fruit Cake
4 things to know about the weather:
- Nice Mother’s Day morning
- Shower chance late Sunday
- Morning showers on Monday
- Temperature drop to start the new workweek
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! Mother Nature will give us nice conditions for most of the day on Sunday. Expect sunshine and mild conditions for the first half of the day, then a chance of showers near dinner time.
Monday includes a chance of rain, mainly in the morning, then cooler air settles into the area. Highs go from near 80°on Sund ay to the mid 60s Monday.
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
QuickCast
MOTHER’S DAY:
Mostly sunny
Showers late
Wind: W 5-10 mph
HIGH: Low 80s
MONDAY:
Shower chance early
Partly cloudy afternoon
Wind: W 5-10 mph
HIGH: Mid 60s
TUESDAY:
Sunny
Wind: N 5-10 mph
HIGH: Upper 60s
SUNRISE: 6:00 a.m. SUNSET: 8:09 p.m.
AVERAGE HIGH: 75° AVERAGE LOW: 56°
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
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