Allan Janus

06/15/1951 - 01/06/2025

Allan Sandor Janus, a beloved photographer and digital artist, and a proud resident of the Town of Washington Grove, Maryland, died January 6, 2025, at the age of 73. Allan was born in Washington, DC on June 15, 1951, to Edmina Benish Janus and Milton Harold Janus, the youngest of their three children. He grew up in Bethesda and Kensington, Maryland, before attending high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan.

After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1974, Allan "eked out a precarious living" (his own words) as a tintypist in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, and Alexandria, Virginia. When tintypes and ambrotypes failed to make him rich, Allan turned to landscape photography, producing in his dark room atmospheric panoramas that affected the "special intimacy of the products of early photography." He was drawn to landscapes because "it is easier to show where man has not penetrated or to reveal the best he has to offer," which might include "a particularly photogenic herd of cows." Allan's photography has been widely displayed and is represented in many museum collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Given the surname Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, Allan was perhaps predestined to love history and esoterica, and he found ways throughout his life to inhabit and rub elbows with it. His hometown of Washington Grove was founded as a Methodist campground, with revival meetings held during the summer, later becoming a stop on the Chautauqua circuit. The "Historic Cottage" he lived in is one of eight original cottages still standing along the perimeter of the town's Sacred Circle.

As part of the Smithsonian's 1976 retrospective, "1876: A Centennial Exhibition," Allan set up and managed a tintype studio—Smith & Sun Tintype Shop—in the Arts and Industries Building. The year before, Allan had joined the re-created Revolutionary War 1st Maryland Regiment, a "living history" group whose members wore historically correct uniforms and aimed to accurately portray the everyday lives of 18th- and 19th-century soldiers. The 1st Maryland participated in the major Revolutionary War reenactments during the Bicentennial, beginning in Fall 1981 with the reenactment of Yorktown, and ending in Fall 1983 with the Treaties of Paris and Versailles. This led to his annual role in Washington Grove's Fourth of July parade, firing his black-powder musket to celebrate the day.

Allan worked at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum for more than 30 years. He became a museum specialist in the Archives Division, where he catalogued and managed the museum's photographic collections and was known as an authority on lighter-than-air flight (e.g., balloons and airships). He was so revered there that he was used as the model for a machine gunner mannequin engaged in battle from the open cockpit of a First World War Voisin VIII bomber on display. While at Air & Space, Allan authored Animals Aloft: Photographs from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, presenting a selection of photographs and anecdotes from the archives celebrating the menagerie of animals that have taken wing on manmade airships.

Allan's love of animals came through in his artwork. Whereas a number of his early landscape photographs included a tastefully placed cow or dog, most of his later works showcased the pets of his neighbors and family, and—of course—his own cats over the years: Zagnut, Toby, Max and Maxine, and Nutmeg ("Meg"). His skill at photographing these photogenic yet constantly in motion and sometimes camera-shy subjects was only surpassed by his great love for each of them. But Allan was not above snapping a shot of a pint or cocktail, quaffs often served on his porch and enjoyed with a neighbor or two. A visit with Allan was always filled with humor, and beverages were typically on offer, especially as he began coaching his neighbors on sabrage--the art of opening a bottle of champers with a sabre.

Allan's wit and creative energy was perhaps at its apex when, circa the late 1990s, he became the curator and sole proprietor of The Janus Museum. According to its official documentation, the Museum, with a physical location in Washington Grove, "exhibits the work and collections of Allan Janus (185?-19??)." In fact, the Janus Museum was virtual, and the art was all the work of the much more modern Allan Janus. For years Allan kept up this charade, fooling even Harvard researchers. This tongue-in-cheek museum (the site lamented the lack of generous donations and grants from arts funding organizations to conduct "vital fact-finding" and "scholarship") displayed works of digital photographic art manipulated first with Photoshop and more recently with artificial intelligence. These works included inserting himself Zelig-like into historical photographs and famous pieces of art, as well as embellished photos of his cats.

Allan gained an enthusiastic following from his work at The Janus Museum, and expanded it on social media sites, establishing himself as a well-known and acclaimed digital creator. His final work of art, untitled and posted online the day before his passing, shows Allan standing precariously atop a craggy rock formation overlooking a grand expanse of mountain peaks. Instead of gazing at the sublime panorama before him, he has turned his back to it and appears to be taking a selfie.

He is survived by his two siblings, Katherine Janus Kahn of Wheaton and Edward Janus of Madison, Wisconsin; by nephews Robert Kahn of D.C. and Caleb Janus of Madison; and by grandnephew Eli Janus of Madison. He is also survived by his loving and beloved partner and fiancée Rebecca Richters, also of Washington Grove. Service private.