National Portrait Gallery | Face to Face blog

Staff Profile: Molly Grimsley, Registrar

Q: What is your job title and what do you do at the National Portrait Gallery?

A: I am the registrar for exhibitions and loans. I deal mostly with artwork coming into the Portrait Gallery for special exhibitions or inclusion in permanent exhibitions, as well as work we lend to other museums. The Registrar’s Office works very closely with the Conservation and Design & Production departments to ensure the artwork is maintained safely and securely.

When NPG borrows or lends artwork, with conservation and curatorial input, I negotiate loan agreements, setting in place the legal, conservation, packing and shipping, insurance, and art handling requirements that have to be adhered to.

Working with other NPG conservators, other museums, art packers, craters, and shippers, I coordinate the special packing and shipping needs—I’m a travel agent for artwork. When we ship artwork overseas, I work closely with customs brokers and freight forwarders to ensure that all of the import or export documents and permits are in place.

Sometimes I courier artwork, which means I travel with it to the borrowing museum, ensuring its safety during transit. Upon arrival, I oversee its unpacking and installation. Along with our art-handling staff, I unpack and condition-report artwork for the Portrait Gallery’s special exhibitions and coordinate de-installations.

Q: Where did you attend college, and how did you train to do what you do?

A: I have a studio art degree with an emphasis in drawing and design from George Mason University. By studying visual art, I gained knowledge about various art mediums and how works of art are constructed. This helps me greatly in my job as we complete what’s called “condition reports” on every artwork that enters and leaves the Portrait Gallery.

These reports document, by photography and the written word, any sort of damages, problems, or weaknesses that the artwork contains. When it leaves NPG’s custody, the artwork is examined again to ensure there aren’t any new problems. 

I also gained knowledge and hands-on experience on the job; out of college I began working as a volunteer in art storage at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where I was mentored by a wonderful staff member. This led to a permanent position in their Registrar’s Office, which eventually led to becoming the assistant registrar at the National Museum of African Art. This led me to the Portrait Gallery. 

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

A: I have two favorites: the John Singleton Copley self-portrait (right) is one of them. It’s a beautifully painted portrait—very romantic and delicate—and it captures an otherworldly mood. Also, I like our portrait of Pocahontas for personal reasons.

Q: Do you have a favorite NPG story you would like to share?

A: I’ve been so fortunate in that through my position at NPG, I’ve traveled to wonderful places, made friends with colleagues all over the world, met famous people, and have physically touched incredible art that you see in art history books.

One favorite story is when NPG borrowed the Oscar that director Vincent Minnelli won for Gigi from his wife for our “Red, Hot, and Blue” exhibition. I traveled to Beverly Hills, where I visited Mrs. Minnelli’s house (was escorted through the servants’ door!). She regaled me with wonderful old Hollywood stories as I packed the Oscar in her living room filled with photographs and memorabilia of Hollywood stars and politicians past and present.

After I finished, she gave me a tour of the house, ending in Vincent Minnelli’s bedroom, which she had left exactly as it was when he died—his glasses on his desk, robe on the bed, slippers on the floor, book opened, exercise bike in the middle of the room—it was like a Hollywood set.

I hand-carried the Oscar from LA to DC via a commercial airline; we had to buy an additional seat for the Oscar, which sat next to me for the five-hour flight. No one else on the plane knew there was an Oscar on board; discretion is one of the main tenets of a museum career. 

More recently I traveled to Moscow, Russia, to oversee the deinstallation and packing of two paintings the Portrait Gallery lent to an exhibition at the Russian Academy of Art, Tsereteli Art Gallery. Though it sounds like a glamorous trip, I arrived on Sunday and departed on Tuesday—courier trips are very quick and can be grueling.

It was an amazing experience, though, as I was able to visit the Basilica of St. Basil, the Kremlin, Red Square—places I never in my life thought I would see. The gallery was from the eighteenth or nineteenth century and had no freight elevator, so our large paintings had to be hand-carried down two flights of marble staircases that were lined on either side with marble sculptures on pedestals.

After the niceties of having tea with our Russian host, we packed in a huge atrium where, staring down as us from on high, were Communist-era statues reaching several stories high. Working with the Russian museum staff was especially challenging—out of the several people I worked with, only one spoke limited English, so we communicated mostly by sign language.

Luckily, another American colleague from Dubai was working on the exhibition, too, so between the two of us we were able to get the paintings packed safely and quickly. All in all, the Russian museum staff was a pleasure to work with, and it was an experience I would have never wanted to miss.

Packing paintings at the Russian Academy of Art, Tsereteli Art Gallery, in Moscow.

 

John Singleton Copley, Self-Portrait / Oil on canvas, 1780-1784 /   National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation with matching funds from the Smithsonian Institution; Frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee

NPG Intern Profile: Laura Conte

Q: Where are you attending college, and what are you studying?

A: I am a senior art history major at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Q: Why did you want to intern at NPG?

A: The National Portrait Gallery has a certain charisma that distinguishes it from other museums. As an art history major, I’d taken a variety of classes in different areas of study, but the one that had resonated with me most focused on nineteenth-century American art.

When I first applied, I did so partly because I have always had an interest in American art and portraiture. I’d never visited the Portrait Gallery prior to being selected to my intern position, but I really appreciated the idea of using art to tell a story. I was excited by an opportunity to intern at the NPG because it combined both art and history in telling stories about great Americans.

Q: What do you do typically during your days at NPG?

A: As an intern with the Cultures in Motion performance series, my responsibilities are primarily centered around research. Cultures in Motion creates staged performances from the biographies of sitters from the NPG collection.

I do a lot of reading and searching in the library stacks and through Internet sources seeking interesting biographical information on important Americans for future shows. I have the unique opportunity to sit in on meetings with playwrights and contribute my research, which will be used in the creation of a script.

Q: Tell us about an interesting project in which you have participated here at NPG.

A: I think the most interesting project I have participated in is my research on the first ladies of the Civil War. I don’t think I ever realized how nuanced those five years in American history were. I read a couple of different biographies on Mary Todd Lincoln (below), as well as a plethora of her correspondence. She had a tragic life, but it was so interesting!

My research also included reading the autobiography of a dressmaker named Elizabeth Keckley, who had worked for both both Varina Davis (first lady of the Confederacy) and Mrs. Lincoln. If it were not for this internship, I would never have learned about Keckley, who played a substantial role in Mrs. Lincoln’s life, especially after President Lincoln’s assassination.

Mary Ann Todd Lincoln / Mathew Brady Studio / Albumen silver print, 1861 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Staff Profile: Rosemary Fallon, Paper Conservator

 

Q: Where are you from and where did you attend college?

A: I was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and exposed to art at a young age at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery. I graduated from the University of Maryland with a BA in art history and minor in studio art, and an MS from Columbia University.

Q: How did you prepare for a career in conservation?

A: When I was at the Smithsonian in the late 1970s working as an assistant book buyer for the museum shops, I heard a paper conservator speak at an informal lunchtime talk about her job at the Conservation Analytical Lab (now known as the Museum Conservation Institute). Although I knew about conservation, it was then that I decided to investigate the graduate programs and their prerequisites.

I started taking chemistry classes at night and was fortunate to get a job in the conservation lab at the NPG as the mat-cutter. That position gave me the opportunity to work closely with the paper conservator then on staff.

After a year or so, I was accepted to Columbia University’s conservation program, where I received a MS in conservation, specializing in paper and book conservation. I was lucky enough to get hired back at NPG after graduate school!

Q: Do you have a favorite object in the NPG collection?

A: As you can imagine it is difficult to name a favorite object in the collection because I have so many favorites, but I am repeatedly drawn to the “noir” works of Marius de Zayas. The densely drawn, charcoal caricature drawings in our collection are intriguing to me not only for of their imagery but also for their dense, black drawing media. De Zayas’s drawing of Paul Haviland (below) is one of my favorites. The dramatic figure, with his back to the viewer, looks like a magician ready to conjure up an image out of the dark shadows from his camera in hand.

As a conservator, one of my duties is to identify the media used in artworks. Upon first observation the Haviland appears to be either charcoal or black pastel but a closer look under magnification reveals tiny particles with a sparkle that appear to be more gray-black, indicating charcoal. It also reveals an underdrawing of graphite pencil with its telltale sheen in an angled light.

Sometimes artists can use more than one black medium in their drawings, and it can be challenging distinguishing one from another especially in dark, dense drawings where the artist used multiple media. Comparing the media to known samples can be helpful for identification purposes.

Q: Do you have a favorite moment or story you would like to share?

A: My favorite moments at NPG—or representing NPG—are the occasions that have involved collaborations with others at the Smithsonian or with outside scholars, such as research associated with the Duchamp symposium during Anne Goodyear’s “Marcel Duchamp” exhibition; the challenges of grappling with the long-term preservation of the NPG’s new media (digital art) in the NPG’s Digital Arts Group; participating in the African American Museum of History and Culture’s “Save Our African American Treasures Programs” at cities in the U.S. as a conservation program reviewer for works on paper; co-teaching the workshop on the recovery and conservation of works on paper after the earthquake at the Cultural Recovery Center in Haiti . . . you get the idea!

 

Paul Burty Haviland / Marius de Zayas / Charcoal over graphite on paper, c. 1910 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harry H. Lunn, Jr.

 

NPG Staff Profile: Jennifer Robertson, Registration Technician

Q: What is your title and how long have you been at the National Portrait Gallery?

A: Registration technician, ten years

Q: Where did you go to college and how did you prepare yourself for a career in museum work?

A: I received a BA in history from the University of California, Riverside, and an MA in museum studies at the George Washington University. I started on the path to a career in museum work as a volunteer at the San Bernardino County Museum while I was working on my undergraduate degree. I eventually landed a job there and gained some great experience in museum registration and collections management.

I was lucky enough to work with history, art, anthropology, paleontology, and special collections, which exposed me to a wide variety of disciplines and materials.

Q: You have worked on many exhibitions here at NPG—do you have a favorite show or installation?

A: I’ve been involved in roughly sixty exhibitions since I started working in the Registrar’s Office. My favorite exhibition so far war the inaugural Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition in 2006. It was a perfect example of how dynamic portraiture can be.

Q: Do you have a favorite work in the collection?

A: It’s hard to have just one favorite. I love the portrait of Walter Lippmann (below) by Stanley Meltzoff hanging in our “Twentieth-Century Americans” exhibition. Its hushed tone reminds me of a late-night writing session, when the rest of the house is quiet and all you can hear is the tick of the clock and the rustle of papers.

I’m also partial to the three portraits we have by Ralph Steadman, one of William S. Burroughs and two of Hunter S. Thompson. I love Steadman’s style—free-flowing, almost spastic—it has a great energy to it.

Q: Can you give us a “best moment at the NPG” story?

A: My best moment at the NPG was when the gallery reopened to the public in 2006. I was a member of the team of people responsible for moving the art back into the building for the reopening, and we worked long, hard days to ensure that everything would be in place for opening day. It’s an achievement I’m very proud of.

Walter Lippmann / Stanley Meltzoff / Oil on gessoed panel, c. 1954 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

NPG Staff Profile: Victor Onireti, Budget Analyst & Funds Manager

Q: How long have you worked at the National Portrait Gallery?

A: I have worked at the Portrait Gallery since July 2008, and at the Smithsonian since December 2000, beginning at the National Museum of American History.

Q: What is your favorite thing about your job?

A: Being able to provide needed assistance and guidance to NPG staff on matters pertaining to finance and procurement.   

Q: What are your hobbies?

A: Reading, movies, table tennis, travel/sightseeing

Q: Where were you trained/where did you attend school to learn your job skills?

A: Training has been mostly on the job.

Education:

Master of Public Administration, American University, Washington, D.C.

B.A., Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Certificate in Financial Management, USDA Graduate School, Washington, D.C.

 

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.

 

NPG Profiles: Amy Baskette, Curatorial Assistant

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

Q: Can you tell us a little about where you grew up, how you came to live in Washington, your educational background, and how you prepared for your career in museum work?

A: My dad was career military, so I grew up all over the place. I spent high school and college in New Mexico, where I attended New Mexico State University. (GO AGGIES!) I earned a dual degree in anthropology and history.

After graduating I spent a year in Indianapolis working as an intern with the Indiana State Library’s manuscripts department. That gave me a good baseline experience with working with paper objects. From there, I went to Savannah, Georgia, where I got my masters degree in public history from Armstrong Atlantic State University.

I spent a summer as an intern here in Washington with the National Park Service, working at Rock Creek Park. That summer I just fell in love with the city, so when my husband got a job here, we jumped at the chance to move.

Q: Do you have a story about your time at the NPG you would like to share with us?

A: One of my most recent projects has been working with caricature artist John Kascht on one of the Gallery 360 programs. Along with our public programs manager and the curator of prints & drawings, we have put together a short video about the process of creating a likeness.

While John was the creative force and much of the energy behind the project, it would not have been possible without the support from the NPG staff. John and I selected images from our collection and then cleared permissions to use those images in his film. This project took several months, but the finished product should be posted soon. It was very interesting to work so closely with John on this. He has a way of seeing the world and explaining what he does that is very engaging and his energy is contagious.

Another wonderful moment was when The Colbert Report filmed a segment at NPG just prior to the unveiling of Stephen Colbert’s portrait in the winter of 2008, I was lucky to be able to help our External Affairs staff manage crowds and try to keep the galleries quiet during filming (see photo, below). It took almost an entire afternoon to film all the different clips that went into a 4–5 minute segment. It was fun to see the crew of the show at work.

Q: What is your favorite object in the collection?

A: The Portrait Gallery has such a large number of beautiful, interesting, and inspiring portraits, and so many of them have great stories about their creation or acquisition. I could list ten must-see portraits, but my all-time favorite piece in the collection has to be the Ronald Reagan hologram by Hans I. Bjelkhagen, John Landry, Michel Marhic, and Fred Untersheher (below).

I think it's great that one of the oldest presidents wound up being holographed. It was done in 1991, after he left office, but the artists had spent five-and-a-half years trying to convince Reagan to sit for them. It’s just such a quirky image and the only hologram that we have of a president.

After viewing the result of the sitting, the former president was quoted as saying, “If I had known about this, I would have had it done sooner.” I hope we will have a chance to put it up on the walls during the centennial year of Reagan’s birth.

Q: What is the most interesting aspect of your job?

A: Since we have an active acquisitions and exhibitions program, the staff meets a lot of artists. It is always interesting to meet the folks who create the portraits.

Amy Baskette (left) with other NPG staff and Stephen Colbert.

 

Ronald Reagan / Hans I. Bjelkhagen, John Landry, and Michel Marhic / Hologram, 1991 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Holicon Corporation

NPG Staff Profile: Lizanne Reger, Rights and Reproductions Coordinator

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, Lizanne Reger.  

Q: As the National Portrait Gallery’s rights and reproductions coordinator, what does your job entail?

A: I primarily license the reproduction of images from the collection for scholarly publications, film, and the web. I work with the public on requests for reproduction for personal/research images and with our licensing agent in New York, who handles the large-scale print reproductions (textbooks, etc.). I also work with artists whose work is in the collection—and with their representatives—when handling requests that have copyright issues. I also work with NPG’s photographer to ensure that we have record photography of our collection. Occasionally, I’ll work with Smithsonian Enterprises on products featuring NPG collections for the gift shop.

Q: Where did you go to college and what is your training?

A: I graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where I received a B.A. in art history. I do have a photography background, but primarily my training comes from working in the R&R office before taking over as the R&R coordinator. I’m the only one in the office so I’m the coordinator as well as my own assistant. Thankfully, I’ve had several interns over the years who’ve helped me. Actually, I need a new one for the spring, if anyone is interested!

Q: How long have you lived in Washington?

A: Eight years this summer.

Q: What is your favorite portrait in our collection and why?

A: I have several “favorites” depending on which exhibition or department, but my new favorite is Ben Bernanke by Mark Wagner (shown at right, S/NPG.2010.57). The piece is a currency collage of $1 bills. You have to see it in person. A reproduction does not do it justice; plus it is copyright restricted.

Q: What is the most unusual or interesting request you have had come across your desk?

 A: Several years ago, I received a request to use one of our images as a hologram in U.S. passports. It required that we provide very large digital files of multiple views of the object. The image was then encrypted for security purposes so that it could not be forged. They didn’t tell me much more than that; it was TOP SECRET!

 

Ben Bernanke / Mark Wagner / Currency collage on panel, 2009 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; © Mark Wagner