Whitlow's Restaurant, Washington DC Giclée Art Print (Multi-size options)

NOTE: Please allow two weeks to ship.

Whitlow’s - 11th and E Street NW Washington DC, 7/1988

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I don’t view my photographs simply as historical documents or nostalgic time capsules.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.

By the time I took this image Whitlow’s was one of the few restaurants in that area of downtown open at night. There was also the Pink Elephant room in the Hotel Harrington across the street. Places like Whitlow’s reminded me of Edward Hopper’s painting 'The Nightowls'. It was a rough and tumble working persons luncheonette/bar for cheap beers and greasy food. Another vitrolite façade that was impossible to pry off after the restaurant went out of business and sat vacant for years. The whole 11th street block was abandoned for a very long time. I must have taken 100’s of photos of Whitlow’s trying to capture the essence of what I experienced, but I never could quite pin it down."

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)