“I was enchanted by the ethereal images revealed by the witchery of night,” wrote Volkmar Wentzel. Before achieving fame as a globetrotting National Geographic photographer, he immortalized remarkable sights of a quieter, gentler Washington.
In 1935, young Volkmar moved to D.C., landing a flat — dilapidated but with views of Lafayette Square and the White House — and a news photography job. With his Speed Graphic camera, Wentzel chronicled his adopted city.
Forty of his early-career shots are now attracting record numbers of viewers to the Stephen Decatur House Museum’s exhibition, “Silver Mysteries: Black & White Photographs of 1930s Washington by Volkmar Wentzel.”
Wentzel’s peaceful snowscape spied from a U.S. Treasury overlook and other illuminated “Washington By Night” scenes grace the first room. Beyond these hang works on view for the first time — a mix of people and places near Wentzel’s old neighborhood, still anchored by Decatur House.
The photographic tour transports you back in time to meet the doorman at the Troika nightclub on Connecticut Avenue, a lady pigeon-feeder in Lafayette Park, an African-American at a Ninth Street bowling alley, dockworkers kicking back on Maine Avenue, families milling in an alley beneath the Capitol — and Wentzel’s drinking buddies at his mentor’s home.
“It’s exciting … you get to see Volkmar practicing his craft and honing his eye and skills,” said Katherine Malone-France, director of the museum’s collections. National Geographic contributed the lush prints in homage to Wentzel, who died in D.C. last May at age 91. “We asked them to make the images big, bigger!”
Decatur House has quite a pedigree. Designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe in 1818 for the naval hero whose name it bears, the mansion is among the oldest homes in Washington. Economics forced its transition to a boarding house for political heavyweights and diplomats.
View its Federal-period furnishings and artwork — and a modest, fascinating exhibit about urban slavery — after mining “Silver Mysteries.”
Silver Mysteries
On view through April 15
» Venue: Stephen Decatur House Museum, 1610 H St. NW
» Tix: Suggested $5 donation
» Info: 202-842-0920; www.decaturhouse.org
