D.C. showcase for American art

A modernistic limestone and concrete building, mixing curves with sharp angles and nearly the size of three football fields, opens today as the newest venue in the nation’s capital for the nurture and display of American arts.

American University’s Cyrus and Myrtle Katzen Arts Center will showcase music, theater and dance, as well as the visual arts. The inaugural exhibit, “Soft Openings,” features paintings and sculpture by artists from across the country. Admission is free.

The Katzens gave $20 million to fund the center and donated 300 works from their own collection, which includes Pop Art luminaries Larry Rivers, Red Grooms and Roy Lichtenstein. Those works joined the university’s collection of 4,500 pieces.

Cyrus Katzen is a retired Washington dentist, banker and real estate developer. His wife, Myrtle, is a painter who found fellowship among artists in the university’s studios.

The center includes the museum, with 30,000 square feet of exhibition space, and three performance spaces, nearly 20 practice rooms, additional rehearsal areas and classrooms.