Marjorie Phillips painted Night Baseball in 1951, capturing an all American moment that was also so D.C.–the Washington Senators playing the Yankees at Griffith Stadium, a historic ballpark that stood at Georgia Avenue and W Street, NW, until 1965. This summer, the painting joins a selection of work by some 80 artists to tell the story of art in the district beginning in the 1940s. Washington Art Matters: 1940s-1980s is on view at American University’s Katzen Art Center through August 11. When you visit, you’ll recognize other works from the Phillips–Gene Davis’s Black Flowers (1952) and Augustus Vincent Tack’s Time and Timelessness (The Spirit of Creation) (between 1943 and 1944). The exhibition is accompanied by a free lecture series,  co-sponsored by Art Dealers Association of Greater Washington,  which aims to provide attendees with the skills they need to be art collectors themselves.

Marjorie Phillips, Night Baseball, 1951. Oil on canvas, 24 1/4 x 36 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Gift of the artist, 1951 or 1952