What: National Museum of American History Grand Reopening Gala.

Where: National Museum of American History.

When: November 18, 7:30 to 11.

Ticket price: Free but by invitation only.

Who: In the Smithsonian realm, the gala was full of important people: G. Wayne Clough, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Brent D. Glass, director of the museum; and John Rogers, chair of the museum’s board, were all in attendance. Invitations were extended to high-profile guests, friends of the Smithsonian, and other staffers.

What: 1869 Society Fall Fête: “Party With the Power Players.”

Where: Corcoran Gallery of Art.

When: October 25, 7:30 to midnight.

Ticket price: $80 to $200, depending on how much VIP access you wanted.

Who: Hundreds of well-dressed young professionals ages 25 to 42—the target audience of the Corcoran’s 1869 Society. The group hosts this annual event to raise money for arts education for area students.

What: A reception for VIPs (including several subjects of Avedon’s portraits) for the Corcoran’s latest photography exhibit.

Where: The Corcoran Gallery of Art

When: Tuesday, September 9, from 6:30 until 10ish

Who: A mix of political figures, journalists, and art types. Chairing the evening were Julian Bond, civil-rights leader and chair of the NAACP and Ben Bradlee and wife Sally Quinn, who were with their son, Quinn. Also making appearances were Congressman John Lewis, US attorney general Michael Mukasey, Corcoran director Paul Greenhalgh, and other Washington art-worlders.

When the renovated Museum of Modern Art opened in New York in 2004, its $20 adult admission price raised eyebrows. Four years later, DC’s Newseum, with a $20 charge, is just the latest in a growing trend toward pricey museums—even in a city where most of the government-run Smithsonian is free.

DC’s Madame Tussaud’s is $21.15 per adult, and the International Spy Museum clocks in at $18. The new National Museum of Crime & Punishment, opening in May near Gallery Place, will cost $17.95. Across the country, the Guggenheim in New York asks $18, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and Museum of Science both charge $17, and San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art charges $12.50.

The priciest museum in the nation? Madame Tussaud’s in New York, which charges $29.

Read our review of the Newseum here.

For more on media, politics, and the DC scene, click here.

This article can be found in the April 2008 issue of The Washingtonian.

While critics have hailed the East Building of the National Gallery of Art as “one of the great architectural draws of its time” and “an enormously successful place for seeing art,” not once have the accolades been followed with “and it begs to be touched.” Yet near the Fourth Street entrance, an engraving done for the building’s dedication has been rubbed repeatedly to the point that a dark haze has accumulated over the name of the building’s architect, I.M. Pei.

Museum staff and scholars like to interpret Pei’s smudged name as a positive response to the building. “This is a touching tribute to Pei’s work,” says Carter Wiseman, architecture lecturer at Yale University and a Pei biographer. Pun intended?