Contact: Emily Coleman Dibella
703-799-8607 edibella@mountvernon.org

Mount Vernon, Va - The F.M. Kirby Foundation Gallery in the newly opened Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center at Mount Vernon is inaugurated by the traveling exhibition “A Son and His Adoptive Father: The Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington.” Organized in partnership with Lafayette College, the exhibition commemorates the upcoming 250th anniversary of Lafayette’s birth and features more than 125 artifacts drawn from some 20 museums and private collections. Portraits of Washington and Lafayette, ceramics, silver, glass, weapons, jewelry, textiles, memorabilia, letters, and other documents have been organized into three chronological sections that trace Lafayette’s impact on America and his relationship with the Washington family.

The exhibition, showing at Mount Vernon through August 5, 2007, is accompanied by an illustrated publication with a foreword by the French Ambassador to the United States. Admission fees, which include access to the entire estate, are $13 for adults; $12 for seniors; $6 for youth ages 6-11; and free for children ages five and younger.

“A Son and His Adoptive Father: The Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington” is scheduled to travel to Lafayette College Art Gallery, Williams Center for the Arts from August 27 through October 28, 2007, and The New-York Historical Society from November 13, 2007, through March 9, 2008. The exhibition is made possible by The F.M. Kirby Foundation, The Florence Gould Foundation, The Founders, Washington Committee for Historic Mount Vernon, The Embassy of France, and other generous benefactors.

The new F. M. Kirby Foundation Gallery allows Mount Vernon for the first time to put together major shows and travel them to other institutions across the country. The traveling exhibition space is joined by six permanent galleries in the Museum and 16 galleries and theaters in the Education Center, which together showcase more than 700 objects that give an unprecedented look at the personal effects of the Washington family. The Ford Orientation Center and Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center opened October 27, 2006, and illuminate fascinating chapters of Washington’s life through interactive displays, an action adventure movie, short films produced by The History Channel, immersive experiences, and three life-size models of Washington based on a forensic science investigation.

 # # #