National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

Is it Washington's or Lincoln's DC?

Photo by Warren Perry.

As the nation moves further into the sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War, one name appears more than any other in papers, symposia, and discussions—Abraham Lincoln.

Washington, D.C., is a city of Lincoln echoes. The capital, named for the first president, contains perhaps a greater presence of Lincoln than it does of the Founding Father. Abraham Lincoln is credited with saving the nation and its capital during the most trying days of the Union’s existence, and Lincoln tributes in Washington are as commonplace as half-smoke vendors.

Photo by Warren Perry.

In addition to the obvious—Ford’s Theatre and the Lincoln Memorial (both shown above)—smaller monuments and markers are everywhere in Washington. The National Historic Landmark building that now houses the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum was built as the Old Patent Office Building and played host to Lincoln’s second inaugural ball in 1865. The White House has the Lincoln bedroom. A plaque on E Street Northwest marks John Wilkes Booth’s escape route, while a plaque on H Street Northwest denotes the Surratt House, home of several of the convicted Lincoln conspirators.

Washington is also the final resting place for the two most famous Lincoln photographers, Alexander Gardner (Glenwood Cemetery) and Mathew Brady (Congressional Cemetery), as well as the home of the most famous photograph of Lincoln, Gardner’s “cracked plate” from early 1865, at the National Portrait Gallery (below).

Both ends of the axis that includes the National Mall are capped with Lincoln tributes—the Lincoln Memorial by Daniel Chester French seals off the west end, while East Capitol Street, the extension of the line that bisects the United States Capitol, has as its penultimate monument site the public space of Lincoln Park, within which is contained a statue of Abraham Lincoln emancipating the slaves (below).

Other large monuments to Lincoln in the district may be found at the United States Capitol rotunda, the White House, Fort Stevens, and the National Cathedral.

Photo by Benjamin Bloom.

Of course, one needs to look no further than one’s own pocket to understand America’s love for Lincoln; he has his own penny and five-dollar note. And though Lincoln does not have a cherry tree legend to his attribution, he does have a set of child’s building logs. The case for Lincoln’s endearment to America continues to be made every day in many different forms. After all, Ford did not build a Ford named Washington; Ford built a Ford named Lincoln.

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

 

Abraham Lincoln / Alexander Gardner, 1865 / Albumen silver print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

NPG Staff Profile: Alex Cooper, Lighting Designer

As part of our ongoing effort to share the operation of the National Portrait Gallery with our readers, here is a short Q and A with one of our staff members, Alex Cooper.   

Q: What is your job and title here at NPG?

A: I am the National Portrait Gallery’s resident lighting designer. My job is to design exhibition and architectural lighting for the NPG’s exhibitions and for the permanent collection works on view to the public.

Q: Where did you go to college, and what did you study?

A: I have an MFA in lighting design from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Q: What project at NPG has given you your most significant challenge?

A: Must I choose just one? I’m tempted to say the “Hide/Seek” exhibition due to the number of works and wide range of artistic styles to support, but honestly the daguerrean jewelry show “Tokens of Affection” (below) was the biggest (little) show I have ever designed for a museum. It was technically challenging because we squeezed 60 objects into 6 small cases for the show, which in turn required us to install and focus more than 200 miniaturized lighting fixtures in very cramped quarters.

Aesthetically the challenge was to render each piece of jewelry as both an interesting sculptural form and a work of portraiture—two very different design approaches. Lighting traditional daguerreotypes is difficult enough. It’s like trying to light a mirror. Without the right architectural treatments, object lighting angle, etc., the image just goes away in white-flash.

Working with daguerreotype images embedded in jewelry, and the sheer number of them, doing it in a way that didn’t draw too much attention to the design conceits or technical artifice remaining within the recommended conservation light-level limits was, well, tough.

If I remember correctly, the object installation took two days, the lighting installation required a full week. It was a nice show though. 

Q: What is your favorite work in the collection and why?

A: Easy: Lincoln’s life masks (below). They are connected to the subject (Lincoln) in such a direct/visceral way. It’s always interesting to experience an object that has shared the room with the subject. Also, they evoke such a clear visual narrative of the man’s life.

Listen to Alex Cooper's Face-to-Face talk on exhibition lighting (18:33).

Face-to-Face occurs most Thursday evenings at the National Portrait Gallery. The next Face-to-Face talk is Thursday, June 2, when Ellen Miles speaks about Hannah Skinner Church, Maria Church, and Elizabeth Bentley Church. 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.

 

Now on View: Portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates

A portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates is now on view in the museum’s “Recent Acquisitions” exhibition on the first floor. The portrait was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery and unveiled this morning, in a private ceremony.

Bill Gates left Harvard as an undergraduate to write software for the earliest personal computers. His company, Microsoft, developed a computer operating system for wide-scale nontechnical use that spurred on the personal computer revolution begun in the 1980s. Microsoft remains a leader in the industry. Melinda French Gates has degrees in computer science, economics, and business, and was employed by Microsoft.

The couple created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 with the mission of helping all people live healthy, productive lives. Global priorities include improving health and boosting the productivity of small farms in poor countries; national initiatives include implementing partnerships to make sure students graduate from high school ready for college and helping local libraries provide free computer and Internet services

Jon Friedman, the portrait artist, grew up in Northern Virginia and is currently based in New York City and Truro, Massachusetts. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions around the country. Many of his portrait subjects are leaders in the worlds of science, medicine, and technology, including David Baltimore, Maxine Singer, Harold Varmus, and Charles Vest. His work is in many private and institutional collections, including the American Philosophical Society, the Carnegie Institute of Washington, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and the Royal Society.

The National Portrait Gallery’s Commission (its advisory board) selects individuals who are making a significant impact on American culture for commissioned portraits. The museum has a history of commissioning portraits of presidents and first ladies and most recently has presented a commissioned portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

This portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates was commissioned for the museum through the Marc Pachter Commissioning Fund, which was established in honor of a former director of the museum.

Bill and Melinda Gates / Jon R. Friedman (born 1947) / Oil and collage on canvas attached to wood panel / 127.3 x 117.2cm (50 1/8 x 46 1/8") / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired through the Marc Pachter Commissioning Fund

A Quick and Effective Change: Cameron to Stanton, and Administrating the Civil War

Simon Cameron (above) was Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war when hostilities began in 1861. Cameron, however, was a somewhat corrupt and poor administrator; President Lincoln sent him to Russia to serve as minister in 1862. Cameron’s replacement did not necessarily engender positive feelings in everyone he met either, but he performed his job to the highest degree, which was the service Lincoln required.

Edwin Stanton (above) is generally described as short in physical respects, but he was long on character and spirit. And though small in stature, Stanton himself might have thought that the six-foot, two-inch-tall Kevin Kline was appropriate, if not a little diminutive, in his role as the secretary of war in Robert Redford’s current film, The Conspirator.

General William Emile Doster, who served as provost marshal for Washington during the early part of the war, attested that Stanton was a difficult man, but also that he performed well in an environment that needed his talent and ethics.

To relieve McClellan, court-martial Porter [Fitz John Porter, accused of insubordination and failure to obey orders at Second Bull Run], and eliminate all traces of West Point class traditions, uniting by nicknames, I consider victories as important as Appomattox, and [none] but the wooden and numb audacity of Stanton dared to achieve.

Secretary of War Stanton was ornery and direct, parceling out no partiality and having little respect for anyone. He is portrayed in drawing and sculpture as plug-like, and historian Shelby Foote described Stanton as “thick-set, bouncy on short but energetic legs. His voice, which was deep in times of calm, rose to piercing shrillness in excitement.”

In his journals, Walt Whitman recorded seeing Lincoln and Stanton together on one of the president’s excursions:

Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche. The cavalry always accompany him, with drawn sabres. Often I notice as he goes out evenings . . . he turns off and halts at the large and handsome residence of the Secretary of War, on K street, and holds conference there. If in his barouche, I can see from my window he does not alight, but sits in the vehicle and Mr. Stanton comes out to attend him. Sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten or twelve, accompanies him, riding at his right on a pony.

Stanton administered the war to the end and beyond. He was at President Lincoln’s bedside on the early morning of April 15, 1865, as the president succumbed to the gunshot of the previous night. Stanton said at the president’s passing, “Now he belongs to the ages.”

Andrew Johnson, ascending to the presidency upon Lincoln’s death, did not agree with Stanton about the implementation of reconstruction. Johnson’s attempt to fire Stanton resulted in Johnson’s impeachment; upon the president’s acquittal, Stanton resigned.

President Ulysses Grant eventually appointed Stanton to the Supreme Court, but Stanton did not live long enough to take the oath and is therefore not listed in records as having served on the Court. Edwin M. Stanton died in 1869 and is buried in Washington, D.C., the city he richly served until the end of his days.

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

 

Simon Cameron / John Dabour, 1837-1905 / Oil on canvas, 1871/ National Portrait Gallery, gift of G H Chase

Edwin McMasters Stanton / Henry Ulke, 1821-1910 / Oil on canvas, 1872 /National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the Smithsonian American Art Museum; gift of Sophy Stanton to the Smithsonian Institution, 1923

Death Bed of the Martyr President / Currier & Ives Lithography Co.,/ Lithograph on paper, 1865 /  National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Dr. Fred W. Hicks, III

Millard Fillmore: Buffalo’s Good Samaritan

By Jordan Hillman, intern, National Portrait Gallery, Center for Electronic Research and Outreach Services

Buffalo, New York, has ties to several United States presidents: Grover Cleveland, the twenty-second president, resided in the city and served as its mayor from 1882 to 1883; President William McKinley was shot at Buffalo’s Pan-American Exhibition on September 6, 1901, and died in the city a week later; Theodore Roosevelt was then sworn into office on September 14 at the former Ansley Wilcox Mansion on Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo.

Through these various connections, Buffalo is filled with presidential namesakes—Grover Cleveland Parkway, McKinley Mall, Theodore Roosevelt Elementary, Millard Fillmore Hospital—yet it is Fillmore who contributed most to Buffalo’s educational, cultural and medical needs.

The thirteenth president of the United States, Millard Fillmore began his professional life as a teacher in East Aurora, about twenty miles outside of Buffalo, in 1822. Before the year was through, however, Fillmore relocated to the city to pursue an education in law. After passing the bar, he returned to East Aurora, where he opened a law office and took an active role in the local political scene. His reputation of fighting for public interests soon landed him a spot in the state assembly; not long after, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until 1843.

Fillmore's political gains continued rapidly: in 1848, he was elected vice president of the United States alongside Whig Party candidate Zachary Taylor. With Taylor’s untimely death in 1850, Millard Fillmore was thrust into the presidency at a time of unrest. The controversial Compromise of 1850, which was passed during his tenure, averted the dissolution of the Union for another decade.

When his presidency ended on March 3, 1853, Fillmore returned to Buffalo, where he became involved with multiple cultural organizations and civic endeavors that continue to influence life there today.

First and foremost, he was responsible for framing the charter that officially made Buffalo a city. In 1846, Fillmore, as a former teacher dedicated to the furthering of educational institutions in Buffalo, worked to establish a medical university. Through his efforts, the University of Buffalo was chartered by the New York legislature on May 11; he became the first chancellor, serving in this honorary position from 1846 until his death in 1874. In conjunction, Fillmore financially assisted the Sisters of Charity in the construction of a new Buffalo General Hospital, which opened officially in 1858. Within the next decade, he became a member of the facility’s board of trustees. This sense of compassion and dedication to humanity carried over to founding and becoming vice president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Yet with all of these accomplishments, his most prized were those in the Buffalo cultural arena. He began by founding and presiding over the Buffalo Club, the city’s first exclusive social group. In 1862 the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, today the governing body of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, was forged with Fillmore’s support as both a financial contributor and board member.

He also helped to lay the groundwork for the Grosvenor Library as an ally and president of the board of trustees, which became one of the nation’s most comprehensive reference collections. Fillmore also spearheaded a campaign to raise money for Buffalo’s Society of the Natural Sciences. Concurrently, Fillmore was actively involved in a project to preserve Buffalo’s historical and cultural property by organizing the Buffalo Historical Society. Not only did he arrange the meeting instrumental to the society’s development, but he served for five years as its first president.

Millard Fillmore’s death on March 8, 1874, was devastating to a city that had long reaped the benefits of his charitable nature. During his residency, Buffalo experienced a period urbanization and growth, much of which was a direct result of his interest and enthusiasm. His influential and generous nature prompted the renaming of the city’s Homeopathic Hospital to Millard Fillmore Hospital in 1923. Fillmore was laid to rest in Buffalo’s own Forest Lawn Cemetery, consecrating his place in the hearts and minds of Buffalonians for the rest of time.

 

Millard Fillmore / Unidentified Artist / Oil on canvas, 1843 /  National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution