National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

Andrew Young and the New South

Join Andrew Young in conversation, this Saturday at 2pm at the National Portrait Gallery. His portrait will be installed in the exhibition “The Struggle for Justice.”

The 1960s and 1970s were decades in which the American south struggled with problems that had plagued the region from colonial times. First and foremost, the South had never overcome the specter of slavery that haunted it from its beginnings. After the Civil War and emancipation, this problem changed forms and manifested itself as racial intolerance and the denial of basic civil rights to African Americans. However, the second half of the twentieth century was marked by much-needed change. Andrew Young was one of the agents of that change.

Andrew Jackson Young Jr. was born in New Orleans in 1932. Although the country was enduring difficult times in a massive economic depression, Young’s parents were both employed professionals—his mother was a schoolteacher, his father a dentist. Andrew Young completed high school in New Orleans and then received his first college degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C.; he also completed a bachelor’s degree in divinity from Hartford Theological Seminary.

Young worked as a minister for several years before joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1961 in the throes of the civil rights struggle. He quickly moved into the ranks of its leadership and joined the pantheon of activists whose names are synonymous with the movement. In his autobiography, Martin Luther King Jr. (below) records a resonant moment in the spring of 1963 with Andrew Young and the effort in Birmingham:

Even children too young to march requested and earned a place in our ranks. Once when we sent out a call for volunteers, six tiny youngsters responded. Andy Young told them that they were not old enough to go to jail but that they could go to the library. “You won’t get arrested there,” he said, “but you might learn something” So these six small children marched off to the building in the white district, where, up to two weeks before, they would have been turned away at the door. Shyly but doggedly, they went to the children’s room and sat down, and soon they were lost in their books. In their own way, they had struck a blow for freedom.

Young was with King on April 4, 1968, when King was murdered in Memphis.

As he was needed, Andrew Young continued to serve. He held executive offices for the SCLC—including serving as director—for most of the 1960s. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives, serving the Georgia fifth district for three terms; he resigned his seat in 1977 to serve as United States ambassador to the United Nations, a post he held until 1979.

The American South continued to grow after such painful chapters as King’s death, and many southern cities became centers of industry. Memphis became a distribution and warehousing hub in the mid-1970s, eventually becoming the worldwide headquarters for Federal Express. Cities like Charlotte, Birmingham, and Atlanta, also fractured by segregation and poor black-white relations, became centers of commerce. Atlanta served (and continues to serve) as headquarters for two mighty corporate giants, Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines.

Andrew Young was elected mayor of Atlanta in 1981 and held that office until 1990, guiding the city through a period of tremendous growth and preparing for its bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics. In 1996, Young co-founded GoodWorks, International, a think tank whose mission is to promote emerging world markets.

On Saturday, April 30, the National Portrait Gallery will unveil and dedicate a portrait of Andrew Young by Ross R. Rossin, a gift to the museum from NPG commission chairman Jack H. Watson Jr.

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

 

Andrew Young / Ross R. Rossin / Oil on canvas, 2009, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Jack Watson, © 2009 Ross R. Rossin

Martin Luther King, Jr., (1929-1968)  by Jack Lewis Hiller (b. 1930), Gelatin silver print, 1960, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution: gift of Jack Lewis Hiller

Happy Birthday, John Waters and Jack Nicholson

Two edgy and risk-taking entertainers were born on this day, April 22. 

Jack Nicholson excels in roles that mainstream actors would never touch; typically, he starts from a place that is a mile or two from center and moves outward from there.

Nicholson received Oscars for his performances in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Terms of Endearment (1983), and As Good As It Gets (1997). His twelve total nominations tie him with Katharine Hepburn for the second most in history—Meryl Streep leads the industry with fourteen.

There has never been a better character actor; Nicholson’s rage as The Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman ("Where does he get those wonderful toys?") is only surpassed by the terror he brings to the screen in such roles as Jack Torrance in The Shining (“Here’s Johnny!”). Nicholson was born on this date in 1937.

 

John Waters’s filmmaking is unrivalled in the canon of the bizarre; no subject is taboo and no visual too unseemly. It is precisely his irreverence that brings attention to his work. Hairspray (1988; 2007 musical remake) satirizes American family and teen culture, while Pecker (1998) pokes at the critical mechanism at work in the art world. A native of Baltimore, Waters (above) does not hesitate in his films with respect to subject matter, though his Rabelaisian touches would make even Rabelais blush. Waters was born on this date in 1946.

--Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery 

 

Jack Nicholson / Tony Korody / Color photograph on paper, 1974 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine

John Waters / Joseph Sheppard, 1995 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Rita St. Clair / © 1995 Joseph Sheppard               

James Cash Penney, 1876–1971

There are two important months in the history of the J. C. Penney stores, the first being April.

James Cash Penney, born in the centennial year, left his childhood home in Missouri when he was in his early twenties and moved to Colorado. He entered the dry goods business and, with partners, opened his first store, the Golden Rule Store, in Kemmerer, Wyoming, on April 14, 1902. Penney was successful for many reasons; chief among them was his work ethic. He placed his name on his chain of stores in 1913, and April 15, 1918, marked the opening of J.C. Penney’s first store in his home state.

In an article from the July 1927 Missouri Historical Review, C. P. Dorsey writes of Penney’s formula for success:

Mr. Penney’s plan was to create volume sales by a maximum of value coupled with painstaking attention to the needs of every customer; to render the greatest possible service rather than secure the greatest possible profit. These two fundamentals of the J. C. Penney Company have never been changed. Throughout all the corporation’s development, clerks have continued to be trained for managers and the principle of maximum service rather than maximum profit stands unaltered.

Although Penney would outlive two of his three wives, he would not outlive his corporation, which thrives to this day. J. C. Penney moved into the twenty-first century with more than eleven hundred stores throughout the United States; it is difficult to spot a mall or a major outlet center not anchored by one of Penney’s department stores.

And what is the other important month for the J. C. Penney Corporation? December—immediately after Christmas—brings Penney’s annual white sale.

Read more about James Cash Penny in this document, from the Missouri Historical Society.  

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

 

James Cash Penney / David Berney / Oil on canvas, c. 1925 – 1930 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of David M. Gwinn

 

The Eve of War: The Moments and Months Leading to the Attack on Fort Sumter

This Tuesday, April 12, marks the 150th anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter.

The date and the hour are pretty certain. On April 12, 1861, close to 4:30 a.m., after months of escalating tension between the North and the South, a shot was fired across the harbor in Charleston, South Carolina, to the federal contingency occupying Fort Sumter.

Again, that was April 12, 1861. But was that the beginning of the war?

Generally, it is accepted that the hostilities commenced on April 12, 1861, and Charleston harbor and Fort Sumter provided the location for the true beginning of the war—in terms of gunfire, anyway. And while it might be difficult to dispute the location, when the war began is a matter of interest; some historians believe it arrived several months earlier. Union soldiers encamped at Fort Sumter over the winter of 1860–61 were in need of supplies, and a ship, Star of the West, was sent to reinforce the fort. On the approach to the fort, Star of the West was fired upon both from land and from the water; it was unable to complete its mission.

That was January 9, 1861. Was that the beginning of the war?

Historian E. B. Long writes:

The first shots had been fired in Charleston Harbor, and many considered them the first serious shots of the war, though there was actually no war yet. The flag on Star of the West was answered by running up the garrison flag at Fort Sumter. The men manned the parapets, ready for action. Some officers at the fort were incensed that Maj. [Robert] Anderson did not let them fire; there was chagrin that the relief ship had turned away so readily. But the officers varied in their opinions. Anderson did protest to Gov. Pickens the firing of two batteries, Morris Island and Fort Moultrie, upon an unarmed vessel bearing the U.S. flag. Pickens replied that the sending of reinforcements would be considered a hostile act as South Carolina was independent now, and that attack must be repelled. Anderson immediately sent messages north. Charleston itself was in an uproar; it seemed for a moment that real war had come and many people welcomed it. But when it was over Fort Sumter was still in Federal hands and the problem remained much as it had been, only more agitated.

Only one day before, as Long records in The Civil War: Day by Day, “Federal troops fired during the night upon about twenty men who had approached Fort Barrancas.”

That was January 8, 1861. Was that the beginning of the war?

Five years earlier, Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner, in speaking to the Senate on more than one occasion, had passionately and intensely berated the slaveholding South; South Carolina representative Preston Brooks took umbrage. Brooks, using his walking cane, beat Sumner in the United States Senate chamber, putting Sumner out of commission for three years. Years later, General William Emile Doster, a lawyer before the war and later the provost marshal of the District of Columbia military district, wrote of this assault, “Surely the conflict commenced on his [Sumner’s] skull.”

That was May 22, 1856. Was that the beginning of the war?

Who fired the first shot is also disputed.

Union Major Robert Anderson (above) was the officer in charge at Fort Sumter. Having been unable to receive either men or supplies because of the blockade on his fort, Anderson was insufficiently prepared either to withstand a siege any longer or to wage much of a war. Across the harbor from him was General Pierre Gustave Toutant  Beauregard (right), in charge of the southern forces in Charleston. When shots were fired in the early morning of April 12, it would be but a matter of hours before Anderson capitulated.

Civil War historian Shelby Foote writes:

Roger Pryor . . . had spoken from a Charleston balcony just two days ago. “Strike a blow!” he had urged the Carolinians. Now when he was offered the honor of firing the first shot, he shook his head, his long hair swaying. “I could not fire the first gun of the war,” he said, his voice as husky with emotion as Anderson’s had been, back on the wharf at the fort. Another Virginian could and would—white-haired Edmund Ruffin, a farm-paper editor and old-line secessionist, sixty-seven years of age. At [4:30 a.m.] he pulled a lanyard; the first shot of the war drew a red parabola against the sky and burst with a glare, outlining the dark pentagon of Fort Sumter.

E. B. Long, however, tells another tale of those early moments of the war:

At 4:30 a.m. the signal shot was fired from the post of Capt. George S. James at Fort Johnson, with other batteries opening according to previous orders. Capt. James gave the order and, probably, one Henry S. Farley actually fired the signal shot that arched in the night sky over Charleston Harbor. Edmund Ruffin (below), Virginia agriculturalist and fiery Confederate, did not, apparently, fire the first real shot, despite the legend. He did fire the first shell from columbiad No. 1 of the iron battery at Cummings Point on Morris Island. The rotation of fire, which was followed, brought this battery into action late. But it matters little; the signal shot did it and the war guns spoke.

No matter who fired the first shot, what is certain is this: the actions that took place on April 12, 1861, were irreversible. Whatever could have been done before Sumter could not be done after, and the events at Sumter could not be undone. Anderson’s defense, while valiant, was futile: he had too little of everything—men, supplies, munitions. The major was only capable of putting up a reasonable defense for a short time, and after about a day and a half, he gave up the fort. April 14, 1861, would see the property at Fort Sumter turned over to the rebel troops under Beauregard.

Armies would begin to assemble at this moment. Other moments may have had doubt attached to them; this one would not. This was war.

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

 

Edmund Ruffin / Edward Anthony / Albumen silver print, 1861 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Robert A. Anderson / Charles DeForest Fredricks, 1862 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mrs. F.B. Wilde

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard / Unidentified artist / Albumen silver print, c. 1861 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Cited:

E. B. Long, with Barbara Long, The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861–1865 (New York: Da Capo, 1985).

Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (New York: Random House, 1958).

How does he DO that?: The Secrets of Drawing a Face

Conan O' Brien as seen by artist John Kascht

Funny Bones: Anatomy of a Celebrity Caricature, presented by the NPG's Gallery360 series. 

No red-carpet stalker has observed celebrities more closely than caricature artist John Kascht. Conan O’Brien, Eminem, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Murray, Jack Nicholson, Barbra Streisand, Mick Jagger, and Donald Trump are just a handful of the famous faces he has scrutinized, deconstructed, and reimagined for our delight. All appear in his video Funny Bones: Anatomy of a Celebrity Caricature (above), done recently for the National Portrait Gallery’s Gallery360 series.

Fifteen years ago, when I started collecting Kascht’s work for the National Portrait Gallery, we began a series of conversations about how to draw, “getting” a likeness, the nature of celebrity, and the art of caricature.

Inevitably, Kascht, with his unusual combination of wicked humor and thoughtful insight, made unique contributions to those challenging subjects, all of which interest the students, teachers, artists, and general public who make up the Portrait Gallery’s diverse audiences. So the idea of a sharing Kascht’s drawing process through a video has been a long-term dream.

Throughout Funny Bones, we have the illusion of peering over the artist’s shoulder as he draws. The video starts with the seductive sound of charcoal scratching on paper. Using a broad vocabulary of graphic marks in various media, Kascht experiments with lines, squiggles, blotches, tracings, and washes, moving ever closer to his final concept.

“Getting” the likeness is a more particular skill. It is “all about noticing,” he tells us. You realize how little most of us see in our daily interactions with people. Kascht’s scrutiny is relentless. The taut mouth, fidgeting hands, tapping feet, wrinkled face, belly laugh—beautifully filmed here by A. Greg Raymond—all tell him something about a person.

No doubt Kascht is right that “you wear your life,” but it takes his keen eye to observe it. Since his subjects are famous, he also studies multiple photographs and available moving footage, adding to his information. By the time he is done, he knows the structure and facets of each face intimately, along with its characteristic expressions, as well as which single feature might force our recognition.

But there are challenges to focusing on the famous, with their agents, handlers, and stylists. With comedian Conan O’Brien as his case study, Kascht explains the difficulty of trying to catch a celebrity’s unguarded moment or figuring out the authentic look disguised by makeup and the public persona. He considers comportment, behavior, and body language; he loves finding pictures of his subjects when they were children.

It is a tricky balancing act. The preened and polished version of the star is, after all, what we recognize. Some of that familiar artifice might have to remain. All that digging and observing nonetheless helps capture the essence of the individual, any portraitist’s goal.

Finally, once Kascht understands how to create a likeness, he can move that portrayal into caricature. It isn’t mere exaggeration in his view but an intensification of characteristic attributes.

In one sequence, he morphs Abraham Lincoln, Luciano Pavarotti, Barbra Streisand, and Mick Jagger from photographic reality into caricatural magnification of their actual features. He has to really know that likeness before he can start to mess with it. Sometimes he finds that it helps to mimic his subject, compare someone’s hair to soft-serve ice cream, or make a likeness out of cheese doodles. It is all part of learning the face and pushing toward “the life at the center of it all.”

For those of us who have enjoyed long lunches learning about portraiture through Kascht’s enhanced eyes, it is a delight to share Funny Bones with our Portrait Gallery audience.

—Wendy Wick Reaves, Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Portrait Gallery

    You can view John Kascht's portraits of Warren Buffet (left) and Alan Greenspan (right) in the exhibition "Twentieth Century Americans" on the museum's third floor. 

 

Gallery360 is a series of conversations between contemporary artists and NPG audiences. Previous participants include Henry Casselli, Rose Frantzen, Martin Schoeller, and Jim Torok. Access recordings of these presentations at the Portrait Gallery’s iTunesU page.