National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

Katharine Hepburn at NPG! Performance this Monday, May 12

On Monday night, May 12, the National Portrait Gallery's Cultures in Motion program will present Hepburn Herself, a stage presentation produced by NPG’s Jewell Robinson and featuring DC actress Helen Hedman as Katharine Hepburn.  The first performance in March was viewed by almost three hundred people and included a discussion afterwards with Robinson, Hedman, director Michael Kramer, and writer and adapter Warren Perry.  This Monday’s show will also conclude with a production discussion. 

Among the superlatives Katharine Hepburn claims are the four Academy Awards which are on display in the National Portrait Gallery’s “One Life” exhibition "KATE: A Centennial Celebration."  Miss Hepburn had a total of twelve nominations over her career, and many critics believe she also deserved Oscars for her unforgettable performances in The Philadelphia Story and The African Queen.  Her story begins with the beginning of Hollywood and concludes with curtains drawing over the most celebrated career in cinema history. 

A partial list of actors with whom she appeared is a roll call of the greatest actors in the history of film:  Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, John Barrymore, Peter O’Toole, Laurence Olivier, Sidney Poitier, and, of course, Spencer Tracy.  That all the arts contain legions of adults who operate their lives like pretentious children is a certainty; Kate Hepburn did not suffer such behavior, and she was, per biographer Charles Higham, “disgusted by the tawdry ostentation of Hollywood.”

Katharine Hepburn was both gutsy and vocal. She performed a stunt which involved falling into the dirty Venice canal waters during the filming of Summertime; this resulted in a case of conjunctivitis which never left her. Once from the stage during a performance she lectured an audience member who dared to take a flash picture. Another time, she hit a truck driver for revving his engine behind the theatre.

It is lucky for her admirers that she took the time to write two autobiographical works.  The most sensitive subjects in her life- the death of her brother Tom and her love for Spencer Tracy- we discover about her through her own words.  Her large number of biographers far exceeds the number of interviews she granted; throughout her days, she liked being liked, but she treasured her privacy.  It is that quality which most keenly separates her from today’s starlets, as she felt a great dignity about keeping her passions, friendships, and family to herself, and it is precisely that dignity which is, perhaps, the most outstanding of her superlatives.

Photograph by Nekisha Durrett

Monday’s performance is free, but seating is limited.  For reservations please call 202-633-8520 or email NPGPublicPrograms@si.edu.  Additional info on the performance is available here.   

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

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

Gossip from Paris, 1780

John Paul Jones, acclaimed in Paris after his spectacular victory in the August 23, 1779, ship-to-ship duel between the Bonhomme Richard and the British ship Serapis, was, detailed an Englishwoman on the scene, “greatly admired here especially by the ladies who are wild with love for him, but he adores Lady_____.” The lady in question was the twenty-six-year-old Comtesse de Lowendahl, the wife of a French brigadier general, who was “possessed of youth, beauty and wit, and every other female accomplishment.” The Comtesse was fond of music and poetry and painting miniatures of her friends: “She drew his picture (a striking likeness) . . . and presented it to him.” (shown above)

 

Called to L’Orient to look after his ship, Jones wrote to the Comtesse that “nothing short of . . .duty to the glorious cause of freedom,” could have induced him to leave “while my heart urged me to stay.” He declared, “You have made me in love with my own picture because you have condescended to draw it.” Enclosing a lock of his hair, he proclaimed, “If I could send you my heart itself or anything else that could afford you pleasure it would be my happiness to do it.” He promised to send a cipher “for a key to our future correspondence so you will be able to write me very freely and without risk.”

 

The Comtesse, who apparently had entered into a flirtation with the thought that Jones might help her husband secure a command in the Continental army, abruptly drew back and told him, “I am touched by the feeling you have for me, and I would have liked to be able to answer them, but I could not do so without deceiving a gentleman with whom I live, and I am incapable of doing that.”

 
Jones, “the most agreeable sea-wolf one could wish to meet with,” was left with only his miniature to remember her by.

 

John Paul Jones, 1747-1792 / Comtesse de Lowendahl (1775-1839) / Watercolor on ivory, 1780 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee

 

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

Politics: The More Things Change...

Among the recent acquisitions placed on view at the National Portrait Gallery is Chester Harding’s c. 1843 portrait of Thurlow Weed (1797–1893), editor of the Albany Evening Journal and one of the all-time great masters of the game of American politics. “Under his sagacious rule,” a contemporary summed up, “governors were made, senators elected, presidential candidates boosted or hindered.”

Weed arrived at the 1860 Republican convention in Chicago, armed with “oceans of money” and a stock of champagne and cigars. He had helped make two Whig presidents—William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor—and intended now to see to the election of the first Republican president.

Thurlow Weed's candidate was William Henry Seward—his closest friend—who, thanks to Weed's prowess, had been elected governor of New York and twice selected by the state legislature to serve in the United States Senate. Seward was the front-runner for the nomination, and Weed told Seward that he was willing to accept the Illinois lawyer—one Abraham Lincoln—for the second place on the ticket.

It turned out, however, that this political genius, “the surest calculator of political chances and results,” was outmaneuvered, and Abraham Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot. Thurlow Weed broke down and cried.

“Annoyed and dejected” though he was, Weed did not intend to stay out of the game, and he traveled to Springfield to meet with Lincoln, whom he found to be “sagacious and practical.” At the end of the five-hour conversation, Weed felt prepared to “go to work with a will.”

Weed was, as usual, indefatigable—planning strategy, enlisting workers, keeping the factions of New York’s Republican Party (old Democrats, old Whigs, Know-nothings, abolitionists, and temperance zealots) united, persuading Seward to take the stump on Lincoln’s behalf, and seeing to the all-important task of fund-raising. (“We suppose it is generally understood that party organization costs money and the presidential elections especially are expensive,” he informed the public.) 

On the eve of the election, the Evening Journal trumpeted, “Vote Early! Look Out for Split Tickets! Keep Cool! Don=t Swap! Never Mind the Weather! Keep Moving All The Time! Don=t Stop to Argue! Offer Your Help!” Lincoln carried New York State by more than 50,000 votes.

Thurlow Weed's portrait is on view on the first floor of the National Portrait Gallery, in the "New Arrivals" exhibition. 

Thurlow Weed/Chester Harding, c. 1843/National Portrait Gallery

Just the Facts, April 18, 1775, The Real Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

    Listen my children and you shall hear
    Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
    On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
    Hardly a man is now alive
    Who remembers that famous day and year…

Although Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” provides the reader with a wonderfully dramatic setting in which our hero rides out of Boston to warn the colonists in Lexington and Concord of the impending British march, there is a disparity between the poetic narrative and the facts of April 18, 1775. History and Longfellow (right) run pretty much parallel until Revere rides into Lexington. Longfellow writes:

    It was one by the village clock
    When he galloped into Lexington.
    He saw the gilded weathercock
    Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
    And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
    Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
    As if they already stood aghast
    At the bloody work they would look upon.

In real life, Paul Revere was then captured by the British. His borrowed horse was taken from him and given to a British officer whose own horse had grown tired.

Not very dramatic?

Certainly not, especially when held in the same light as Longfellow’s poem, wherein Revere is never captured, but rather continues his ride and alerts the denizens of “every Middlesex village and farm.”

    You know the rest. In the books you have read
    How the British Regulars fired and fled,
    How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
    From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
    Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
    Then crossing the fields to emerge again
    Under the trees at the turn of the road,
    And only pausing to fire and load.

If not Paul Revere, then who warned the colonists? Outside of Lexington, Revere met two other riders, William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott. And although all three were captured by British patrols, Dawes and Prescott escaped and continued to warn the locals of the British march. Revere returned to Lexington on foot in time to view the bloody aftermath of the American Revolution’s first battle.

So, other than the fictitious account of Paul Revere’s ride handed down to us by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, why do we hold Revere in such acclaim? “Paul Revere is sometimes underestimated,” says Patrick Leehey, research director for the Paul Revere House in Boston.  “He was considered to be ‘bold’ in his day, with that having a slight overtone of recklessness.”

Other than his work as a silversmith, Revere (left) was a captain of industry. Revere’s foundry produced sheet copper for shipbuilding, and he also manufactured cannon and bells. “He was America’s first defense contractor,” says Leehey. The Revere House, incidentally, celebrates its one-hundredth anniversary as a museum today, April 18, 2008, the 233rd anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride.

And even though it was not Paul Revere who completed the mission of warning the colonists in the countryside that April night, thanks to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the patriot’s name always will always be synonymous with those events that began the American fight for independence.

    For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
    Through all our history, to the last
    In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
    The people will waken and listen to hear
    The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
    And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow/George Kendall Warren, c.1870. Albumen silver print, National Portrait Gallery

Paul Revere,/Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin, 1801/Engraving on paper/National Portrait Gallery, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Face-to-Face Portrait Talk on Thelonious Monk, this Thursday, April 17

April is Jazz Appreciation Month! To help celebrate, Reuben Jackson, archivist at the National Museum of American History, will discuss Thelonious Monk and his portrait at NPG on April 17 from 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. Meet in the F Street lobby, and we will then walk to Monk’s portrait. For information on getting to the National Portrait Gallery please see our visit page.

This talk is just one of NPG’s Face-to-Face portrait talks that occur every Thursday. If you can’t attend the discussion, you can view Monk’s portrait on your own, in the “Bravo” exhibition on the third floor mezzanine. 

Pianist/composer/bandleader Thelonious Monk was one of our greatest philosophers. His compositions (classics such as “Pannonica” and the alternately lyrical and pensive “Monk’s Mood,” among others) are aural canvases pulsing with humor, depth, beauty, and originality.

Monk’s writing and his still-undervalued pianistic prowess personify a line from poet Patti Smith: “the sea of possibilities” This is where the best of hip hop and the world of Thelonious Monk intersect. At its best, hip hop is a pretension-free multitasker—part drummer, part messenger, and not afraid to address the alpha and omega of existence. (Visit NPG’s “RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture” exhibition for more on hip hop)

Then, of course, there are the sartorial and linguistic connections. The so-called “be-boppers” (the 52nd Street crew!)—of which Monk was considered a part, were as known for their “hip” vernacular and clothing as, say, The Wu Tang Clan. But what, if anything, does a hat, a smoke-filled room, or a pair of Reeboks, tell us about someone’s art?

—Reuben Jackson

Thelonious Sphere Monk/Boris Chaliapin, 1964/Oil on canvas/National Portrait Gallery, gift of Time magazine

 

 

 

April 15, A Day of Certainties

April 15 connotes a day of great civic participation in American government; it is the day, of course, income taxes come due as stipulated by the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1913 during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. 

This portrait of Woodrow Wilson can be viewed in the “America’s Presidents” exhibition, on the museum’s 2nd floor.  And you can see the 1913 version of the form 1040 (as a PDF) by visiting the IRS website at: www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/1913.pdf

Of tragic note on this date, Abraham Lincoln died at 7:22 in the morning of April 15, 1865, after having been shot by the actor and southern fire-eater John Wilkes Booth on the previous evening. On the night of the 14th, Lincoln and his wife had gone to Ford’s Theatre to see a production of Our American Cousin with the actress Laura Keene as the main attraction.

As actor Harry Hawk, playing the title character Asa Trenchard, finished the line “you sockdologizing old mantrap,” he was greeted with laughter and applause from the audience. At that moment, Booth fired the fatal shot and then jumped from the presidential box onto the stage, screaming out “Sic Semper Tyrannis”—the Virginia state motto, meaning “Thus Always to Tyrants.”

In the pandemonium that followed, Booth escaped, despite having broken his leg when landing on stage. When Lincoln died, allegedly Edwin Stanton uttered the phrase, “Now he belongs to the ages.” Booth was tracked into southern Maryland and shot to death on April 26.

April 15 also marks the commemorative anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  American artist and journalist Francis Davis Millet (left), a man who knew no bounds as a travel writer and who also served as director of the American Academy in Rome, was one of the 1, 513 passengers who died when the great ocean liner sank in 1912.  This portrait of Davis Millet was painted in 1878 by George Willoughby Maynard and is part of the National Portrait Gallery’s collections.

On the more positive side of this date in history, Charles Willson Peale (right), painter, inventor, naturalist, museum builder, and patriarch to a large and talented family, was born on April 15, 1741 near Chester Town on the eastern shore of Maryland. He painted this self-portrait in 1791; it is also part of the museum’s collections.   

Sources:
David C. Ward
Carolyn Kinder Carr and Ellen G. Miles, A Brush with History: Paintings from the National Portrait Gallery, NPG, SI, 2001. 

Thomas Woodrow Wilson/John Christen Johansen, c. 1919/National Portrait Gallery, transfer from the Smithsonian American Art Museum; gift of an anonymous donor, 1926

Abraham Lincoln, George Peter Alexander Healy, 1887/National Portrait Gallery; transfer from the National Gallery of Art; gift of the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, 1942

Francis Davis Millet/George Willoughby Maynard, 1878/National Portrait Gallery, bequest of Dr. John A. P. Millet

Charles Willson Peale/Self portrait, 1791/National Portrait Gallery

A Treasure Behind the Scenes

Not often on view because of the fragility of the pastel medium is NPG’s portrait of John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), executed by the German artist Izaac Schmidt in July 1783. The National Portrait Gallery has many other representations of Adams—showing him as a diplomat, as the sixth president of the United States, and especially as “Old Man Eloquent” of the House of Representatives—but this small drawing, done during the month in which Adams turned sixteen, has the distinction of being his earliest known likeness.

Young Adams had accompanied his father, John Adams—who had been appointed as one of the negotiators to bring the war with England to a close—on a second trip to Europe in 1779, even though he preferred to remain in Massachusetts and prepare for entrance into Harvard. But there was no resisting the persuasion of his mother—the formidable Abigail—who insisted that the experience of travel and the opportunity to learn foreign languages would be to his future advantage.

As it happened, in 1781 young Adams, fluent in French, was recruited to go to Russia as secretary and interpreter for Francis Dana’s futile mission to persuade the court of Catherine the Great to recognize American independence. Adams posed for his portrait just after he had made his way from Russia to the Hague (where he awaited his father’s return from France), traveling 1,200 miles through Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The three months he spent at the Hague, Adams recalled in 1814, “was the precise time of my change from boy to man, and has left indelible impressions upon my Memory.”

Adams gave the original portrait to his sister Nabby, and later had a copy made for his wife Louisa Catherine, pointing out that he appeared in his “best coat and powdered hair.” When he was sixty-four (the age the Beatles sang about), Adams, contemplating his young self, observed, “And they who look at the bald head, the watery eye, and the wrinkled brow of this day, would search in vain for the strong likeness which it was said to exhibit when it was taken.”

Adams’s old self is to seen in the Portrait Gallery’s “America’s Presidents” exhibition, as well as on the first floor, where he is pictured with spyglass in hand, signifying his love for astronomy, which prompted his significant role in the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution.

John Quincy Adams/Izaak Schmidt,1783/Pastel on vellum/National Portrait Gallery
John Quincy Adams/William Hudson, Jr,1844/Oil on canvas/National Portrait Gallery

Happy Birthday, Gatsby!

April 10, 2008, marked the eighty-third anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, considered by many critics to be the greatest American novel. Interestingly, although most students of American literature over the past half-century will attest to having read Gatsby, it was not nearly as popular in its own day.

In 1935—10 years after the publication of The Great Gatsby—David Silvette painted this portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald.  At the time, Fitzgerald was suffering from an emotional breakdown. He agreed to pose, however, and considered this a "swell" portrait. His career as chronicler of the dreams and disappointments of contemporary life was cut short by his death five years later. This portrait is now part of the National Portrait Gallery's collection, and is on display in the "Twentieth-Century Americans" exhibition, on the museum's third floor. 

In his biography of Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Myers writes of The Great Gatsby, “All the finest authors and critics of the time had admired The Great Gatsby, believed that Fitzgerald had fulfilled his artistic potential, and agreed that he had finally produced a great novel. But the sale of about 25,000 copies (far less than his first two novels) did not match his expectations and barely paid off his advance.”

Is The Great Gatsby the great American novel? According to NPG historian David Ward, “Yes. It is the first novel to deal in adult fashion with the end of the Victorian age and the beginning of the modern age, and it is perfectly written crystalline American prose and quite moving. Also, socially and politically, it discusses the tragedy of American life in much the same way as Herman Melville did with his whale; like Gatsby’s dream and the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, so many dreams we all have come to naught and we are compelled to start all over again.”

And although Fitzgerald never lived to see Gatsby taught in virtually every college and university in the nation, he must have taken some solace in the copious amount of praise given the work by such contemporaries as T. S. Eliot, Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway—the latter a man known to be slow to applaud.

F. Scott Fitzgerald/David Silvette, 1935/Oil on canvas/National Portrait Gallery

Sources:

Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography by Jeffrey Meyers
David C. Ward

Charlton Heston long in NPG memory

Charlton Heston at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian in 1980. He is pictured with Smithsonian staff members Debbie Schaefer-Jacobs, Linda Thrift, and Jane Yeingst.

 

Charlton Heston, a giant among actors and a giant among activists, as well as a contributor to National Portrait Gallery programming efforts in the 1970s, passed away on Saturday, April 5, 2008, with his wife of sixty-four years at his side. His unforgettable appearances in such epic films as Cecil B. De Mille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) and William Wyler’s Ben Hur (1959) are monuments in cinematic history. Both movies are now classics, and Heston’s performance as Judah Ben Hur earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Never afraid to test new waters, he portrayed the astronaut Colonel George Taylor in Planet of the Apes (1968) and Robert Thorn in Soylent Green (1973), innovative roles in science fiction that were as quotable as they were groundbreaking. He was also widely recognized for his portrayal of Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965).

His work for the Screen Actors Guild and the National Rifle Association occupied much of Heston’s time from the mid-1960s until his retirement from public life in 2002, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Heston served as president of SAG from 1965 to 1971 and as president of the NRA from 1998 to 2003. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003 and, much earlier in his career, marched on Washington in 1963 with Martin Luther King Jr.

Charlton Heston’s work extended to the very doors of the National Portrait Gallery. He volunteered his services as the narrator for Faces of Freedom, a half-hour film tracing the history of the United States through portraits in NPG’s collection. It premiered in July 1977 and was shown daily to orient visitors, and to introduce other audiences to what this comparatively new museum was all about. In appreciation for his magnificent delivery (he was chosen as narrator with Moses in mind), Heston was awarded the silver gilt Copley Medal, an honor bestowed on those who have made significant contributions to NPG. At a gala evening presentation in 1980, Heston stood in the Great Hall to hear Secretary Dillon Ripley proclaim “a handsome medal for a handsome man.”

Many NPG staffers have fond memories of the 1980 gala. Linda Thrift of CEROS also remembers Heston as a handsome man, adding, “He was gracious and he had that smile on his face.” Beverly Cox, director of exhibitions and collections management, says of Heston, “I remember being overwhelmed by his sense of presence and was pleased to see how kind he was to the staff.” Amy Henderson, an NPG historian, states, “I was there, and must say he looked like a movie star. When I said something like, ‘Hi, Mr. Heston,’ he replied, ‘Chuck.’”

Sources:
Reuter’s (“Oscar Winner Charlton Heston dies at 84,” April 8, 2008)
Washington Post (“A Persona Carved in Stone,” April 7, 2008)
NPG staff: Margaret Christman, Beverly Cox, Amy Henderson, Linda Thrift

Stephen on the Move

After almost three months on view at the National Portrait Gallery, Stephen Colbert’s portrait was taken down last week. The stately triple-likeness, located in between the 2nd floor bathrooms and within view of the “America’s Presidents” exhibition, brought in thousands of visitors, including—dare we say—many folks who otherwise would not have visited the Portrait Gallery. 

But don’t despair—he didn’t go very far. Colbert’s portrait is now on view in the “Treasures of American History”  exhibition, at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. It will be on display until April 13. 

If you missed out on the joke, here’s a recap: on episodes of The Colbert Report aired in mid-January, host Stephen Colbert attempts to donate his portrait to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, but the museum’s director suggests that Colbert should speak to the National Portrait Gallery. After much "discussion," the director of the National Portrait Gallery finds an appropriate place to hang Colbert’s portrait, in between the bathrooms and above the water fountain.

• See photos of Stephen Colbert’s portrait on the National Portrait Gallery’s Flickr group
• View the episodes on the Comedy Central Web site

Digital image on canvas, 2005 / On loan from The Colbert Report

40th Anniversary of the Death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Forty years ago, on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  As one of the founders and the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. King worked from the 1950s until his death as a proponent of nonviolent civil change.  In his autobiography he states, “All my adult life I have deplored violence and war as instruments for achieving solutions to mankind’s problems.  I am firmly committed to the creative power of nonviolence as the force which is capable of winning lasting and meaningful brotherhood and peace.”

Having completed his doctoral degree in systematic theology at the Boston University School of Theology, Dr. King’s advocacy began in 1955 with his election to the executive committee of the Montgomery, Alabama chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  Beginning with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, his name was synonymous with the civil rights movement and, again, nonviolence.  He declared early in 1956 in the New York Times, “If we are arrested every day, if we are exploited every day, if we are trampled over every day, don’t ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love.”

Dr. King was arrested thirty times for protest activities and suffered the bombing of his home in Montgomery during the bus boycott.  He received twenty honorary doctoral degrees from universities both domestic and international, and in December of 1964, he became the second American (after Woodrow Wilson) to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  His “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” written in April of 1963, is widely taught in university rhetoric and writing classes because of its sophisticated and compelling series of appeals.  Cities throughout America have streets named after him and the site of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis is now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum.  The King Center in Atlanta continues to serve Dr. King’s mission to promote the rights of the marginalized and oppressed.

Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh and Dr  Martin Luther King, Jr. /Unidentified artist/ National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the University of Notre Dame in honor of the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C

Sources and references:
-The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., Clayborne Carson, Editor
-The King Center, Atlanta, Georgia                  

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 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.

View the exhibition online: RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture

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.

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
 

An American Tragedy: Octavius V. Catto

While the Portrait Gallery was closed for renovation, we used the opportunity to reorganize the museum to reflect two of the main themes of American history: first the establishment and preservation of the Union through the Civil War, and second, the struggle to expand civil rights to all Americans. These themes led to a further conversation about who deserves to be included in the NPG as exemplary national figures. The only people who get in automatically are the presidents – good, bad or indifferent. Everyone else has to be assessed by our curators and historians. As our nation has democratized so has our collection. Instead of just having famous politicians and generals, we include people from all walks of life who made a mark on America.

One such figure is Octavius Catto, who, I would guess, is the least prominent, least well known person in our collection. His is a fascinating, tragic story--one that shows how difficult the struggle for civil rights has been in our country.

Catto was an African American teacher, civil rights activist, and organizer of one of America’s first baseball leagues. The son of a South Carolina slave who was manumitted, he became a Presbyterian minister, and moved north to Philadelphia. Octavius did everything a bright, ambitious young man with a social conscience should do in antebellum America. He obtained an excellent education at the Institute for Colored Youth, participated in the lyceum and public culture of the day, and returned to the school as professor of English and mathematics. He insisted on the necessity of schools and education for the African American community. He further sought to strengthen that community thruogh his love for cricket, and then baseball, by founding the Pythian Baseball club, which played against both black and, despite resistance, white teams.

During the Civil War, Catto, working with Frederick Douglass and others, helped raised money and troops for the Union cause. With the war won, emancipation achieved, Catto realized that the next battleground would be for civil and political rights. He helped desegregate the Philadelphia streetcars with an act of civil disobediance, and he fully immersed himself in the campaign to pass the great civil rights amendments, including the Fifteenth Amendment which guaranteed voting righs to African American men.

Although Philadelphia had a better reputation than some northern cities on the race question, racial discrimination was still endemic and sparked to life during the postwar election campaigns. The election of 1871 was especially heated, with Democratic operatives threatening and intimidating black voters both during the campaign and on election day. During a street encounter, Catto was shot to death by a white man named Frank Kelly. Kelly fled and was never convicted of the crime.

Catto’s funeral was one of the largest public ceremonies in Philadelphia history, as the city looked at itself and was ashamed: Catto had been an exemplary citizen and had been punished for being black. His death marked the beginning of a new era in American history as the problem of freedom for the slave became the question of achieving civil rights for African Americans. Catto was, as his epitaph put it, “One More Martyr in the Cause of Constitutional Liberty.”

Octavius Catto, 1839-1871/ Broadbent and Phillips (active 1871-74) / Albumen silver print , c. 1871 / National Portrait Gallery

Martin Sullivan Named Director of the National Portrait Gallery

Martin E. Sullivan has been named director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, effective April 28.

Sullivan is the chief executive officer of the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission in Maryland, a position he has held since 1999. He oversees museum research, interpretation and site preservation of Maryland’s first capital (1634-1695), a National Historic Landmark. Sullivan also coordinates master planning, facility development and academic programs in public history and museum studies with St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Kogod Courtyard Designed by Norman Foster

     

The Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard, a signature element of the renovated Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, opened to the public Sunday, Nov. 18. The building houses the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The enclosed courtyard with its elegant glass canopy designed by world-renowned architects Foster + Partners provides a distinctive, contemporary accent to the museums’ Greek Revival building

Foster + Partners was assisted by internationally acclaimed landscape designer Kathryn Gustafson of Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd. in the creation of the courtyard’s interior design, with a variety of trees and plantings, as well as a unique water feature. The courtyard is named for major donors Robert and Arlene Kogod, Washington philanthropists and art collectors.

Foster + Partners worked with the Smithsonian to create an innovative enclosure for the 28,000-square-foot space at the center of the building that was sensitive to the historic structure and yet added a modern element to the building. The light-filled Kogod Courtyard will become a major gathering place in the nation’s capital. It will be a welcoming space downtown, as well as a public venue for the museums’ performances, lectures and special events. Free public wireless Internet access (Wi-Fi) will be available in the courtyard. The Courtyard Café will offer casual dining during public museum hours (11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.).