National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

Meet the Cast of "Portraits Alive!"

Washington D.C. high school students bring the Portrait Gallery's collection to life. Performances Tuesday - Friday, July 28 - August 13, at 2:15pm.

“Portraits Alive!” is an integral part of the education programming at the National Portrait Gallery. Not only does it provide an art- and history-rich seminar environment for the participating students, but it also serves to bring the NPG Teen Ambassadors’ scholarly efforts to the public over several weeks.

This year, the Teen Ambassadors challenged themselves with a diverse collection of portraits and personalities. Interestingly, all of this year’s students except one chose to portray artists (performers, writers, or visual artists). Aliyah Cabbagestalk (right), an entering senior at the Field School here in Washington, chose to portray Muhammad Ali. Although Ali danced in the ring and often recited poetry, his portrait resides in the NPG’s “Champions” gallery of exceptional American athletes.

Chris Schelb (left), a tenth-grader at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, will perform as Allen Ginsberg, the sole writer represented this year, while James Tindle (below), a recent graduate of Booker T. Washington PCS, says of his own choice, “The passion of Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov inspired me to immerse myself in his character and display it for an audience.”

Several of the scholars/performers found muses in singers. Tiana Long (right), a senior at Thurgood Marshall Academy and a veteran of the “Portraits Alive!” program, chose Marian Anderson because of Anderson’s impact on other artists such as Leontyne Price, the subject of Long’s portrayal last year. Ashley Hughes (below), another DC native, is an incoming freshman at Barry University in Miami. She says, “I chose Janis Joplin because of her involvement, her influence, and her controversial personality.”

Chelsey Shelton (right) will be attending Trinity University, Washington, in the fall of 2010. Shelton also chose to pay tribute to a singer: “I chose Selena Perez Quintanilla because I grew up listening to her music. Tejano music is very fun and upbeat. I also chose Selena because her movie gave me a closer look about herself and her life. The best quality of Selena Perez Quintanilla was her charisma and her heart-warming smile.”

The final singer in this year’s group is Denyce Graves, who was studied and will be performed by Tatiana Brown (below). Brown is an upcoming senior at Elizabeth Seton High School, and she counts dancing, writing, rowing, and art among her interests. She says, “I chose Denyce Graves because of her hypnotizing beauty.”

Ana-Elisa Gentle (right) is another Teen Ambassador alum, having portrayed Joan Baez in last year’s “Portraits Alive!” installment. This year, Gentle has challenged herself with the role of Tallulah Bankhead. Gentle is a recent graduate of the School Without Walls.

Lauren Walker (below), another Duke Ellington School of the Arts scholar and performer, will be portraying feminist and activist Kate Millett. Walker sees the multifaceted sides of Millett as quite attractive, adding, “Her story exposed me to a new political world that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. I’m excited about exploring her story, perspectives and evolution not only as a human but as a woman.”

Justin Chaney (below) will be a freshman this fall at Columbia College in Chicago. He chose to portray renowned African American actor Ira Aldridge. Chaney describes Aldridge’s portrait as that of “a regal African man, donned in majestic cape and gold crown, like an African prince.”

Now On View: Portrait of Norman Mineta

Photo by Ricky Leung, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program

Former Transportation and Commerce Secretary Norman Y. Mineta was recognized by the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program with the installation of his portrait in a private ceremony at the Portrait Gallery on Monday, July 26.

The portrait, by artist Everett Raymond Kinstler, is on display on the museum's first floor, in the "New Arrivals" exhibition, a collection of recent acquisitions. The oil-on-canvas painting was offered as a gift to the Portrait Gallery from the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program.

Born in 1931 to immigrant Japanese parents in San José, California, Mineta and his family were detained along with 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent at an internment camp during World War II. Mineta's career in politics began with an appointment to a vacant seat on the San José City Council in 1967; two years later he won the seat in his own right. In 1971, he was elected mayor of San José, becoming the first Asian American mayor of a major U.S. city.

Photo by Ricky Leung, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program

As a member of Congress from 1975 through 1995, Mineta co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and engineered the passage of H.R. 442, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988—an official government apology for the internment of those of Japanese ancestry during World War II.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton appointed Mineta secretary of commerce, making him the first Asian Pacific American to hold a cabinet post. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed him secretary of transportation, making him the only Democrat in Bush's cabinet and one of the few citizens ever to serve in the cabinet of both a Democratic and Republican president. During the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, Mineta issued the historic order to ground all civilian aircraft, the first time this had been done in U.S. history.

Mineta retired from his cabinet post in 2006 and in that same year was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. Mineta also served on the Smithsonian's Board of Regents from 1979 through 1995 and supported the establishment of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American program in 1997. Currently, he is vice chairman of Hill & Knowlton, a leading global communications consultancy.

This commission was made possible through the support of benefactors George and Sakaye Aratani, Hill & Knowlton, and Verizon Communications with additional support from many others. The portrait of Mineta is a part of the National Portrait Gallery's ongoing efforts to commission portraits of living sitters for its permanent collection.

For more, including additional photos of the event, visit the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program blog.

Photo by Ricky Leung, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program
Norman Mineta and artist Everett Raymond Kinstler.

Portraits Alive!: Teen Ambassadors 2010

Beginning on Wednesday, July 28, the portraits of the National Portrait Gallery come to life with "Portraits Alive!" performances.

For the fourth summer, the National Portrait Gallery is proud to host the Teen Ambassadors, a group of Washington, D.C., high school students selected to perform as various NPG portrait sitters. The Teen Ambassadors spend several weeks in research and writing after choosing the person they wish to portray. Beginning this week, they will deliver their monologues in front of their respective chosen sitter. Individual performances are three to five minutes, and the collective experience usually lasts slightly over an hour.

"Each of these young people brings something special with them; while some of them are performers, others are writers, and this opportunity allows them to explore and develop talents that will augment their existing passions," observes Geri Provost-Lyons, NPG’s Youth and Family Coordinator and director of the Teen Ambassador program. Provost-Lyons adds, "We are fortunate in that we have so many gifted young people who commit themselves completely and professionally to present these vignettes. They truly craft excellent work."
    

The 2010 Teen Ambassadors, preparing for their "Portraits Alive!" performances. The students spend several weeks in research and writing.

L-R: Geri Provost-Lyons, director of the Teen Ambassador Program; Molly Katchpole, Smithsonian Katzenberger Art History Intern; and Erica Joyce, NPG intern.

Portrait of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney by Jo Davidson

On view in the exhibition "Jo Davidson: Biographer in Bronze"

The National Portrait Gallery owns more than sixty of Jo Davidson’s portraits in bronze, marble, terra-cotta, and plaster, acquired over a number of years. Born in New York to Russian immigrant parents, Davidson struggled financially at the beginning of his career. But by the 1920s, his reputation as a leading portraitist in France, England, and the United States was secure, and later he became so well known that a photograph of his jovial, black-bearded countenance served as a clue in a crossword puzzle!

Jo Davidson’s charisma endeared him to many of his famous subjects. One of my favorites is our portrait of his contemporary, the sculptor and heiress Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), one of those charmed by Davidson, and one of his earliest patrons. Just after she had been introduced to Davidson in Paris in 1908, Whitney began to purchase his work and to correspond with him, arranging visits when she was in France. In 1909 she wrote, “I hope you come to America. It’s good to go and look around there once in a while . . . come and look at me! too.”

During the years just after his marriage in 1909, Davidson and his wife Yvonne, a designer of fashionable dresses, did live in New York, where Whitney found studio space for him in MacDougal Alley, near her own studio and the new Whitney Studio Club on West Eighth Street. In 1917, she made a bronze portrait of Davidson. But Davidson’s 1916 portrait of Whitney was not a friendly gift; it was commissioned in order to help Davidson financially.

The portrait is very like contemporary photographs of Whitney, with her deep-set eyes, narrow brow, and thick hair. Davidson was known for capturing a likeness quickly, and he imbued his sitters with a vivacity born from conversation. As he confessed, “I often wondered what it was that drove me to make busts of people. It wasn’t so much that they had faces that suggested sculpture. . . . [It] was the people themselves—to be with them, to hear them speak and watch their faces change.”

The portrait was produced in several versions. Whitney mentioned a plaster and a polychromed terra-cotta in her correspondence from 1916 and 1917. A marble is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Davidson owned two plasters, and perhaps a version of the terra-cotta bust. But no contemporary bronze is known.

In 1968, this particular bust was cast in bronze for the National Portrait Gallery, using a plaster that had remained in the Davidson family. It was cast by the Valsuani foundry in France, the foundry Davidson used during his lifetime. That we know this much about Davidson’s portrait (and there is still much that we do not know) is due to our ongoing research into his sculptural production, initiated in 1993, when we examined Davidson’s personal papers at the Library of Congress.

This research brought us into contact with Davidson’s surviving son, Jacques Davidson, who, although he has now passed away, lived in France, where Jo owned a house. Jacques, as charming as his father, had been in touch with the Gallery over the years. During a trip to America with his son, he visited the Gallery again and examined many of our sculptures, offering opinions and reminiscences, and adding to our knowledge of Jo’s work.

Jo Davidson and Whitney remained close until her death in 1942. They visited each other, traveled together, and corresponded. Whitney bought heaps of Yvonne’s designer dresses for herself and her daughters. In 1927, she wrote a long, philosophical letter to Davidson, which began, “Life is funny and you are wonderful.” Davidson’s sensitive portrait of Whitney expresses his relationship with a woman who was not only a fellow artist and his patron, but also his friend.

 - Brandon Brame Fortune , Curator of Painting & Sculpture, National Portrait Gallery

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney / Jo Davidson / Bronze, 1968 cast after 1916 original / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Further reading: Davidson’s autobiography, Between Sittings (New York, 1951), is full of anecdotes about his life and his sitters. For an account of Davidson’s work, see Janis Conner and Joel Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture: Studio Works, 1893–1939 (Austin, Tex., 1989). The standard biography of Whitney, with references to her friendship with Davidson, is B. H. Friedman, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (New York, 1978).

Nighttime Surprise: Bayonet Assault at Stony Point, July 16, 1779

Anthony Wayne was one of those men who truly proved his mettle during wartime.

Among his memorable accomplishments was a victory that resulted from a most severe learning experience. In September 1777, Wayne's troops were bivouacked at Paoli, Pennsylvania, and fell victim to a well-executed nighttime bayonet assault.

In his history of the American Revolution, Patriot Battles, Michael Stephenson writes, “Of Wayne's 1,500 men, 13 percent (200) were killed and another 7 percent (100) wounded. . . . This was a most shocking inversion of the usual ratio of killed to wounded; in most battles it was about three wounded to every man killed.”

This lesson was not lost on Wayne; after suffering the horrors of the attack, he tucked away the strategy and saved it for another day and another place. When he finally brought the tactic out of his playbook it was July 16, 1779; the place was the British fort at Stony Point, New York, on the Hudson River. With stealth, Wayne's men approached the fort, under command to attack with bayonets only. The assault was precise and deadly, beginning in the late hours of July 15; the fort belonged to the Americans by early morning of July 16. Wayne had made up for the tragic duping at Paoli.

Wayne served with distinction in the American Revolution; after Stony Point he participated in the surrender at Yorktown and the removal of the British from Georgia. During George Washington's presidency, Wayne was made commander-in-chief of the new American army, during which tenure he fought and later negotiated peace with Indians of the Northwest Territory. This achievement is signified in Wayne’s portrait by George Graham, in which a peace pipe can be seen in the background; the papers on the table in the foreground are likely intended to be the treaty of peace signed at Fort Greeneville in 1795.

- Warren Perry, National Portrait Gallery

For further reading: Michael Stephenson, Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).

Anthony Wayne / George Graham / Mezzotint on paper, 1796 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Greta Garbo: Legend of Hollywood's Golden Age

The enigma and allure of Greta Garbo (1905–1990) was something she understood completely: “I am only an image, and that is all I can be to you.” The aura of Garbo’s star quality still radiates: “glamorous,” “mysterious,” “aloof,” and “enchanting” were words commonly used to describe her. And although she retired from movies more than six decades ago, at the age of thirty-six, Garbo remains a legend from Hollywood’s golden age.

Born Greta Gustafsson in Stockholm on September 18, 1905, the stagestruck adolescent won a scholarship to study at the city’s Royal Dramatic Theatre School. Here she met Sweden’s leading film director, Maurtiz Stiller, who became her mentor: first, he changed her name to “Greta Garbo,” and then, when MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer offered him a contract to come to Hollywood, he brought his protégé along. Garbo and Stiller arrived in New York in 1925 and were introduced to photographer Arnold Genthe. Fascinated by Garbo’s eyes and by “what is behind that extraordinary forehead,” Genthe persuaded her to sit for a photo session that transformed her career. The results of this sitting (above), soon published in Vanity Fair magazine, convinced MGM that Garbo had a very special quality, and she was quickly signed to a contract.

Still only twenty, Garbo had a bit more baby fat than fit the MGM mold, teeth that needed straightening, and a mop of hair that was entirely too frizzy. The studio glamour doctors went to work, and her metamorphosis yielded results. In 1926 Garbo made an auspicious Hollywood debut in The Torrent, and the next year played opposite John Gilbert—then one of the screen’s most popular leading men—in what became a tremendous box-office hit, Flesh and the Devil. Their chemistry sizzled both on and off the set, and they would be paired in several other films, including Love (1927), A Woman of Affairs (1928), and Queen Christina (1933).

As the Los Angeles Times noted at the time, Garbo represented an “utterly different type” of movie star. Earlier stars such as Mary Pickford or Lillian Gish conveyed innocence; Colleen Moore and Gloria Swanson were prototypic Jazz Age flappers; Clara Bow had “It.” But all seemed dull and dated when the screen filled with Garbo’s lambent aloofness and sophistication. Her evanescent movie image was enhanced by the art of still photography, particularly the 4,000 photographs taken between 1929 and 1941 by MGM’s chief photographer, Clarence Sinclair Bull (his 1939 portrait of Garbo shown at right).

Theirs was a wonderfully simpatico relationship: “When the pose was to my liking,” Bull recalled, “I quickly adjusted the lights and made the picture. Garbo read my face out of the corner of her eye. . . . All I did was light the face and wait. And watch. [She was] the easiest of all stars to photograph, having no bad side and no bad angles. . . . She never seemed to tire of posing.” James Wong Howe, a leading MGM cinematographer, agreed with Bull on the ease of working with Garbo: “She was like a horse on the track—nothing, and then the bell goes, and something happens. When the camera started to roll, she started to come to life.” Fellow movie star Bette Davis described the Garbo magic as instinctive: “her mastery over the machine was pure witchcraft. . . . No one else\ so effectively worked in front of a camera.”

However masterful she appeared onscreen, however much she enjoyed the public face of her stardom—and there are indications that she did—the obsession of her personal life was solitude. Garbo the Star loved being worshiped on the silver screen and was said to be “crazy about pictures of herself.” Yet the increasingly private Garbo resented the fame she had worked so carefully to cultivate: “The story of my life,” she once said, “is about back entrances and side doors and secret elevators . . . so that people won’t bother you.”

MGM was not above using Garbo’s eccentricities for publicity: when she made her transition from silent to sound films in Anna Christie (1930), MGM trumpeted “Garbo Talks!”; in Ninotchka (1939), the marquees headlined “Garbo Laughs!” Among her movies in the thirties was Grand Hotel, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1932; Anna Karenina, for which the New York Times called her the “first lady of the screen” in 1935;and Camille, where critics hailed “the sheer magic of her acting” in 1937. After the “cinematic champagne” and “sparkling satire” of Ninotchka, her final film was the 1941 disaster Two-Faced Woman, which was not only panned by critics but condemned by the National Legion of Decency for “impudently suggestive scenes, dialogue and situations; suggestive costumes.”

And what about that most-famous-of-all-Garboisms? She insisted that she never said “I want to be alone,” only that “I want to be left alone.” Perhaps the great irony of her life was that by trying to avoid publicity, she became one of the most publicized women in the world.

- Amy Henderson, Historian, National Portrait Gallery

Greta Garbo / Arnold Genthe / Gelatin silver print, 1925  / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Greta Garbo  / Clarence Sinclair Bull / Gelatin silver print, 1939 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / © Estate of Clarence Sinclair Bull

Greta Garbo in “the Kiss” / Joseph Grant / India ink, pencil and crayon on paper. 1929 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Carol Grubb and Jennifer Grant Castrup

James Monroe Cleans Up: The Conservation of an Early American Engraving

By Renée Wolcott, Intern, Lunder Conservation Center

When President James Monroe needed a bath, the National Portrait Gallery called on me to fill the tub. I’m a rising third-year graduate student in the Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation. This summer, I’m treating prints and drawings as an intern in the paper lab of the Lunder Conservation Center.

My supervisor, Rosemary Fallon, has been paper conservator at the National Portrait Gallery for twenty-two years. During my first week, she presented me with a major treatment challenge: a grimy, foxed, ink-stained engraving of James Monroe, our fifth president. The early nineteenth-century print also had moisture stains, and its top had been folded back and torn—probably the result of squeezing it into a too-tight frame. Before it could be displayed in the “New Arrivals” exhibition this November, the important engraving needed help.

According to Wendy Wick Reaves, the Portrait Gallery’s curator of prints and drawings, Thomas Gimbrede created the engraving in 1817, basing it upon a John Vanderlyn portrait painted during Monroe’s candidacy. The engraving became the public image of Monroe during his presidency, and now both the original portrait and a rare copy of the engraving are part of the Portrait Gallery’s collection.

Cleaning up the president has required me to use a range of treatment techniques. I began by removing the surface grime with grated vinyl eraser crumbs, which are gentle enough to lift dirt without disturbing the paper fibers. I then tested the solubility of the disfiguring blue ink stain, and used a suction disk to pull the dampened ink into a blotter rather than letting it spread into the surrounding paper fibers.

When the stain had been reduced, I bathed the print in several changes of water at a slightly alkaline pH. Yes, bathed. Art conservation is a field that requires advanced education in chemistry, studio art, and art history—as well as a certain amount of chutzpah. While most people quiver at the thought of submerging paper-based artwork, paper conservators wade right in. (Only, of course, after thorough testing of the inks and other media!) Washing helps to pull out the acidic degradation products that darken paper and speed its deterioration.

When the engraving was still foxed and discolored after washing, I bathed the darkened areas locally on the suction table and then turned to light bleaching. The immersed print was exposed to UV-filtered fluorescent light for fourteen hours: a purely cosmetic treatment that can work wonders in lightening darkened cellulose. The paper is now significantly brighter, more uniform, and ready for mending.

For more information about art conservation, visit the Lunder Conservation Center. Glass walls invite you to watch us work, and a staff conservator offers a public tour every Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. To see the improved James Monroe, visit the “New Arrivals” exhibition, which opens on November 19 at the National Portrait Gallery.

Reducing the blue ink stain with deionized water on the suction disk. Photo by Rosemary Fallon.

Removing the engraving of James Monroe from its light bleaching bath. Photo by Steven O'Banion.

Bathing the print margins with alkaline water on the suction table to reduce foxing. Photo by Rosemary Fallon.

James Monroe: "The Era of Good Feelings"

This article is written by Caroline Larson, an Art History and French major from Brigham Young University who is interning at the National Portrait Gallery. She writes about John Vanderlyn’s 1816 portrait of James Monroe, owned by the Portrait Gallery.

James Monroe was born on April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He enrolled at the College of William and Mary for two years but left in 1776 to enlist in the Third Virginia Regiment. He served as a lieutenant, major, and aide to General William Alexander before beginning to study law with Thomas Jefferson. In 1782 Monroe was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates and served as a delegate to the Confederation Congress from 1783 to 1786. He married Elizabeth Kortright in 1786 and began practicing law in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Monroe was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1790 and worked with James Madison to establish the Democratic-Republican Party. Appointed minister to France by George Washington in 1794, Monroe worked to maintain friendship with that country. From 1799 to 1802 he was governor of Virginia. In 1803 Jefferson appointed Monroe to assist in buying a port on the Mississippi. Although unauthorized for the action, Monroe and his colleagues accepted Napoleon’s offer of the Louisiana Territory. Monroe then served as minister to Great Britain from 1803 to 1807. Madison appointed Monroe secretary of state in 1811 and secretary of war in 1814.

In 1817 Monroe became the fifth president of the United States. This heralded the beginning of what became known as the “Era of Good Feelings” and a temporary end to the two-party system with the death of the Federalist Party. Monroe was the last of the Revolutionary generation to hold the presidency.

Most of Monroe’s most noteworthy achievements as president were in foreign affairs. On December 2, 1823 he declared that European interference on the American continent would be regarded as an unfriendly act and that the Americas were closed to further colonization. Later known as the Monroe Doctrine, his declaration received little notice at the time but became key in future American foreign policy.

Monroe also secured Florida for the United States with the Adams-Onis Treaty with Spain, and attempted to solve conflict over free and slave states with the Missouri Compromise. His second term as president ended in 1825 and in 1827 he retired to his estate. After his wife’s death in 1830, Monroe moved to New York City, where he died on July 4, 1831.

John Vanderlyn’s portrait of Monroe, painted the year before Monroe became president, displays the French neoclassical style the artist favored. Monroe and Vanderlyn had sailed abroad together and remained lifelong friends.

James Monroe / John Vanderlyn / Oil on canvas, 1816 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Designing Woman: Edith Head in Hollywood

She referred to her eight Oscars as “my children.” Nominated thirty-five times for the Academy Award for best costume design, Edith Head (1897–1981) was one of the most prolific and certainly one of the most celebrated movie designers from the 1930s to the 1970s. A pioneering woman in decades that encompassed both the heyday and the demise of Hollywood’s highly competitive studio system, Head flourished in that fluctuating atmosphere, proving herself perfectly capable of the kind of ruthlessness, arrogance, and self-promotion necessary for success.

But perhaps the key reason Edith Head succeeded was a supreme ability to make herself essential. Born in modest circumstances in San Bernardino, California, she once said of her childhood, “I didn’t have what you would call an artistic or cultural background. We lived in the desert and we had burros and jackrabbits and things like that.” Her initial career was as a Spanish teacher, but she also expressed a strong interest in design and studied at the Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles. In 1923 she answered an ad for “sketch artists” and was hired by Paramount Pictures’ head of costume design, Howard Greer. At the time, Paramount was one of the leading Hollywood studios, with a roster that included such silent-screen stars as Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow. Although Head only viewed these icons from the middle distance, she learned from Greer—and from his successor, Travis Banton—how crucial it was to establish a rapport between star and designer. “You have to have the patience of Job,” she once said.

In the studio, surrounded by starlight, she downplayed herself as “little Edith in dark glasses and the beige suit. That’s how I’ve survived.” In 1938 she became chief costume designer at Paramount—the first woman to hold such a lofty position—and always remembered the thirties as her favorite decade, when “the star was a star . . . [and] she wore real fur, real jewels.” Her job was to create fantasy, “to change people into something they weren’t—it was a cross between camouflage and magic.” Matinee audiences during the Depression and World War II were full of women who stood in line to see the latest fashions of their screen idols: “Then, a designer was as important as a star,” Head recalled. “Dress was part of the selling of a picture.”

Over the years, she worked her magic on such stars as Clara Bow, Mae West, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Ann Sheridan, Veronica Lake, Olivia de Haviland, Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, and Elizabeth Taylor. She had a keen knack for visually transforming these actresses into whatever screen guise was required, whether in a period drama such as The Heiress, for which she won her first Academy Award, or an adventure film such as To Catch a Thief. “There isn’t anyone I can’t make over,” she pronounced. And her loyal clientele also knew, as Lucille Ball once put it, that “Edith doesn’t tell.”

She takes credit for two particular designs that became fashion crazes: the figure-loving sarong she invented for a slightly zaftig Dorothy Lamour in The Jungle Princess (1936), and the toreador pants she designed to emphasize Audrey Hepburn’s gamine grace in both Sabrina (1954) and Funny Face (1957). But Head’s larger historical contribution was as part of the group of Hollywood designers, including Adrian at MGM and her Paramount predecessors Howard Greer and Travis Banton, who gave an American “look” to movies from the 1930s on. Until then, fashion had radiated from Paris to New York. But with the coming of war and after, the Paris–New York axis was disrupted, and because of the ubiquitous influence movies exercised in these years, Hollywood found itself in the vanguard of fashion’s Americanization.

New York runways, followed by department stores around the country, became dominated not by the formal chic of Chanel and Balenciaga but by clothes that reflected Southern California’s casual elegance—clothes first suggested by Hollywood designs for the silver screen in such films as All About Eve (1950) and A Place in the Sun (1951), both of which earned Head Oscars for best costume design. Her scrapbooks of the period are glued to the margins with newspaper and magazine stories trumpeting the ascension of American fashion: “Paris Style Headquarters Moves to America/ America Now Sets the Style Pace!”

A catalyst for fashioning an American identity that strolled across movie screens and down Main Street, Head also proved herself a maven of market mastery. She built on her Hollywood celebrity to purvey her ideas about practical and simple design through a network of other commercial channels, writing articles for Photoplay magazine about how the average girl could dress like a star, licensing her name for Vogue pattern designs, and, beginning in 1948, appearing as a regular guest on Art Linkletter’s House Party, where she gave women in the audience practical advice about how to dress and generally improve their looks.

In 1967 Head moved from Paramount to Universal. She knew one of the reasons she was hired at that stage of her life—she was seventy that year—was that her high profile would bring the studio publicity. And it was a role she relished. An assistant remembered, “She’d hear the tour tram coming down the street, stick some pencils in her bun, and run to the doorway of her office so she could just ‘happen’ to be coming out when the tram went by. Heaven help you if you got in her way.”

By the time she won her last Oscar, for The Sting in 1976, Edith Head had fashioned herself into as much of a celebrity icon as the stars she costumed. True, part of her achievement resulted from her willingness to ring her own bell. But most of all, her success came because she was a realist about life in the Hollywood dream factory: “You gotta give ’em what they want, kid. If you don’t, they’ll find somebody who will.”

- Amy Henderson, Historian, National Portrait Gallery

Edith Head / Bob Willoughby / Gelatin silver print, 1960 (printed 1984) / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bob Willoughby; © Bob Willoughby

Rules of Civility for the Fourth of July Weekend

George Washington armed himself as a soldier, certainly, but as a youth he armed himself with propriety.  As the story goes, Washington was a young man committed to bettering himself, and as part of that effort, he transcribed over one hundred of the instructional items from a book called Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.

For the collective benefit, we reprint some of those rules today in order to provide a service and to provoke thought over this coming holiday weekend.

• Eat not in the streets nor in the house out of season.

• Run not in the streets; neither go too slowly nor with mouth open; go not shaking your arms; kick not the earth with your feet; go not upon the toes nor in a dancing fashion.

• Spit not in the fire, nor stoop low before it.  Neither put your hands into the flames to warm them, nor set your feet upon the fire, especially if there be meat before it.

• Put not your meat to your mouth with your knife in your hand; neither spit forth the stones of any fruit pie upon a dish nor cast anything under the table.

• Cleanse not your teeth with the table cloth, napkin, fork, or knife; but if others do it, let it be done with a pick tooth.

• If you soak your bread in the sauce, let it be no more than what you put in your mouth at a time; and blow not your broth at table but stay till it cools of itself.

And finally, one of our own: Have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day.

George Washington / Robert Edge Pine / Oil on canvas, 1785 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution