National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

Walt Whitman’s Birthday

May 31, 2009, is the 190th birthday of the Patent Office Building’s most famous employee and regular patron, Walt Whitman. Whitman served as a volunteer in the P.O.B. during the building’s Civil War conversion to a hospital and after the war, Whitman worked in the building as a clerk for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

The Patent Office Building—called by Whitman “that noblest of Washington buildings”—became the home of the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum a century later. 

While Whitman was never formally introduced to our sixteenth president, he alluded to Abraham Lincoln many times in his writings. His journals note having seen the president and his military escort on the streets of Washington and Whitman discusses Lincoln’s character and appearance in detail. Of course, Lincoln is also the subject of Whitman’s most famous poem, "O Captain, My Captain."

CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Learn more about Walt Whitman in the National Portrait Gallery's online exhibition "One Life: Walt Whitman, A Kosmos." And explore the history of the Patent Office Building, in the online exhibition "Temple of Invention."

The Patent Office Building, circa 1846.  The building is now home to the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 

Walt Whitman, 1819-1892 / George C. Cox (1851-1902) / Platinum print, 1887 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Feinberg

Patent Office Building / John Plumba Jr. / Daguerreotype, c. 1846 / Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Lyndon Johnson and the "Johnson Treatment"

In 1955, with only seven years of seniority, Johnson was elected Senate majority leader. Through his successful courting of the “old bulls” of the “southern caucus,” particularly Richard Russell of Georgia, Johnson controlled the agenda of the Senate as no majority leader has before or since.

Another element of his mastery was the “Johnson treatment,” as displayed here with Senator Theodore Green of Rhode Island. Newspaper columnist Mary McGrory described it as “an incredible, potent mixture of persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages”; Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee recalled feeling that “a St. Bernard had licked your face for an hour, [and] had pawed you all over”; and Hubert Humphrey described it as a “tidal wave.” Johnson’s most notable victory as majority leader was the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first such legislation since Reconstruction.

Rachael Penman of the National Museum of Crime and Punishment discussed this photograph by George Tames, along with other images of Lyndon Johnson, at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The 1957 photograph is on view at the National Portrait Gallery, in the exhibition “Presidents in Waiting” on the museum’s second floor.  

Listen to Rachael Penman's Face-to-Face talk on Lyndon Johnson (15:26)

Face-to-Face occurs every Thursday evening at the National Portrait Gallery. The next Face-to-Face talk is tonight (Thursday, May 28), when biographer Irwin Gellman discusses Richard Nixon. The talk runs from 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. Visitors meet the presenter in the museum’s F Street lobby and then walk to the appropriate gallery.

Lyndon Johnson and Theodore Green / George Tames, 1957 / Gelatin silver print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Frances O. Tames / © The New York Times/George Tames

In the Gallery: Photographer Steve Pyke

Steve Pyke readily admits that his life in photography has been propelled largely by his fascination with the face. Born in England and now based in New York, Pyke first won notice for his distinctive close-up portrait style in the 1980s, with editorial work for the music press and magazines such as Britain’s popular “style bible,” The Face. In the intervening decades, Pyke’s photographs have reached a wide audience through their publication in major magazines around the world and their exhibition in museums and commercial galleries.

In 2004, Steve Pyke joined the New Yorker. “Working as a staff photographer at the New Yorker magazine gives me the immediacy of making portraits and seeing them appear in an editorial context,” Pyke explains, “and this has always surprised and stimulated me.” In tandem with his career in editorial photography, he has maintained a strong commitment to personally driven projects, including his portrait series documenting the world’s leading thinkers and philosophers.

A common thread running through both Pyke’s editorial and personal work is his abiding interest in what a face can tell us. “The way we live our lives is etched into the landscape of our faces,” Pyke observes. “We create the face with which we live.”

Pyke recently spoke at the National Portrait Gallery, where he discussed his work in “Portraiture Now: Feature Photography.”

Listen to Steve Pyke's gallery talk (37:21)

See other another photographer featured in “Portraiture Now: Feature Photography”—on Saturday, July 11, at 1:30 p.m., Martin Schoeller will visit the Portrait Gallery and discuss his work. His photographs have appeared in many different magazines, including the New Yorker, Gentleman’s Quarterly (GQ), Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone.

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Charles Willson Peale

In 1791 Charles Willson Peale added this portrait of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to his museum's collection of American heroes. Jefferson appears younger than his fifty years, perhaps evoking the young man the artist remembered as the Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress. Jefferson was well known to Americans in 1791, having also served as governor of Virginia and ambassador to France.

Notwithstanding George Washington's desire for unity in his administration, Jefferson quickly found himself at odds with Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, whose power and influence on the president rivaled his own. Jefferson favored a smaller, weaker national government, with more power residing in the states and closer ties to France; Hamilton argued for a powerful national government allied to Great Britain. From these differences the first American party system—Democratic-Republicans (Jefferson) versus Federalists (Hamilton)—was born.

This portrait of Jefferson is from Independence National Historical Park Collection in Philadelphia, and is currently on view at the National Portrait Gallery, in the “Presidents in Waiting” exhibition on the second floor. Sid Hart, senior historian at NPG, recently discussed the painting at a Face-to-Face portrait talk.

Listen to Sid Hart's Face-to-Face talk on Thomas Jefferson (22:55)

Face-to-Face occurs every Thursday evening at the National Portrait Gallery. The next Face-to-Face talk is tonight (Thursday, May 14), when NPG historian Jim Barber speaks about Andrew Johnson. The talk runs from 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. Visitors meet the presenter in the museum’s F Street lobby and then walk to the appropriate gallery.

Thomas Jefferson / Charles Wilson Peale, 1791/ Oil on canvas / Independence National Historical Park Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Now On View: Portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver by David Lenz

Eunice Kennedy Shriver is the creative force and organizer of Special Olympics, Inc., a nonprofit charitable organization that provides training and competition in Olympic sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. In a special ceremony this morning, National Portrait Gallery unveiled a portrait of Shriver by artist David Lenz, winner of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006. It is the first portrait commissioned by the museum of an individual who has not served as a president or first lady. The portrait is on display on the museum’s second floor rotunda. 

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, has been a leader in the worldwide struggle to improve and enhance the lives of individuals with intellectual disabilities for most of her life. In 1957 Shriver became director of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, which was created to deal with issues of mental retardation, and several years later she established a summer day camp at her home that became the basis for Special Olympics. In 1968 the Kennedy Foundation, working with the Chicago Park District, organized the First International Special Olympics Summer Games. Currently more than 1.3 million children and adults from more than 150 countries participate in the program. Shriver has received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Theodore Roosevelt Award of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

David Lenz was commissioned to paint this portrait as part of the first prize in the inaugural Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Lenz ’s winning painting, Sam and the Perfect World, portrays his son, an active participant in Special Olympics events. For this commission, Lenz embraced the idea of making a portrait of Shriver that would also include five persons with intellectual disabilities who have been involved in Special Olympics and the Best Buddies program: (left to right) Airika Straka, Katie Meade, Andy Leonard, Loretta Claiborne, and Marty Sheets.

Listen to an interview with artist David Lenz (13:15)

Listen to the dedication ceremony, featuring remarks from Bobby Shriver and David Lenz (26:45)

Eunice Kennedy Shriver / David Lenz, 2009 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Commissioned as part of the First Prize, Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006

Portrait of Eudora Welty by Mildred Nungester Wolfe

Each portrait has a story behind its creation. However, not all of those stories are knowable, as history often hides the details of the circumstances of the artist and the sitter coming together. This is not the case of the National Portrait Gallery’s painting of Eudora Welty by Mildred Nungester Wolfe.

Wolfe was a versatile artist who only recently passed away, in February of 2009; her work can be found in several museums and the Library of Congress. Her biography and retrospective, Mildred Nungester Wolfe (University Press of Mississippi, 2005), contains the story of the creation of the Welty portrait. The painting is on display on the museum's third floor, in the "Twentieth Century Americans" exhibition.

I had always wanted to paint Eudora Welty. She reminded me of a woman in one of Rembrandt’s portraits, holding a fan. She, like Eudora, is not exactly pretty, but not ugly either; and it’s a beautiful painting. Once I asked Eudora to pose for me, but at that time her mother was ill, and she was making frequent trips to the nursing home in Vicksburg to see her. She could not spare the time to sit. Later, after her mother passed away, I asked her again. I had decided to paint a watercolor portrait, which wouldn’t take much of her time. She came out to the studio with a book on Chekhov, a biography. She sat reading it, not looking up, laughing at what she was reading, and every now and then making a comment to me with a glance and a twinkle in her eye. The result was a very immediate and intimate portrait, done all on the spot.

A few years later the National Portrait Gallery in Washington was seeking a portrait of Eudora to add to its collection. She herself owned a portrait that had been done when she was a young woman, but she wanted to keep the painting hanging in her house. The artist who painted it was now pressing Eudora to sell it back to her, apparently so that she could turn around and sell it to the National Portrait Gallery. Eudora was outraged. She said to me, “I just wish somebody would paint another portrait and keep that woman silent, so I don’t have to hear from her again.” She didn’t outright ask me to paint one, but she suggested it would be a good idea.

I thought about it for a year before deciding that I might as well try it. In 1988, I asked her if I could come and make a drawing of her in her house. It was very cold that day. The heat was off in her house, and she was sitting in her chair in the living room with her coat on. I didn’t take my coat off either. I very carefully made a full-scale drawing in charcoal, took a photograph, and made some color notes. I used all this information to start on the canvas in the studio so Eudora would not have to sit for the portrait. When I was satisfied, I had her come and look. She liked it. I packed up and sent it, with some trepidation, to Washington. The selection committee sent word back: they loved the composition and the hands and head… If I was willing to make it more somber, they would be happy to reconsider it. When the painting came back, I darkened the color of the coat and, using Eudora’s borrowed scarf as a model, carefully painted in its printed pattern, toning down the color at the same time. The committee loved the revised painting and were very pleased that I had been willing to change it.

Eudora Welty was born 100 years ago this past April 13 and she died on July 23, 2001. She was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and she died in Jackson, Mississippi. Welty attended the Mississippi University for Women (also called the “W”) from 1925 through 1927 and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin, from which she graduated in 1929.

She enjoyed great acclaim as a writer, and her photography from her service in the Works Progress Administration has been exhibited in many museums. Her short stories are widely anthologized, while one of her novels, The Optimist’s Daughter, received the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. An early novel of Welty’s, The Robber Bridegroom (1941), was adapted into a Broadway musical in 1976 and earned a 1977 Tony Award for Best Actor (Barry Bostwick) and eight Drama Desk awards.

Listen to Warren Perry's Face-to-Face talk on Eudora Welty (23:59)

Face-to-Face occurs every Thursday evening at the National Portrait Gallery. The next Face-to-Face talk is this Thursday, May 7, when Sid Hart, senior historian, speaks about the portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Charles Wilson Peale, on view in the exhibition “Presidents in Waiting.”  The talk runs from 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. Visitors meet the presenter in the museum’s F Street lobby and then walk to the appropriate gallery.

Eudora Welty  /  Mildred Nungester Wolfe, 1988  /  Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Portrait of Ronald Reagan by Nelson Shanks

When ex-California governor Ronald Reagan began his presidency in 1981, his warmth and skill in handling the media had already planted the seeds of his reputation as the "great communicator."

More significant, however, was how those traits were made to work on behalf of his conservative agenda. By the end of his second term, despite widespread concern over budget deficits and several administration scandals, Reagan's presidency had wrought many significant changes. 

Under his leadership, the nation had undergone major tax reforms, witnessed a significantly firmer American stance toward the Communist world, and experienced a sharp upturn in prosperity. Reagan left office enjoying a popularity that only a few of his outgoing predecessors had ever experienced.

This 1989 portrait of Ronald Reagan by Nelson Shanks is on view in the “America’s Presidents” exhibition at National Portrait Gallery, on the museum's first floor. Sid Hart, senior historian at the National Portrait Gallery, recently discussed the painting at a Face-to-Face portrait talk.

Listen to Sid Hart's Face-to-Face talk on Ronald Reagan (21:53)

Face-to-Face occurs every Thursday evening at the National Portrait Gallery. Sid Hart speaks again at the next Face-to-Face talk, on Thursday, May 7.  He will discuss the portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Charles Wilson Peale, on view in the exhibition “Presidents in Waiting.”  The talk runs from 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. Visitors meet the presenter in the museum’s F Street lobby and then walk to the appropriate gallery.

Ronald Reagan / Nelson Shanks, 1989 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the James Dicke Family / © Nelson Shanks

Student Responses: Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol

This article, written by Allison Doyle, an undergraduate at Catholic University of America, is part of an occasional series in which Washington-area university students discuss works on display in the National Portrait Gallery. She writes about Andy Warhol’s 1967 screen print of Marilyn Monroe. The portrait is on display in the exhibition “Twentieth-Century Americans,” on the third floor.

 
        © Estate of Marilyn Monroe, c/o CMG Worldwide, Inc.
        © Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Walking through the National Portrait Gallery gives numerous options on writing about people who made a significant impact on history. Initially, the image of Marilyn Monroe was intriguing because of its colors. The portrait became even more intriguing after more research into the artist and his subject.

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles, California, on June 1, 1926. Norma Jeane was in and out of orphanages for the first eleven years of her life until family friends took her into their home. When she was sixteen she married Jimmy Dougherty, a long-time friend whom she had been dating for several months. After two years of marriage, Doughtery was sent away to fight in World War II. By 1946 Dougherty had returned from the war. Norma Jeane, however, had now become famous from her modeling and photography gigs, and the couple divorced. She changed her name to Marilyn Monroe, and soon her career skyrocketed.  Modeling launched roles in many movies, and her roles landed her a spot as Hollywood’s best new actress in 1953.

On January 14, 1954, Monroe married professional baseball player Joe DiMaggio; however, they were divorced in nine months. Two years later Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller, and by this time she had finished more than twenty major films and had become perhaps the most beloved woman in America.

The marriage turned ugly. Monroe turned to pills and alcohol as an escape from all the chaos, and suffered two miscarriages. On August 5, 1962, she was found dead of a drug overdose in her home. Although it was ruled a suicide, many different theories about her death persist to this day. Monroe was only thirty-six.

Monroe’s screen print in the National Portrait Gallery was created by Andy Warhol in 1962, the year of her death. The picture portrays Monroe with her trademark pouty mouth, emphasizing her sex-symbol status. Warhol highlighted Monroe’s lips and eyes, making them a brighter color than the rest of her face, which drew the viewer to those areas. He also used vibrant greens and yellows to really make the artwork stand out.

Warhol was born on August 6, 1928. Ever heard of the phrase “fifteen minutes of fame”? The quote is from Warhol, who once said that this classic slogan referred to the “fleeting condition of celebrity that grabs onto an object of media attention, then passes to some new object as soon as people’s attention spans are exhausted.”

At the age of twenty-one, the Pittsburgh-born Warhol moved to New York City to pursue an artistic career, working on pictures in magazines, shoe ads, and other promotional pieces. In the late 1950s he moved on to RCA Records, working on album covers and photographs to promote up-and-coming bands and artists. He became widely known in the 1960s and began to make portraits of modern icons, especially of Monroe. 

Warhol’s portrait shouts out the actress’s vibrancy and personality. The colors bring life to the late artist and also capture the beauty and spunk of the late Marilyn Monroe herself.

Marilyn Monroe / Andy Warhol, 1967 / Screenprint on paper / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Daniel Solomon / © Estate of Marilyn Monroe, c/o CMG Worldwide, Inc. / © Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / ARS, New York