Joan Danziger brings her magical art to the American University Museum in first career retrospective

Joan Danziger in her studio. Photo by Neil Greentree.

WASHINGTON, DC.— Experience 60 years of imaginative artistry that is both whimsical and unsettling in “The Magical World of Joan Danziger,” premiering Feb. 7, 2026 at American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, D.C. The exhibition is the first career retrospective for Danziger, who is actively producing art at the age of 91. Concurrent exhibition “Ravens: Spirits of the Sky” features her most recent works, 24 large glass and metal raven sculptures.

Joan Danziger (b. 1934), “Amethyst Raven with Frog,” 2024. Glass and metal, 42 x 22 x 26 in.

Danziger has been a working artist since the 1960s. The retrospective traces her evolution from an abstract painter to a multimedia artist who transforms her creations into three-dimensional sculptures. More than 100 works, including 40 mixed media sculptures and 25 works on paper and canvas, show the breadth and depth of her artistic journey.

“Joan Danziger’s imagination inhabits a surreal world of myth and magic,” explained Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. “This retrospective invites us into her beguiling garden of delights, where her beautifully crafted imaginings are metaphors for our contemplation.”

“Space Age,” a 1963 work of ink on paper, is the earliest artwork in the exhibition and shows early influence by surrealists and 15th-century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. Over the decades, she evolved into a sculptor and glass artist who imbues her work with secret meanings from world religions, history and mythology. Her works range from the life-sized, animal instrumentalists “Sunshine Girl’s Love Band” (2010) to an unsettling collection of 30 glass and wire frame beetles that crawl the walls of the gallery.

Joan Danziger (b. 1934), “Golden Prince,” 2017. Metal, glass, brass wire, 39 x 53 x 25 in.

“I use the element of scale in my sculptures to give them an impact and presence that the three-dimensional figures are larger than life,” Danziger said.

“Artists are like priests and prophets in mediating between realms,” explained Ori Z. Soltes, author, curator and professor at Georgetown University. “Joan Danziger is the consummate artist, whose unique visual vocabulary, sweeping across decades of creativity, mediates between painting and sculpture, between glowing pigments and shades of grey, between plaster and metal and glass, and most uniquely, between the human and animal realms — with works both visually delightful and profoundly thought-provoking.”

Joan Danziger (b. 1934), “Ethelred’s Throne,” 1977. Wood, wire and CelluClay, 64 x 35 x 31 in.

Danziger, who works daily in her studio, will turn 92 on the last day of the exhibition.

Running concurrently, “Ravens: Spirits of the Sky” will transform the long gallery within the museum into an aviary. Featuring never-before-exhibited artworks, the exhibition showcases sculptures inspired by the raven’s appearance in world mythology. The birds are captured in various poses, including flight, with four of the sculptures suspended from the ceiling.

Danziger’s newest creations demonstrate her desire to continually evolve as an artist. The use of glass in her sculptures evokes memories of Danziger’s days as a painter, with the jewel-like colors of glass shards transforming her work as they are attached to the wire. The vibrantly hued glass, woven into the armature, creates an abstract counterpoint to the modeled wire forms. Danziger uses the sharp edges of colored glass to evoke the feathers of the birds so revered in mythologies from many lands. The metal armatures shape jagged, colorful glass into birds that are red, green, deep blue and iridescent so that the gallery dazzles in a kaleidoscopic display. The ravens, at times mere suggestions of the actual creatures, present as knowing beings that harbor an ancient spirit that is more than human.

Joan Danziger (b. 1934). “Magical World,” 1963. Ink on paper, 12 x 18 in.

“They evoke mysterious and secret worlds, drawing upon my fascination with dream imagery and metamorphosis,” Danziger said. “The use of animal imagery as a metaphorical subject has great potency for me. I use the tradition of animal images in literature, art and even popular culture to reveal truths about the world.”

Danziger’s art is held in museums and private collections across the country, and she has installed numerous public commissions. Over the years, Danziger’s art has also been featured in more than two dozen solo shows and even more group exhibitions. “Inside the Underworld: Beetle Magic” featured 60 of her glass and metal beetle sculptures at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center and “Mythic Landscapes,” presented at Osuna Gallery in Washington, D.C., focused on her tree sculptures. Her dazzling glass and metal horse sculptures were on exhibit during “Cantor and Crawl” at the National Sporting Library and Museum in Middelburg, Virginia.

The exhibitions and the American University Museum are free and open to the public. Both exhibitions will be on view through June 17, 2026.

For more than 60 years, Washington, D.C.-based artist Joan Danziger has beguiled audiences with her artworks born of mythology, imagination and fantasy. As an artist, she has metamorphosized from a painter to a sculptor to a glass artist. Danziger began her career as an abstract painter and the dramatic hues in her paintings fed directly into painted sculptures — from vivid, surreal flowers in vases resting on pigmented patterned, handwoven carpets to large colorful figures of acrobats and musicians, to brilliantly hued figures riding bicycles with parrots.

Her public commissions can be seen along the Eastern Seaboard in Maryland, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. She has exhibited in museums from New York to California, and her work is included in the collections of museums including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, D.C.); New Orleans Museum of Art; National Sporting Library & Museum (Middleburg, Virginia); Grounds For Sculpture (Hamilton Township, New Jersey); Reading Public Museum (Reading, Pennsylvania); New Jersey State Museum (Trenton, New Jersey); Museum of Science & Industry (Jacksonville, Florida); and the San Diego Museum of Art (San Diego, California).

After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Cornell University, Danziger studied at The Art Students League in New York City and The Academy of Fine Arts Rome. Her artist residencies include the American Academy in Rome; The Skopelos Foundation for the Arts (Skopelos, Greece); and Cité International Des Arts, Paris. At 91 years old, she is an active artist, working in her studio daily.