China Doll Restaurant, Washington DC Giclée Art Print (Multi-size options)

NOTE: Please allow two weeks to ship.

China Doll - 627 H Street NW Chinatown Washington DC, 1988

Part of a collaboration with DC photographer, Michael Horsley! Michael documented crucial scenes of Washington DC in the 80's and beyond. His images of bygone, dirty-gritty DC have been a major source of inspiration in my own art so I was more than pleased when he agreed to let me do my own colorization to some of his iconic photos. Some of these subjects are still extant and some are long-gone, but all serve to tell a story of our Nation's Capital from a street level. In Michael's own words:

“I would wander the streets, alleyways, taking photographs of things that looked like they were in transition, or they were from another time and they were still kind of hanging on. No one really went downtown after 5 o’clock. Washington’s old retail core was dying and there was little to no nightlife. The city I portray is the city I saw at a moment in its eventful history; it is the city that I made my own.

I don’t view my photographs simply as historical documents or nostalgic time capsules. They are a collective memory of reality of a certain time. It is too easy to look at images and fixate on the past because things are different now, but when I took these images they were very much real right in front of me and that reality continues to exist as it was. However, what has been depicted is very much a subjective reality based on conscious and unconscious choices, so the environment that I captured is a personal city.

This façade is an iconic vitrolite 1930’s-1950’s façade (I am sure someone will correct me on the dates or the actual material. It doesn’t matter. There was another Chinese restaurant (the Yenching Palace) that had a similar type of material on the front. There is no mystery in this image regarding the changes in Chinatown even in 1988. The China Inn next door was newer cleaner but also sterile and had no mojo. Look and the type face of the China Inn compared to the China Doll. One has a Germanic gothic script and the other a clean unique font. Also I love the 'porthole' shaped windows on the China Doll. Lastly there is a dignity to the China Doll holding out as long as possible from the waves of gentrification that were on the horizon."

This is printed via Giclée, a high end archival printing process that layers inks in a similar fashion to screening. The colors POP and the image is very sharp!

Paper stock is Moab Entrada Rag Natural - a warm white, 100% cotton, slightly textured, smooth fine art surface. All available options are standard frame sizes found at your local craft store, frame shop or IKEA! (frame NOT included)