National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

Zachary Taylor, 1784-1850

This article is written by Amanda Walli, a recent graduate in history and art history from the University of Maryland; she is interning at the National Portrait Gallery. She writes about H. Bucholzer’s 1848 portrait of Zachary Taylor, a lithograph that belongs to the National Portrait Gallery.

Zachary Taylor’s presidency was very brief, lasting only from his inauguration in 1849 to his death on July 9, 1850. Despite his short time in office, Taylor was president in a crucial time in American history and presided over events that would lead up to the Civil War.

Born in Virginia and raised in Kentucky, Taylor was also a slaveholder and had a plantation in Louisiana. Despite his southern background, Taylor was a nationalist, which is evident both in his forty years of service in the United States Army and in his presidency. The officer known as “Old Rough and Ready” was first involved in wars with Native Americans in the frontier. He later gained fame in the Mexican War, in which he won important victories as a general. He was nominated by the Whig Party for the presidency in 1848 because of his actions in the war and his broad appeal as both a southerner and an army officer.

As president, Taylor’s nationalist concerns became evident when he refused to place the interests of his fellow slaveholders over the interests of the country. Taylor battled sectional conflict throughout his short presidency and infuriated the southern states when he encouraged both California and New Mexico to apply for statehood by drafting state constitutions. Both states would most likely apply as free, rather than slave, states, an obvious cause for concern in the South. Some southern states began advocating for secession because of the crisis, but Taylor stood his ground and threatened hangings to anyone who did not remain loyal to the Union. Taylor died on July 9, 1850, after falling ill at the Fourth of July ceremonies, and never saw the enacting of the Compromise of 1850 or its failure with the outbreak of war eleven years later.

In this colored lithograph of Taylor, made by H. Bucholzer in 1848, Taylor is shown in his military garb sitting on a white horse. This was made when he was a general in the Mexican War and celebrates his victory in battle, calling him “the hero of Buena Vista.”

Zachary Taylor,/ Artist: H. Bucholzer / Hand-colored lithograph on paper, 1848 /  National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Dr. Fred W. Hicks, III

One Year Later: Remembering Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson died one year ago today

By Warren Perry, National Portrait Gallery

Michael Jackson was one of the greatest performers in American history, perhaps of all time.

I invoke the spirit of the 1980s in the following conversation, but as a tribute to Jacko, I maintain that the greatness of his work—especially the songs from Off the Wall and Thriller—carries the timeless pop sound that will inspire artists and listeners for decades to come.

Remember watching early MTV (as the joke goes, when there was a reason for there to be an "M" in title) and seeing the videos for “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and “Thriller”? If you were like me, you probably couldn't believe that it was the same kid who scored with the song about the rat named Ben— They don't see you as I do/I wish they would try to/I'm sure they'd think again/If they had a friend like Ben. It really was a song about a rat.

But this new Michael, this showman—this super Michael of 1982—he was a really new kind of performer. And he had it all.

Ushering in the MTV generation of the early 1980s, Jackson was the real deal—singer, dancer, handsome with flash, panache really. . . . When Thriller hit the record stores, it sold and sold. Songs from Thriller saturated the airwaves, and the Jackson experience of the eighties was in full swing as the songs flew off the album and onto the charts—great songs, mostly.

The duet “The Girl Is Mine” with Paul McCartney was the goofiest song on Thriller, and anytime two guys are arguing over a girl, the last thing anyone would ever hear either of them say is “The doggone girl is mine.” Most girls would drop a guy for uttering such foolishness. However, there are moments of driving, intense rock on Thriller that are unrivalled in American music. Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo in "Beat It" is raw and powerful; it is the stuff of guitar gods. Vincent Price's faux-scary rap during the song "Thriller" is almost as faux-frightening and fun as his “Black Widow” tirade on Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare. And if there is a dance club that does not play either "Billie Jean," "Beat It," or "Wanna Be Startin' Something" on an hourly basis, it is probably a lame dance club and you probably want to take your leg warmers somewhere else.

Forty-five million-plus copies and eight Grammy Awards later, Thriller is the greatest-selling album of them all.

This brings us to the question, is Thriller the greatest album of all time? It is one of those questions that begs to establish the criteria before trying to establish the superlative, but it has to be asked. With the advent of album-oriented rock (AOR) in the 1960s (our webmaster Ben believes that Sgt. Pepper is the greatest and most responsible for the phenomenon and that is hard to argue, also), some albums became home runs and others became foul balls. For every Dark Side of the Moon, there is a Mr. Roboto, as it were.

Join us on our NPG Facebook page for a discussion and chime in on our question: What is the best album of all time in the rock era?  

Michael Joseph Jackson / Andy Warhol / Synthetic polymer and silkscreen on canvas, 1984 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine / © Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / ARS, New York

William Henry Harrison, 1773–1841

This article is written by Caitlin Swindell, an art history and anthropology major from Tulane University who is interning at the National Portrait Gallery. She writes about Albert Gallatin Hoit’s 1840 portrait of William Henry Harrison, on display in the “America’s Presidents” exhibition on the Portrait Gallery’s second-floor.

President William Henry Harrison gave a lengthy inauguration speech on a freezing day in March 1841 without an overcoat or gloves. The frigid temperatures led Harrison to catch a cold, which developed into pneumonia. A month later, at age sixty-eight, he became the first U.S. president to die in office.

Harrison’s military career had brought him fame and high elective office. He defeated Indian forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe (1811) to open the frontier for settlers and commanded troops in the War of 1812 to repel the British invasion. Although elected president as a war hero, Harrison had obtained a series of noteworthy political credentials before his brief term in office. He was elected to Congress, served as governor of the Indiana Territory, and was appointed the first U.S. minister to Colombia. However, Harrison only won his position in the Senate after a number of attempts, and he was nearly incarcerated in Columbia for supporting an uprising against the government.

Harrison’s path to the presidency was rather conventional, but his presidential campaign was something entirely new. At the time, active campaigning was perceived as tactless, but Harrison employed tactics and techniques different from those of previous candidates. He and his followers used direct character attacks, “dismiss[ing] opponent Martin Van Buren as a snob and a dandy,” notes Cormac O’Brien. Harrison also promoted himself at campaign parties, distributed buttons and showy banners, and was the first candidate to have a campaign slogan—“Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” which referred to his victory against the Indians and to his vice-presidential nominee, John Tyler.    

In campaign speeches, Harrison claimed to be a man of the people, declaring, “I am not a professional speaker nor a studied orator, but I am an old soldier and a farmer, and as my sole objective is to speak what I think, you will excuse me if I do it in my own way.” But in fact Harrison was an aristocratic planter, the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a trained orator educated in the classics and history at Hampden-Sydney College. Ironically, that lengthy inaugural speech filled with “classical allusions” contributed to his death.

Although he revolutionized presidential campaigning, he had no opportunity to exert his leadership. As a result, William Henry Harrison is remembered only as the president with the longest inaugural speech and the shortest term.

Originally painted for the Whig Republican Association of Boston, Albert Gallatin Hoit’s portrait depicts Harrison in a rigid pose with a hesitant gaze directed at the viewer. This portrait was painted in 1840, the year Harrison was elected the ninth president of the United States.

Bibliography:

Lewis D. Eigen, and Jonathan P. Siegel, The Macmillan Dictionary of Political Quotations (New York: Macmillan, 1993).

Cormac O’Brien, Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2004).

“William Henry Harrison,” American Presidents: Life Portraits

“William Henry Harrison,” The White House 

William Henry Harrison / Albert Gallatin Hoit / Oil on canvas, 1840 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Joe DiMaggio: 1914-1999

Joe DiMaggio collected his 2,000th hit 60 years ago today

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Joltin' Joe has left and gone away…

Were Joe DiMaggio only remembered for his baseball career, his legacy would be sound. Were DiMaggio only remembered for his marriage to Marilyn Monroe, his legacy would also, in all likelihood, be in reasonable shape. DiMaggio, however, has a three-legged legacy; after baseball and after his celebrity marriage, he became the commercial spokesperson for the first drip coffeemaker, Mr. Coffee.

DiMaggio was a star of the New York Yankees in the years between the Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig dynasty and, roughly, the Mickey Mantle/Yogi Berra dynasty. That he was an Italian American endeared him to Italian Americans in New York during his playing years; that he routinely batted over .300 endeared him to Yankee fans for all time. DiMaggio's record fifty-six game hitting streak in 1941 has never been toppled.

Like many men of his generation, DiMaggio's career was interrupted by military service; however, he did not see combat during the Second World War, and his career resumed in the 1946 season. Nicknamed “The Yankee Clipper” and “Joltin' Joe,” DiMaggio had career numbers that are the digits of dreams: 361 home runs, 1,537 runs batted in, 2,214 hits, and a .325 lifetime batting average. It is easy to imagine those numbers augmented by the possibilities of the seasons missed because of military service.

And of course, Simon and Garfunkel coo-coo ca-chooingly invoke DiMaggio's name in homage to better times in the 1968 single “Mrs. Robinson.”

 - Warren Perry           

Joseph DiMaggio /  Osvaldo Salas / Gelatin silver print, c.1950 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / © Osvaldo Salas

Truth, Lies, Parson Weems, and Walt Disney

It is a fun, though misleading byproduct of the way history is written that legends and myths appear. Did Lady Godiva ride naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry? Was the impetus for Isaac Newton’s formulation of the laws of gravity an apple falling on his head? Did Betsy Ross truly sew the first American flag? 

The following is a well-known excerpt from the circa 1800 story of George Washington (1732–1799) by Parson Mason Locke Weems (pictured above):

“George,” said his father, “do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?” This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all- conquering truth, he bravely cried out, “ I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.”—”Run to my arms, you dearest boy,” cried his father in transports, “run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.”

Did Washington chop down his father’s cherry tree? Probably not, but it is a great story that lends some nice definition of character to the lad who would grow up to become the father of our country.

Like George Washington, Francis Marion (above, c. 1732–1795) was a patriot who was also the subject of a Parson Weems history. Weems writes that as a child, Marion was “puny” and “not larger than a New England lobster.” He also writes that after a shipwreck brought on by a “thorn-back whale,” young Marion was bobbing around in the ocean until discovered by a friendly ship whose captain nursed him back to health “by means of chocolate and turtle broth.”

Later, Marion’s battles with the British in the American Revolution would earn him a place in the first tier of American fighting legends. Given the nickname “The Swamp Fox” by British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, Marion and his men fought more in a skirmishing, guerrilla manner than in the traditional battlefield style. Weems writes of a British officer who became fed up with Marion’s non-traditional tactics:

The next morning colonel Watson sent a flag over to Marion, whom he charged with carrying on war in a manner entirely different from all civilized nations. “Why sir,” said he to Marion, “you must certainly command a horde of savages, who delight in nothing but murder. I can’t cross a swamp or a bridge, but I am waylaid and shot at as if I were a mad dog. Even my sentries are fired at and killed on their posts. Why, my God, sir! This is not the way that Christians ought to fight!”

One of the next incarnations of American folksiness is Davy Crockett (above,1786–1836), whose bravery, frontier lifestyle, and martyrdom at the Alamo certainly overshadow his time as a congressman from Tennessee. Crockett’s almost mythic status in his own lifetime made him the subject of ballads and stories that perpetuated his myth into the twentieth century. Even greater legend-making vehicles in the forms of cinema and television further propelled Crockett into American legend.

Television was in its early years when Walt Disney and his crew determined that such American backwoods heroes were great subject matter for film and television. In her essay “The Recycled Hero: Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett,” Margaret J. King attests that the Disney folks had no inkling of the mighty coonskin-cap-wearing specter they were raising:

The modern Crockett craze, appearing in early 1955, is now considered to be one of the great popular culture events of that decade. It was catapulted into existence by two of America’s most formidable media forces—Walt Disney and television—and ignited by the catalyst of a new consumer audience: the baby boom generation. . . . Walt Disney himself was unaware of and completely at a loss to explain the mechanisms involved in the $300 million industry that grew up around the symbol of Davy Crockett. After gaining momentum through the winter and spring of 1955, it died as quickly and unexpectedly as it had begun, not only leaving Crockett as an oversized figure in popular history, but also creating a sizeable academic controversy about Crockett’s true nature and his meaning for American history, and resulting in a general public inability, even now, to think of Davy Crockett without simultaneously calling up the Disney name.

Capitalizing on its successes with the Davy Crockett features (1954–55) starring the late Fess Parker, Disney (above) took a lesson from Parson Weems and returned to the American Revolution to stir up the spirit of the Swamp Fox. From 1959 to 1961, decades before he ever made Lieutenant Frank Drebin a living legend on Police Squad, Leslie Nielson portrayed Francis Marion as The Swamp Fox in much the same spirit as Parker had portrayed Davy Crockett.

More recently, The Patriot (2000), featuring Mel Gibson in the title role, also riffs on the exploits of a Marion-like character, as partisan guerillas fighting from the swamps in colonial America momentarily appear, torment the British, and then disappear again into the swamps.

 - Warren Perry 

Referenced:
Mason Locke Weems, A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1918). Found on http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/gw/weems.html

Mason Locke Weems, The Life of General Francis Marion (1809). Found on http://kciway3.net/proctor/revwar/swampfox.html

Margaret J. King, “The Recycled Hero: Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett” in Davy Crockett: The Man, The Legend, The Legacy, 1786–1986, ed. Michael A. Lofaro (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985).

Images:
Mason Locke Weems / Unidentified artist / Oil on canvas, c.1810 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Weems family

Francis Marion / James Barton Longacre / Ink wash on paper , c. 1835 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution\

David Crockett, / Unidentified artist  /  Woodcut on paper,  1837 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Walt Disney / Unidentified artist  / Gelatin silver print, 1940  / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Walt Disney Archives

Johnny Cash: Walking the Line

Born in Kingsland, Arkansas, in 1932 and raised in Dyess, Arkansas, Johnny Cash was typical of the raw talent which made its way into Sam Phillips’ studio: poor, rural, southern protestant, and working class.   These young men would be transformed into music royalty by Sam Phillips’ expert marketing and by their own good fortune and skill, and by the fact that something new was happening in music that was receiving a lot of attention.  Biographer Steve Turner writes, “People schooled in white church music, country, and pop were blending their sounds with blues and gospel, creating a new sound called rock-‘n’-roll.”

That sound would not only perpetuate itself and become the new world standard, but it would also sponsor a change in lifestyle which would sweep the youth culture and change, in turn, the world’s art, fashion, and views on morality.  Sam Phillip's studio was the nucleus of that change.  It is difficult to imagine any four walls burgeoning with more talent than the offices of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1950's.  Entering the studio on a given day might be Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, or Jerry Lee Lewis, the foursome Sun owner Sam Phillips called “The Million Dollar Quartet.”

Cash could be forlorn, tragic, and lost as in his song Sunday Morning Coming Down but he could also bring his audience around with songs of irony and humor, like One Piece at a Time and A Boy Named Sue.  "The Man in Black," as Cash was called because of his signature dark clothing, could be melancholy at one moment, and energized at the next.  Walk the Line, a deliberate ballad of love, is as much Cash's own anthem as it is a testimony to the quiet struggle of passions versus commitment:

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds
Because you're mine, I walk the line

Although Cash’s career was filled with stunning and unforgettable moments like his concerts at Folsom and San Quentin prisons and the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award, Johnny Cash, like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, was plagued by personal problems involving substance abuse and recklessness.  However, in creativity and performance, in charisma and behavior, and in many, many more respects, these young men established the traditions alive in rock and roll today and the canon of Sun music maintains a mighty presence on the stage of world music.

- Warren Perry 

Referenced:The Man Called Cash by Steve Turner, W Publishing Group (Nashville), 2004.

Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings / Jim Marshall / Gelatin silver print, 1974 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, © Jim Marshall

Celtics Versus Lakers: A Recurring Chapter in American Sports History

The roll call of players in the classic NBA championships between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers is a litany of the greatest names ever to play basketball: Bob Cousy, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, John Havlicek, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, James Worthy. Of course, ten years from now, the names accompanying those on the list will include Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett, the players leading this current incarnation of one of sport's most dynamic rivalries.

There have been sixty-four NBA championships, including this year’s. Collectively, also including this year's series, the Celtics and the Lakers have made fifty-two appearances, meaning that either a Celtics team or a Lakers team has been in the NBA championship more than 80 percent of the time. (This also takes into account the appearances by the Lakers when the franchise was located in Minneapolis—they relocated to Los Angeles in 1960.) Thirty-two of the previous sixty-three championships have been won by either a Celtics or a Lakers team, and after this series, thirty-three of sixty-four championships will belong to one franchise or the other.

The Lakers, in both Minneapolis and Los Angeles, have won fifteen of those championships; the Celtics have won seventeen. In NBA championships where they have played each other, the Celtics lead the series nine titles to two.

 - Warren Perry 

Arnold "Red" Auerbach and Bob Cousy / David Marlin / Gelatin silver print, 1957 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Earvin Johnson /  Walter Iooss, Jr. / Chromogenic print on paper, 1995 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine / © Walter Ioos Jr.

John Wooden, 1910–2010

 

John Wooden won almost twice as many NCAA basketball championships from 1966 to 1973 than any other coach has won over an entire career. If ever a sport were in debt to an individual, college basketball owes that debt to UCLA Coach John Wooden. Coach Wooden died on Friday, June 4, at the age of ninety-nine.

The superlatives attached to Wooden's career are vast, including an eighty-eight-game winning streak that began in January 1971, after a loss to Notre Dame, and ended in January 1974, with another loss to Notre Dame. Prior to coaching UCLA into basketball greatness, Wooden had taught high school and served in the U.S. Navy. In 2003, President George W. Bush awarded Wooden the Medal of Freedom. 

President Barack Obama said, ”I’m saddened to hear of the passing of an incredible coach, and an even better man, John Wooden. As a basketball fan, I remember fondly his ten NCAA championships, his unrivaled winning streak at UCLA, and the caliber of players he mentored. But as an American, I salute the way he achieved all that success—with modesty, and humility, and by wholeheartedly dedicating his life to the betterment of others."

 - Warren Perry 

John Robert Wooden / Jason Hailey / Chromogenic print, 1975 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; partial gift of Jason Hailey, photographer

NPG on the Web

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Portrait of Stonewall Jackson

At the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861, the unrelenting vigor with which Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson held his position inspired a general nearby to rally his troops with the cry, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall." From that moment on, he was known as "Stonewall" Jackson, a name that he repeatedly lived up to, fighting under the command of General Robert E. Lee.

The deeply religious Jackson believed intensely in the righteousness of the southern cause, and a key to his success was his ability to instill his own fighting fervor in his men. One of his most brilliant victories came at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863. Tragically for Jackson and the South, this would prove to be his last battle, as he died of wounds accidentally inflicted by his own men.

Listen to David Ward's Face-to-Face talk on Stonewall Jackson (30:33)

Face-to-Face occurs every Thursday evening at the National Portrait Gallery. The next talk is tonight (Thursday, June 3), when curator Anne Goodyear speaks about artist Jim Torok's work, on view in "Portraiture Now: Communities." 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 Jonathan Jackson / J. W. King, copy after:  Unidentified Artist, (Photographer) /  Oil on canvas, 1864 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; given in memory of Lieselotte Richardson