National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

New Exhibition: Feature Photography

                                 © Jocelyn Lee

The exhibition "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography" recently opened at the National Portrait Gallery.  Come and see this new exhibition of works by six critically acclaimed photographers—Katy Grannan, Jocelyn Lee, Ryan McGinley, Steve Pyke, Martin Schoeller and Alec Soth. 

Often working on a specific commission or editorial assignment for publications such as the New Yorker, Esquire and the New York Times Magazine, these photographers compose portraits that cause us to pause and reflect.  The exhibition runs through September 27, 2009, and is on view on the museum’s first floor. 

NPG associate curator of photographs, Frank Goodyear, sat down with photographer Jocelyn Lee to discuss her work. Lee’s photographs for this exhibition were drawn from work that she has completed in Maine, a place where she has spent much time. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Lee has served as a professor of photography at Princeton University since 2003.

JL: I think if I hadn’t found photography, I think the field I would have gone into would have been psychology.  I studied philosophy for the same reasons that I was studying photography.  It was a way of sort of thinking about basic issues of what it means to be alive.  It sounds pretentious, but that was essentially what drew me to both of those subjects.  Asking basic questions of how we find meaning in our lives. 

The portrait allows me to spend time with one other person, and to have a kind of intimate exchange that the rhythm of the regular world does not allow.  It’s a way to slow things down and really consider what it is to be a human being, living here on this earth, looking the way we do.  Aging, going through all of the life transitions that we go through—from adolescence, puberty, middle age, illness, love, death—all of those things.  It’s a way to study them slowly and collaboratively with other people.

FG: Do you talk with your subjects a lot about what you are striving to achieve in a particular picture?  To what extent do you deliberately kind of pre-visualize what you want to do?  Or is it more intuitive?

JL:  I would say that I do pre-visualize it—somewhat.  But again this goes back to the question about why I love photography.  If it was purely pre-visualized, then I could imagine these being drawings, or paintings, or collage, or something else.  But part of what is so magical to me about the medium of photography, is that I can never ultimately control the subject. And what they bring to the shoot, or the event, or the drama, or the narrative, is ultimately their own mystery.  And that, in the end, is what makes the picture strong. 

Some of my least successful pictures are those that have been so pre-visualized that I’m controlling all aspects of it. And my stronger pictures are the pictures where there’s this collaboration between my initial fantasy, sense of narrative, and the collaboration between the innate mystery of the person who is posing for me.

So when I look at the pictures now, as much as I’ve made them, the strongest pictures I feel are still a gift from the other person.  I still see them as something that, in part, has been given to me by the subject. 

FG: You teach at Princeton University—what are the lessons that you are trying to instill in young photographers?  What kind of advice are you constantly reasserting in their own careers?

JL: I love teaching photography because it’s the coming together of the world, and how the photographer feels about the world.  Very quickly, a student can begin to make meaningful photographs that comment on their perceptions of the world.  It’s very different from drawing, it’s very different from painting, it’s very different from sculpture.  The entry level skill is achieved pretty quickly. 

I think the biggest contribution that I can give to my students is to be honest with yourself, and be sincere.  What do you want to talk about? You’re given this incredible power so quickly. You have a camera, and you’ve got the entire world at your disposal.  What do you want to talk about?  In every gesture with the camera, you’re making a decision: what you point the camera at, how you frame that photograph.  You’re commenting on the world.  You’re editing the world.  And you’re giving it to us as a story.  So I think photography is really a powerful thing for students who have ideas, who are visual, and want to say something. 

Listen to the entire interview with Jocelyn Lee (26:20)

To view more of Jocelyn Lee's work, and photographs by the other artists featured in "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography," be sure to see the online exhibition. 

Untitled (Kara on Easter)/Jocelyn Lee, 1999/Chromogenic print/Collection of the artist/© Jocelyn Lee

Untitled (Inuit woman in hospital, Rankin Island)/Jocelyn Lee, 2002/Chromogenic print/Published in the New York Times Magazine, May 5, 2002/Collection of the artist/© Jocelyn Lee

Student Responses: Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix

This column is part of an occasional series in which Washington-area university students discuss works on display in the National Portrait Gallery.

This blog post is written by Jamielyn Smith, a graphic design student at George Mason University. She writes about this 1970 poster of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. The poster is on display in the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition “Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture,” on the museum’s second floor.

Smith’s article is reprinted here, with her permission—it was originally published in Writing for Designers, the class blog of GMU’s graphic design course AVT 395-4. Writing for Designers covers many topics in graphic design, and includes more student-written articles about the “Ballyhoo!” exhibition.

You might think that a poster featuring Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, two of the most recognizable 1960s rock icons, would include the flamboyant colors and embellishments associated with their music. There is, however, absolutely nothing psychedelic about the L&S Productions poster entitled Winner? Created in 1970, the year Hendrix and Joplin both died of overdoses at the age of twenty-seven, Winner? presents a critical look at the drug-filled lifestyles led by these rock legends. As part of the National Portrait Gallery’s “Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture” exhibition, this piece displays its message with a fairly basic graphic palette of three colors, three photographs, and one word repeated twice.

Located on the back wall of the show room, Winner? stands out due to its simple, effective design. Contained within a red and yellow elliptical pill shape are photographs of Joplin and Hendrix. Both musicians are performing, their eyes closed and faces half covered. A sharply focused photograph of Joplin fills the red, top half of the composition, with the word “Winner?” centered underneath her image. An upside-down, softly focused photo of Hendrix appears underneath, on the yellow, bottom half of the pill—the word “Winner?” is also upside down and placed with his image.

The orientation of the photographs allows the poster to be flipped, while maintaining its imagery and purpose. The clever presentation symbolizes how easy it is to go from the top to the bottom. The careers of Hendrix and Joplin were at an all-time high in 1970, but everything ended in an instant because of their addictions. Along with the passing of Jim Morrison, their deaths helped bring the potential downside of drug use to the public’s attention. Furthermore, the elliptical shape means that the pill could continue to flip, representing the continuous cycle of drug abuse.

The restricted color palette and simplicity set this piece apart from the other posters in the exhibition, particularly the ones that also depict musicians and iconography from the 1960s. Posters from this era are usually colorful and saturated with surreal imagery, optical illusions, and kaleidoscopic swirling patterns. This complete lack of white space makes the viewer feel overwhelmed with imagery. They also feature hard to read, warped, organic typography. Therefore, it is especially shocking to see the king and queen of stoner rock in such an austere context.

Although this poster was created almost forty years ago, the message it communicates is still relevant today. The poster’s clean design references the 1960s in a subtle way that makes it appealing to contemporary viewers. Likewise, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix continue to inspire modern audiences with their music. There is no question that Winner? is timeless.

 

Winner?/Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin/L & S Productions, 1970/Color photolithographic halftone poster/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/© 1970 L & S Productions

Closing Exhibition: Herblock’s Presidents

The National Portrait Gallery's exhibition “Herblock’s Presidents: ‘Puncturing Pomposity’” is closing soon, so see it while you can. The exhibition’s final day is this Sunday, November 30. 

The political cartoons of Herbert Block (1909–2001) appeared in American newspapers for more than seven decades under the pen name Herblock. He achieved his greatest prominence as the editorial cartoonist of the Washington Post, where he worked from 1946 until his death in 2001. The exhibition contains Block's original drawings of presidential cartoons from Franklin Roosevelt through Bill Clinton.

In this blog post, the National Portrait Gallery’s Warren Perry interviews Sidney Hart, curator of the exhibition. Hart is the NPG’s senior historian. The interview is excerpted below:

WP: Do you have a favorite one or two cartoons in the exhibition?

SH: There are three or four that we have that he did on Nixon and Watergate. I don’t know how many he did on Watergate, there may be twenty, thirty, forty or more. Block, in a sense, was waiting decades for the Watergate crisis. In his view, he had finally caught Nixon for what—as Block perceived it—Nixon really was.

And we have the cartoon, that we used as a signature cartoon for the exhibition, with a bloodhound—this is Block and his use of metaphor, the bloodhound is representing justice, or the law going after criminal activity.  And the bloodhound, which is huge, is following this little figure of Richard Nixon. And Nixon has audiotapes in his hand, representing the tapes from the Oval Office.

Many of the tapes discussed Nixon’s attempt to deal with the Watergate crisis, which were incriminating in the sense of Nixon trying to cover-up the original Watergate break-in. And Nixon had already thrown these bones to the bloodhound, and the bones each have the name of a White House aide who had been forced to resign. So Nixon had given up these bones, or aides, in order to save himself. And then he’s trying to throw some of the tapes to the bloodhound to get him off the track, so he can somehow escape this crisis. But of course the bloodhound is on his trail and is relentless.

WP: Among the Block cartoons, you can see how they are divided up into some that are blatantly targeting faults he finds inside administrations. Then there are others that are just funny, for the sake of poking fun at politics—which is one of the great American pasttimes. Which couple do you think are among the funniest?

SH: There’s one of Jimmy Carter, and it has to do with the economic crisis. This is interesting in a sense, because some people have tried to make comparisons between that economic crisis and our financial crisis today. At this point, thank goodness, that crisis is still worse, and maybe our crisis won’t reach that level.

We’re talking about a situation which unemployment, I think, was as high as ten percent—it was double-digit. Inflation was at least 12 percent; interest rates were over more than 20 percent. And we had what we call “stagflation,” in which you had inflation and the economy was not growing. It was a bad economic situation that had begun during the Nixon years and continued really to the early 1980s.

And Block has Jimmy Carter—it’s a hospital scene—and Carter is looking at this chart, and the sick patient is the economy. And the caption is something to effect of “frankly I have no idea what I’m doing.” And seeing that caption, I think you just laugh out loud. Because it’s a pathetic Jimmy Carter—maybe a trifle unfair, since nobody really had a clue what to do with economy. But Block was concerned about going after the biggest guy on the block, and the biggest guy on the block was often the president.

The other cartoon, and I can’t remember the caption, but again it’s the economy, and this is Gerald Ford. And they’re in this handbasket, and they’re heading downward, and it’s the economy. It’s a perfect depiction of “to hell in a handbasket.” Nobody knows really what’s going on with the economy. Ford has tried various gimmicks and nothing is working.

I remember looking at both those cartoons—the Carter one and the Ford one. And they’re not particularly vicious in any way. Block had done far more violent cartoons. You just see the captions—I was working with a graduate student who was assisting me in terms of selecting these—and we both saw these cartoons and just started laughing. They were just funny.

Listen to the entire interview with historian Sid Hart (14:54)

"Look—Nice Tapes—Okay, Boy? Okay?"/Herbert Lawrence Block,October 24, 1973/Pencil on paper Herbert L. Block Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C./ © The Herb Block Foundation

"I'm Going To Give It To You Straight—I Don't Have Any Idea What I'm Doing."/Herbert Lawrence Block, April 27, 1979/Pencil on paper/Herbert L. Block Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C./© The Herb Block Foundation

"We're Moving Right Along."/Herbert Lawrence Block, November 1, 1974/Pencil on paper/Herbert L. Block Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C./© The Herb Block Foundation

Student Responses: Loïe Fuller

This column begins an occasional series in which Washington-area university students discuss works on display in the National Portrait Gallery.

This article is written by Abbey Stickney, a graphic design student at George Mason University. She writes about this 1893 poster of performer Loïe Fuller by French artist Jules Chéret. The poster is on display in the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition “Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture,” on the museum’s second floor.

Stickney’s article is reprinted here, with her permission—it was originally published in Writing for Designers, the class blog of GMU’s graphic design course AVT 395-4. Writing for Designers covers many topics in graphic design, and includes more student-written articles about the “Ballyhoo!” exhibition.

As a graphic designer, I found the “Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture” exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery very worthwhile. It gave credibility to design as an art form, as the show was surrounded by the elaborate oil paintings of famous musicians, presidents, and just plain wealthy people. To have posters displayed in such close proximity to these wonderful works of art makes the general public really look at design, possibly for the first time. It makes these people notice the composition, the color choices, and the mood of the piece as they would a painting by Rembrandt.

Among the vast array of posters on display, one in particular grabbed my attention. Maybe it was the simplicity of the composition, or maybe it was the woman herself. The poster was a celebration of life and color set against the black background of a stage curtain. The wild red hair of the pale woman was thrown back, and she was draped in a sheer golden gown. One of her legs was kicked up, and she appeared to be suspended in the air with her dress floating in circles around her, as if she has just completed a spin in the air and is now returning to earth.

The woman’s name was Loïe Fuller, and she was an American performer who was quite popular in Paris around the turn of the century. Fuller was a master showman who pioneered the use of colored stage lighting and used enormous silk costumes to exaggerate her movements on stage. She characterizes the art nouveau movement, as her flowing costumes appeared on stage like flowers and other objects found in nature. Fuller was also the first person to bring modern dance to Europe and present it as a true art form.

I feel this poster has captured the essence of Fuller’s performances. She appears here free and full of life, just like her performances were, I would imagine. You can even faintly see the colored stage lighting in the background. The only text on the poster is the name of the performer, La  Loïe Fuller (at the top), and the place where she will be performing, the Folies-Bergère (at the bottom), a Paris opera house where nudity was not uncommon. The text type is red and has an organic feel to it that coordinates well with the image. With its rough, cut-out look, it appears to be handmade.

I think that it is very appropriate that this poster show was in a portrait gallery. Posters give the viewer more information than other portraits do: they tell the viewer not only about the person or people shown, but about the time in which the poster was created, the poster’s intended audience, and even the location in which the poster was to be displayed. This proves that not only are posters—and consequently graphic design as a whole—art, they are a seamless balancing act between both giving the viewer information and giving the viewer something that he or she wants to stop and look at. That is what good design does.

"Folies-Bergère La Loïe Fuller"/Loïe Fuller/Jules Chéret, 1893/Color lithographic poster/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

New Exhibition: The Mask of Lincoln

In the two-hundredth year since his birth, Abraham Lincoln remains as much a puzzle as he was to his contemporaries. “One Life: The Mask of Lincoln,” a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, shows the changing face that Abraham Lincoln presented to the world as he led the fight for the Union. 

The exhibition opens today, and runs until July 5, 2009.  It is part of a yearlong Smithsonian-wide celebration of the bicentennial, exploring the life and times of the nation's most mythic and transformative president.

Warren Perry, a researcher at the National Portrait Gallery, spoke with NPG historian David Ward, curator of the exhibition. The interview is excerpted below.

WP: What are your favorite objects in the exhibition?

DW: Warren, one of the great things about the Portrait Gallery is that we have a really excellent selection—probably the best in the United States—of Lincoln images   My favorite image is one that a lot of people will know, which is the cracked plate photograph by Alexander Gardner, which was taken on February 21, 1885 (shown above). 

In the course of removing the plate from the camera, Alexander Gardner cracked it, so it was in two pieces.  And he could only create one image from it.  And it’s really this wonderfully evocative picture of Lincoln at the end of the war, where he’s tired, he’s worn out, his eyes are deep-socketed. And yet he has this small smile on his face, which is one, a smile of satisfaction, but it’s also a mysterious smile. We never really know what Lincoln was thinking, and that’s why I called this show “The Mask of Lincoln.”

WP: There are a lot of photographs, daguerreotypes—these non-painted objects, real images of Lincoln.  How many objects are in this exhibition?

DW: There are thirty portraits of Lincoln in the exhibition.  The majority of them are daguerreotypes—photographs as we know them now. There’s several drawings, a printed document, one oil painting actually, a miniature. 

Lincoln came of political age in the era of photography, with photography becoming a popular and inexpensive democratic art.  And he realized, early on, that it was possible to use photography for political purposes as well as personal purposes—not just to reveal a likeness to your loved ones, or to a small group of people. But it was a way of commanding political power by disseminating your image in carte de visites and other larger pictures—such as the cracked plate that I just mentioned—larger images of yourself, essentially bill-boarding your political brand

WP: He played to the greatest and newest medium of his age.

DW: Exactly, Lincoln loved technology, and in that way he was quintessentially American.  He was a working man—he worked with his hands and had a fascination with technology.  He’s the only president ever to have received a patent for one of his inventions.  During the Civil War he was intimately involved with the development of new technology, whether it’s in rifles, balloon surveillance, and telegraphic communication. 

And he, technically, was very interested in photography.  He had his picture taken a lot, from the photographers who lived and worked just down the street, actually, from the National Portrait Gallery.  He would drop in and have his picture taken by Gardner, Brady, or one of the others. 

And this was a commercial transaction for the photographers.  Lincoln wouldn’t have to pay for the pictures, but they would then sell images, that they would display to the public. And Lincoln was very involved in, again, disseminating his image through the course of his political career. 

Listen to the entire interview with historian David Ward (10:28)

For more on Lincoln, see the online exhibition for “One Life: The Mask of Lincoln.” If you visit the exhibition in person, be sure to take the cell phone audio tour, or download the tour to your mp3 player before you visit.  

Abraham Lincoln/Alexander Gardner, 1865/Albumen silver print/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

RECOGNIZE! Last Chance To See Hip Hop Exhibition

As “RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture” draws to a close, we take a moment to reflect on the exhibition’s impact on the community.  See the exhibition while you can; its last day is this Sunday, October 26.  

It was the National Portrait Gallery's honor to be the first Smithsonian Institution museum to stage a significant exhibition with hip hop as its theme. Through visitor counts, positive comment cards, and the enthusiasm about the show witnessed daily in the galleries and in our conversations with friends and colleagues around town and around the nation, we are thrilled with the public’s positive response.

“RECOGNIZE!“ gave the National Portrait Gallery the opportunity to recognize hip hop’s important role in American life today, as it influences the fine arts as well as other elements of our visual culture from advertising to fashion to video games. It was important for us to give our visitors a sense that hip hop is more powerful and has more of an impact on our world than the media’s attention to its negative aspects might suggest.

Through hip hop happy hours, films, and family activities, to programs headlined by Nikki Giovanni and Paul “DJ Spooky” Miller, NPG attempted to maintain the spirit and enthusiasm of the exhibition through events geared to a broad public. “RECOGNIZE!” brought more diverse and younger audiences into the Gallery, many of whom visited for the first time.

Another special aspect of this exhibition was our ability to feature the work of local artists Tim “Con” Conlon, Dave “Arek” Hupp, Jefferson Pinder, and Baltimore-born Shinique Smith (right). It is sometimes difficult to give local artists the support so many of them deserve, but “RECOGNIZE!” enabled us to feature “D.C. flavor.”

As a national museum that is a destination for Americans from all parts of the country, as well as for international visitors, the Portrait Gallery was pleased with the opportunity this exhibition afforded to reflect our role as a local museum for residents of the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Kehinde Wiley’s portraits of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and L.L. Cool J (left) will remain at the museum on extended loan, reminding us of hip hop music’s relevance to American culture, and keeping “RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture” fresh in our memories. We look forward to seeing more hip hop–related displays and activities develop Smithsonian-wide, particularly associated with the National Museum of American History’s Hip Hop Collecting Initiative.

To all who visited the exhibition or one of the programs associated with it, we hope you will come back to NPG soon and often. There will always be something for each of you at the National Portrait Gallery.

CON/Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, 2007/Montana spray paint on Sintra panel/182.9 x 609.6 cm (72 x 240 in)/Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp

No Thief to Blame/Shinique Smith, 2007-08/Mixed media installation (fabric, cardboard, carpet, paper, ink, spray paint, used clothing, found objects, and collage)

LL Cool J/Kehinde Wiley, 2005/Oil on canvas/243.8 x 182.9 cm (96 x 72 in)/LL Cool J/© Kehinde Wiley

RECOGNIZE! Graffiti Art

The National Portrait Gallery’s “RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture” is closing soon, so be sure to see the exhibition before Sunday, October 26, its final day. The exhibition features six artists: photographer David Scheinbaum, painter Kehinde Wiley, poet Nikki Giovanni, installation artist Shinique Smith, video artist Jefferson Pinder, and graffiti artists Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp.

 In this blog post, we focus on Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, local graffiti artists who created four large murals that line the exhibition’s main hallway. These panels, with their sophisticated lettering style and color combinations, transformed the gallery space, bringing the beats and energy of hip hop to the museum’s walls.

 Using the tags “CON” and “AREK,” Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp began writing together in 2000. Conlon brought a flair for figures to their collaborations, and Hupp excelled at quick, complex lettering. Since graffiti is performed without a public audience, a writer’s pseudonym, or “tag,” is the face he presents to the world—his self-portrait. In their artist statement, Hupp and Conlon write that graffiti is “a lifestyle, an addiction, a dysfunctional marriage of secrecy and fame, for better and for worse. Some see it as an insatiable appetite for destruction, but through this abstracted topography we find our creative vision and achieve our self-expression.”

 In January of 2007, before the opening of “RECOGNIZE!” NPG web developer Benjamin Bloom sat down with Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, and asked them a few questions. You can listen to the complete interview, and see their graffiti murals here.

BB: What makes your style your own, or differentiates it from other people?

TC (shown on right): I think, just of course, the letters—the name that you choose that’s going to separate you from anyone else. I guess style-wise, my style pretty much reflects mostly New York straight-letter style, or straight-letter wild-style. You know something that’s bar-letters, very readable, you can tell what it says—probably has a little Baltimore influence to it.

And there is some West Coast stuff that I’ve added to it, when I lived out in L.A. for a while. Some little tidbits and painting techniques I do, that I remember from out there. I’d say it’s pretty generic, but I’ve painted enough over the years so that people recognize it. Even if they just glance at it, they probably know it’s me before they read the letters. Same probably goes for Dave too.

DH (left): It’s just changed over the years. I don’t do a lot of connections. A lot of single-letter, bar-style—I want it to be readable. When it flies by I want Joe truck driver to be able to read it. You know, the average person. I don’t want it to be some wild crazy stuff that you can’t read. So usually each letter is separate. There maybe some simple connections, but just real bold bar-style letters.

I’m from Baltimore, so it’s got a Baltimore flair. But it’s got a lot of influence from a variety of people I hang with and know. I get influence from a lot of different things, and a lot of different people from all over.

BB: How do you feel about graffiti being in a museum?

DH: Well I’m glad to be alive and be in the Smithsonian. Because I guess not too long ago, you had to be dead to be in the Portrait Gallery, right?

BB: That’s true.

DH: So to be alive and be in it is good! It’s a sign of the times. Some people may say “hey you’re a sell-out.” I look at it like being a musician, and never making an album or putting a CD out. Why are you strumming on that guitar for twenty years, if you can’t make a buck, or be seen, or be heard? And this is a way to be seen and be heard. This is huge—I guess when I walk down that marble floor and through the pillars and see these huge panels affixed to the wall, I’ll be like “damn, that’s our stuff.”

For more on Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, view the audio slideshow below. Tim and Dave take you step-by-step through the creation one of the exhibition’s murals.

AREK by Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, 2007/Montana spray paint on Sintra panel/182.9 x 609.6 cm (72 x 240 in)/Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp

Con/AREK by Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, 2007/Montana spray paint on Sintra panel/182.9 x 609.6 cm (72 x 240 in)/Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp

KATE: Hail and Farewell!

The National Portrait Gallery’s “One Life: KATE, A Centennial Celebration” is closing soon, so be sure to see the exhibition before September 28, its final day. In this blog post, NPG’s Amy Henderson, curator of “KATE,” bids farewell to this centennial celebration of Katharine Hepburn’s birth.

Katharine Hepburn was right—she was absolutely fascinating. She proved that again and again this year as “KATE” was visited by throngs of enthusiastic audiences. People clearly enjoyed seeing her four Best Actress Oscars, but I think they were particularly drawn by the wonderfully affectionate portrait by Everett Raymond Kinstler (above) that Hepburn deemed her “favorite.”

The ratty red sweater also had its fans, who understood with me that that well-worn personal artifact lent the exhibition something “real” of her spirit. And I was delighted to see how carefully visitors read the labels, most of which used Hepburn’s own words and resonated with her personality.

Oh, did I mention the color red, her favorite color?! The exhibition was a red showcase of Kate Color, instantly drawing the visitor onto the Hepburn stage.

One of the things that touched me most was a young student from Duke Ellington School of the Arts who used “KATE” as her selection for the Portrait Gallery’s 2008 Portraits Alive! program this summer. Chelsea Harrison, a marvelously talented actor, suffused herself into Hepburn’s personality and created a jaw-dropping characterization that left her audience (me among them) in awe. You could almost hear Hepburn chortling somewhere, saying “See? I told you I was fascinating….”

 

Katharine Hepburn/Everett Raymond Kinstler, 1982/Oil on canvas/National Portrait Gallery; gift of Everett Raymond Kinstler/© 1982 Everett Raymond Kinstler

The Reinstallation of Grant and His Generals

As visitors walk through the intertwining hallways of the National Portrait Gallery, they often come upon Grant and His Generals by Ole Peter Hansen Balling—the largest work in our collection. This portrait measures 10 x 16 feet and weighs 450 pounds! So exactly how did it get to its current location in the stairwell?

While the building underwent more than six years of renovation, Grant and His Generals was safely housed in an offsite storage facility. When it was time for the painting to be returned to the building, much of the space was still under construction. To move the painting in, a large crane was used to hoist it from Seventh Street onto the second-floor portico, and then into the building. A platform extending beyond the portico served as the landing point. Here, an NPG employee used a rope to help guide the painting onto the platform.

Grant and His Generals was meticulously reinstalled in its current location on the curved wall of the second-floor stairwell. First, a large scaffolding unit was built in the stairwell. Next, a tapeline was made on the wall so that the exact placement could be achieved.

Once all preparations were made, the painting was uncrated, hoisted by numerous people, and moved into place. The original aluminum strips that secured the painting to the wall were reattached, and the original custom-made curved frame was reinstalled. Grant and His Generals was then covered in plastic to protect it from dust until the National Portrait Gallery reopened on July 1, 2006, after being closed for renovation.

A large crane hoists Grant and His Generals from Seventh Street onto the second-floor portico.

Grant and His Generals by Ole Peter Hansen Balling, oil on canvas, 1865, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Mrs. Harry Newton Blue in memory of her husband, Harry Newton Blue

Temporary Exhibition: “2008 Presidential Scholars in the Arts: Works in the Literary and Visual Arts”

The National Portrait Gallery is proud to host “2008 Presidential Scholars in the Arts: Works in the Literary and Visual Arts.” This temporary exhibition runs through July 13, and showcases the work of some of the nation’s most talented high school seniors, in the fields of cinematic arts, photography, visual arts, and writing. The Scholars are selected by The Commission on Presidential Scholars based on accomplishments in many areas: academic and artistic success, leadership and involvement in school and the community. .

This exhibition is presented by The Commission on Presidential Scholars, the Presidential Scholars Foundation, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA). The Taylor Foundation is proud to fund the exhibition.  

In this blog post, we highlight one of the young artists, Jennifer Liu of Highland, Maryland. Her piece “Adopted Suburbia: Laundry Day” (above) hangs in the exhibition. In her artist’s statement Ms. Liu writes:

Spawned from the vision of post–World War II families, the suburban lifestyle has always strived to be a man-made utopia. In the modern day and age, suburbia tends to consist of a landscape of cloned houses, obscenely green lawns, and shopping complexes that stretch beyond the horizon. With inhabitants either cooped in their sport utility vehicles or attached to the television screen or computer monitor, one can say that this is a cultural wasteland.

There are many ways, however, to entertain oneself in an average American suburban setting. I have discovered that my everyday encounters with my overactive imagination, sculpted by years of commercials, cartoons, and sugar have commingled together to fabricate my own suburban paradise.

At a young age, Jennifer Liu enjoyed the many processes of making art. From painting and photography to making music and movies, she has always taken the initiative to try something new. During high school, she began to take more art classes and became more involved with her art. As a junior, Jennifer entered a countywide student film festival and received first place for her short film. She has also been recognized as a Maryland Distinguished Scholar for Talent in the Arts and is a 2008 NFAA youngARTS Silver Award winner in photography.

A graduate of River Hill High School, Jennifer is still experimenting with different mediums. Many of her latest works include installations created from everyday materials, serving as an environment for her performance-based pieces. These performances are then documented using photography or video. Jennifer plans to attend Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore this coming fall.

Adopted Suburbia: Laundry Day/Jennifer Liu, 2007/Digital Color Print, 36 x 24in

Curator's Journal: Sid Hart on "Herblock’s Presidents: 'Puncturing Pomposity' "

When I was asked to blog about my Herblock show, “Herblock’s Presidents: ‘Puncturing Pomposity.’” at NPG, I wondered what I could say about an exhibition on America’s greatest political cartoonist. The cartoon is a visual medium. How do you convey its meaning in words? It’s sort of like being a music critic; it really works only after you have heard the music. So, I suggest you first visit the exhibition's website, and then come back to the blog.

Herbert Block (the contraction “Herblock” was devised by his father) had the longest duration of any political cartoonist in American history (maybe, world history, but I never checked that out): from 1929, when he got his first full-time job working for the Chicago Daily News, until his death in 2001. He worked for the Washington Post from 1946 until his death, and there he became the most influential political cartoonist in America, as well a major factor in making the Post a nationally important newspaper. As a reward for his contributions to the Post, Block was given complete editorial independence, rare for a political cartoonist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes and shared a fourth with the Post for its coverage of the Watergate crisis.     

Focusing on Herblock’s cartoons of American presidents, the exhibition complements NPG’s permanent exhibition “America’s Presidents.”  Herblock made cartoons of presidents from Herbert Hoover to George H. W. Bush. “Herblock’s Presidents,” however, covers just those from Franklin Roosevelt through Bill Clinton. Herblock made few cartoons of Hoover, and those that he did were not particularly incisive; he also made very few of George W. Bush.

Also, we decided to select only negative cartoons for the exhibition: in Block’s own terms, it was the negative cartoons that “punctured pomposity” and had the most constructive effects. In one of his twelve published books, Block told the story of a schoolteacher giving a lesson on kindness to animals and asking her pupils to give examples of such kindness. One little boy told of finding a stray kitten and adopting it. A little girl found a bird with a broken wing and nursed it back to health. Then a little boy raised his hand and said he had encountered a bully kicking a dog. He went over and beat up the bully, making sure he would not kick another dog. This, for Block, was the ultimate function of a cartoon: to take on the big bully. With the presidents, he does just that.

We looked at more than 14,000 of Herblock’s cartoons and picked 40 for the exhibition and Web site. In addition, the actual exhibition at the NPG contains 128 additional images in digital format—all dealing with the presidents. I think you’ll like this exhibition if the American presidency interests you, and if you like to see a master cartoonist at work.

- Sid Hart

Curator's Journal: Wendy Wick Reaves on "Ballyhoo! Posters and Portraiture"

Why does a museum that usually exhibits art choose to exhibit posters? How do you characterize a poster anyway? Is it high culture when done by a fine artist and low culture when it reproduces a photographic face? Is it an historical document, an inexpensive decorative item, a symbol, or an ephemeral piece of commerce?

The National Portrait Gallery's new exhibition “Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture” has given me the opportunity to muse about these questions. But I can’t say I’ve decided on an easy way to explain the poster and its impact.

Sometimes a pictorial poster is a decorative masterpiece—something I can’t walk by without a jolt of aesthetic pleasure. Another might strike me as extremely clever advertising: you can feel the persuasive tug of words and image working in tandem. Occasionally, a poster is more like a punch in the stomach that takes you aback and makes you think. Posters can also be collectible icons for your wall, promoting your favorite cause or rock band. Indeed, there is no one tidy category for these pieces. But collectively, these “pictures of persuasion,” as we might call them, offer a wealth of art, history, design, and popular culture for us to understand.

The poster is a familiar part of our world, and we intuitively understand its role as propaganda, promotion, announcement, or advertisement. But in this exhibition, we’ve added another set of questions to ponder. How can we think about the poster as a form of popular portraiture? So often a poster does feature a famous face. And when it does, it is conveying information about that individual, while at the same time announcing the arrival of a circus, hawking a product, building wartime morale, or promoting a movie or political movement. What are those messages about the celebrity figure? Does the poster reinforce his or her public image? Undermine it? Subtly transform it? How does each poster express a specific moment in the life of the person depicted?

In my role as a curator at the National Portrait Gallery, I have enjoyed the opportunity to collect these posters as portraits of prominent Americans. They are bold and fun; each one, in my view, captures a moment of history and tells a story about its famous subject.

I find that I am always learning something new about the subtle complexities of this popular art form. It isn’t enough to learn the history of poster art. One must weave in the history of celebrity promotion and the history of advertising. Only then can we really understand the poster and ask the biographical questions.

I hope, when you visit our exhibition—in the museum or on the Web site—that you’ll share my attraction to these images as art, history, and portraiture.

- Wendy Wick Reaves

Poster Calendar 1897/Edward Penfield, self-portrait, 1896/Color lithograph/National Portrait Gallery

Bette Midler/ Richard Amsel, 1973/Color photolithographic poster/National Portrait Gallery; gift of Jack Rennert/© Richard Amsel

Curator's Journal: Frank Goodyear on Zaida Ben-Yusuf

Conducting research for the exhibition “Zaida Ben-Yusuf: New York Portrait Photographer” has been a marvelous adventure. As someone who enjoys doing archival research and hunting for “lost” things, this project has more than held my interest over the course of the last five years.  At times, it seemed that each week brought new discoveries about her life and photographic career. The exhibition is on view at the National Portrait Gallery until September 1, 2008. 

Although I studied the history of photography as a graduate student, I had never encountered Zaida Ben-Yusuf’s name before I saw two prints by her during preparations for an exhibition that the Portrait Gallery opened in 2003. Featuring 100 photographic portraits that had previously been published in the pages of ARTnews, America’s oldest continuously run art magazine, this exhibition included two exquisite portraits by Ben-Yusuf—platinum prints that pictured the sculptor Daniel Chester French and the Ashcan School artist Everett Shinn (below).

I have always been drawn to the beauty of well-crafted platinum prints, and these two photographs became two of my favorite works in the exhibition. Yet when it came time to write something about the pictures for the catalogue, I was struck by the paucity of information about Ben-Yusuf. No one seemed to know for certain when she was born, when she came to America, and what prompted her to pursue photography. At the time, I struggled to write labels for these two prints and ultimately had to dedicate most of my text to the subjects of these portraits.

New research technologies such as electronic databases—in particular, Proquest Historical Newspapers, Harpweek, and the American Periodical Series—made much of my early research possible. In searching on these sites, I learned quickly that Ben-Yusuf regularly contributed photographs and essays to magazines and newspapers at the turn of the twentieth century. I also encountered profiles of her written by others.

As Zaida Ben-Yusuf (right) is such a distinctive name, records of her contributions—and her mother’s—appeared with remarkable ease in these databases. Perhaps not surprisingly, editors frequently misspelled her name, and it was at times amusing to see how her pictures were credited in newspaper and magazine captions. In an earlier moment—when microfilm was king—it would have been impossible to locate as many different items as I did. Indeed, the recovery of Ben-Yusuf’s life was made possible by these new technologies.

This exhibition and its accompanying catalogue were also made possible because the Smithsonian continues—despite financial pressures—to encourage original scholarship. The receipt in 2004 of a Smithsonian Scholarly Studies grant enabled me to travel to a number of museums, archives, and libraries, where I learned more about Ben-Yusuf and began to encounter more examples of her vintage photographs.

One of the highlights of this travel was a trip to England in 2005 to investigate details about her youth. Although I had read an article prior to my trip that suggested that she was originally from Armenia—and another that indicated she was born in Paris—it was at the Family Records Center in London where I finally unearthed her birth certificate. This document and others provided fascinating insights into her family history and led me to pursue a variety of other research leads. Because a biographer is always interested in knowing more about the character and personality of the subject he or she studies, it was also revealing to learn from her birth certificate that Ben-Yusuf often lied about her age.

Because a museum exhibition is composed of notable objects, I understood early on that I needed to start locating examples of her work, if I wanted to develop anything larger than a scholarly article. A cursory search through photography collections here in Washington and other well-known collections in New York yielded a dozen or so of her pictures. Gathering together a dozen pictures, though, doesn’t constitute an exhibition, so I was compelled to look further afield.

I knew that she was a prominent portrait photographer—who attracted a number of leading actors, writers, artists, and politicians to her studio—because I had encountered reproductions of these pictures in magazines and newspapers. The question then became, where are the vintage prints? Over the last couple of years, I am happy to report that I was able to track down a good number of these photographs—enough to entice Marc Pachter, the Portrait Gallery’s director (now retired), to permit me to develop this project into an exhibition. The results of this adventure are now on view at the Portrait Gallery through September 1, 2008.

Two final thoughts: first, research is not a solitary activity, and I enjoyed the support and expertise of dozens of colleagues and friends. In particular, Beverly Brannan at the Library of Congress—a prominent historian with a special interest in women photographers—shared valuable information, as well as great enthusiasm for Ben-Yusuf’s photography.

And second, I must acknowledge here that I didn’t track down all of the pictures that I hoped to find. There are wonderful portraits that Ben-Yusuf completed of figures such as reformer Jacob Riis, artist William Merritt Chase, actress Julia Marlowe, and critic Sadakichi Hartman that I would give my left arm to find.

My hope is that the exhibition and catalogue will encourage others to continue the search. As such, if you have any questions—or if you know about the whereabouts of any missing pictures by her—please don’t hesitate to write.

-Frank A. Goodyear III

Announcement of an Exhibition of Photographs by Zaida Ben-Yusuf/Zaida Ben-Yusuf,1899/The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mrs. Elizabeth Guy Bullock, accession number SC2006.6

Everett Shinn/Zaida Ben-Yusuf,c 1901/Platinum print/ARTnews Collection

Portrait of Miss Ben-Yusuf/Zaida Ben-Yusuf, 1898/Platinum print/National Museum of American History, Behring Center, Smithsonian Institution

One of these things is not like the others…

Currently on display in the "One Life" gallery is the NPG exhibition "KATE: A Centennial Celebration," and as part of the show, its curator Amy Henderson negotiated the loan of Katharine Hepburn’s four Oscars from the Hepburn estate; the Oscars stay in storage at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood. 

Interestingly, Hepburn’s Oscar for Morning Glory (1933) is very different from her other three Oscars.  It appears to be smaller and less opulent, by far. Why is this?  According to Susan Oka, acquisitions librarian with the Academy, “From 1928 to 1945, the Oscars had a Belgian black marble base and, although the statuette has always been the same size, ten and a half inches, the three inch base was not adopted until after 1945.  Also, after 1945, the statuettes were made of Britannia metal, an alloy of tin, copper, and antimony.”   

Amy Henderson says of the award, “I love the early one best; it really has that art deco look that the sculptor, George Stanley, was famous for.  He did the sculptures at the Hollywood Bowl.  The history of the term 'Oscar' also has a close Hepburn connection.  The first time the name 'Oscar' was in print refers to Katharine Hepburn’s absence at the Academy ceremony in 1934 where she was awarded the best actress award for Morning Glory.”

And although Henderson says there are several great stories about the origin of the name “Oscar” for the award--its real name is the Academy Award of Merit--the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences maintains, per Oka, that an early executive director of the academy, Margaret Herrick, claimed that the statuette resembled her uncle Oscar.   

Learn more about Katharine Hepburn by visiting the website for "KATE: A Centennial Celebration".  And see the exhibition in person at the National Portrait Gallery; it will be on display until September 28, 2008.   

RECOGNIZE!

 

What does it mean to bring the energy and aesthetic vibrancy of hip hop into a Smithsonian museum? Some visitors to the current National Portrait Gallery exhibition, "RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture," on view until October 26, 2008, love the paintings, photographs, graffiti, installation, video, and poetry on view. 

Others are not so sure.  One recent visitor commented: “With pretty, polite framed portraits an art form based in combating oppression and the distinct yearning to be heard of creating something NEW is muted.  Hip Hop is many things.  This show only creates a palatable unchallenged portrait of hip hop—decreasing the impact of this transformational art form.”  See the show and tell us what you think.

CON/Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, 2007/Montana spray paint on Sintra panel/Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp

The Mask of Lincoln

For the 2009 bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the NPG will have a Lincoln tribute on display from November 7, 2008 to July 5, 2009 in the "One Life" gallery. "The Mask of Lincoln" is being curated by NPG historian David C. Ward and he discussed the show recently.

[UPDATE: see this more recent blog post, and learn about the exhibition "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln" which opened on November 7, 2008}

Q. What will separate this show from all of the other Lincoln shows coming up in the bicentennial year?

DW. We have an excellent collection of all the best Lincoln portraits. We have thirty-one images, mostly photos, one painting, and four or five drawings. They span Lincoln’s life from the beardless youth to the Alexander Gardner cracked-plate image, which was broken in production. That’s a particularly great image:  he is wearing that Mona Lisa-like smile because he knows the war is coming to an end. This show will tell Lincoln ’s story of the Civil War; I wanted to deal with slavery and emancipation because the war went from a war to save the Union to a war to end slavery.

Q. What is the most important part of this show?

DW. The photographs. Lincoln was the first president to come of age in the photographic era and he quickly grasped how to use the medium of photography in order to project himself as a national leader. The nineteenth century is filled with artists who are trying to narrow the distance between the person and the likeness; photography did just that. In the industrial-era philosophy, the fact that photography was mechanical meant that it was more accurate because it did not produce an image from the shaky hand of the artist or the engraver’s tool.

Q. Lincoln will be everywhere next year. How big is he in history?

There are more biographies on Abraham Lincoln than there are on anyone else except Napoleon Bonaparte.   

 

For more information about this upcoming exhibition, an interview with curator, David Ward is now available on C-SPAN.

View video