The journal published artwork, essays, poems, commentaries as well as interviews by and about artists, curators, writers, performers, poets, choreographers, and directors, both emerging and notable.

[4][5][6] Wittenberg worked with local contributors to develop the Review into an arts journal: gallerist George Hemphill, artist Clark V. Fox, dancer Maida Withers.

[clarification needed][7] For the February/March 1980 issue, Swift took the photographs and interviewed artist William Christenberry in his studio, including his collection of vintage signs, landscapes, and abandoned buildings from his home state Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

[7] The full set of Washington Review journals are in the Library of Congress and the Mary Swift Papers (1973-2004) at the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.

[10] In November 2016, Swift donated thousands of contact sheets, negative, and prints, and more than one hundred cassette tapes of artist interviews to the archives of the Smithsonian Institution.