Little Tavern examines the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. area hamburger restaurants built in a Tudor style that first opened in 1928. The chain was sold in the 1980s, struggled into the 1990s, and closed its doors in 2008. Today, Pyramid Atlantic occupies the former Little Tavern headquarters building on Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, and the on-site vault-turned-gallery is the location for this exhibition.
Prints in Little Tavern refigure the architectural elements found on the shops’ exteriors: scattered across the area and documented in photographs. Iconic signage, diamond-shaped glass, steel panels, and quoins are embedded in the works on paper. Traces of dormers, gutters, and fence posts emerge from the walls, and shadows are cast across the floor. The work speaks directly to the fragmentation of Little Tavern as an entity, its vanishing history, and the restaurant that formerly stood on the Pyramid Atlantic property itself.
Further reading about Little Tavern at the Washington Post and the Silver Spring Historical Society here and here.
