Located in the Katzen Arts Center, at the American University in Washington, DC., The American University Museum is a three-story, thirty thousand square foot museum and sculpture garden. The largest university facility for exhibiting art, in the region, the museum’s permanent collection highlights the holdings of the Watkins and Katzen collection. These rotating exhibitions emphasize national, regional, and international contemporary art.

Named after Washington area benefactors, Dr. and Mrs. Cyrus Katzen, the Katzen Arts Center brings visual and perfoming art programs at AU into one space. Designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration in the arts, the Katzen includes the museum, the Abramson Family Recital Hall, the Studio Theater, a dance studio, an electronics studio, rehearsal space, and classrooms. The Katzen complex was designed by Einhorn, Yaffe and Prescott Architecture and Engineering. The structure was constructed out of French limestone and precast concrete, distinctive features such as a sky-lit rotunda that is ninety feet in diameter, connect classrooms with exhibition areas.

One of the most significant exhibitions would have to be the Fernado Botero’s Abu Ghraib Series. This series features graphic images by a uncompromising Colombian painter, who expresses his outrage at the American-Led torture of Iraqi insurgents. Known for his exaggeratedly rotund figures in benign social satires, the Paris-based Botero, unveiled controversial work in Europe in 2005. The American University Museum is the first to show off the Abu Ghrabi paintings and drawings, back in 2007. The work in the exhibit are quite the departure from Botero’s style, they do not relate to his previous work portraying a drug cartel with violence in Colombia. These pieces of art were constructed by Botero after he read official reports of the atrocities and concentrated on the suffering and dignity of the victims rather than their tormentors.

Noche Crist was Washington art’s unof?cial doyenne of decadence for almost 60 years. Born in Romania in 1909, Noche moved to Washington, D.C., in 1947 and lived and worked here until her death in 2004. A re-creation of her boudoir is only one of the exciting installations that were featured in the 2008 posthumous retrospective,Noche Crist: A Romanian Revelation.

Donated to the university in 2005, the private collection from Dr. Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen, the Katzen Collection comprises more than 200 pieces of artwork. The artwork varies from, paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures. This collection has several focuses such as: Pop Art, Washington art, and glass sculptures. The collection also contains Nancy Graves’ three large bronze statues, one of which is a working clock. This amazing and extraordinary gift was inspired by Myrtel Katzen’s love of the art department.