Ambrotypes from the National Portrait Gallery

May 25, 2012 - June 2, 2013
1st Floor, East Wing

In the mid-1850s American photographers, ranging from the celebrated Mathew Brady to the little-known itinerant L.W.F. Mark, embraced a new photographic medium known as the ambrotype. Taking its name from the Greek word ambrotos (meaning immortal or imperishable), an ambrotype was created when an underexposed collodion negative on glass was made to appear as a positive image by placing it against a dark backing. Drawn exclusively from the museum's collection, this exhibition includes ambrotypes of abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Anna Dickinson, as well as West Point classmates George Armstrong Custer and John Pelham, who later served as generals for opposing sides of the Civil War.

A Will of Their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of Achievement in the Early Republic

Now - September 2, 2013
1st Floor, alcove

Judith Murray (c. 1769) by John Singleton Copley and seven additional portraits of prominent American women from the late 18th century are on view to showcase both the important achievements of women during this period and the early efforts to gain gender equality in America. Judith Murray is on loan from the Terra Foundation for American Art (TFAA),

The Confederate Sketches of Adalbert Volck

Now - January 21, 2013
1st Floor, East

Having come to the United States in 1848 after Germany's failed revolution, Adalbert J. Volck settled in Baltimore, Maryland. Unusual for the politically liberal German émigrés, Volck sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. A dentist by trade, his sympathies were with the southern cause. He produced pictorial propaganda that vilified President Abraham Lincoln, abolitionists, and Union soldiers in his publication Sketches from the Civil War in North America. On view are many of his original etchings and lithographs, as well as a copper plate used to print one of the images in the publication.

Mathew Brady�s Photographs of Union Generals

Now - May 31, 2015
1st Floor, North

Although Mathew Brady may be best known for his photographic documentation of the Civil War, his New York and Washington galleries also did a brisk business throughout the conflict by producing studio portraits of the ever-changing roster of Union army generals. Featuring modern albumen prints made from the original Brady negatives in the museum's Frederick Hill Meserve Collection, this installation includes portraits of many of the North’s military leaders, from George McClellan and Ambrose Burnside to William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses Grant.

In Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits from the Harry Warnecke Studio

Now - September 9, 2012

Well before color reproductions and color snapshots became commonplace, pioneering photographer Harry Warnecke (1903–1984) and his associates at the New York Daily News created brilliant, eye-popping color portraits for the newspaper’s Sunday News magazine. Employing a special one-shot camera of his own design, Warnecke began producing color images for the Daily News in the 1930s by utilizing the technically demanding tricolor carbro process—the first practical method for color photography. Over the next three decades, Warnecke and his team photographed hundreds of people, from popular film stars and athletes to military leaders and government officials. Drawing from the museum’s collection of large-format, tricolor carbro photographs by the Warnecke Studio, this exhibition features 24 celebrity portraits from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, including Lucille Ball, Jackie Robinson, Babe Didrikson, Gene Autry, Ethel Waters, Generals Eisenhower and Patton, and comedians W. C. Fields and Laurel and Hardy.

Portrait of Alice Waters

Permanent Exhibit
1st Floor, North (near Recent Acquisitions)

A photographic portrait of chef Alice Waters, founder of the restaurant Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard and champion of the Slow Food Movement, is on view. The portrait was commissioned by the museum from Dave Woody, winner of the 2009 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.

Juliette Gordon Low and the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts

Permanent Exhibit
2nd Floor, South Rotunda

The iconic painting of Juliet Gordon Low, a patent award, a membership pin, and photographs of Low when she commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Girl Scouts are on view. Low founded the American Girl Guides on March 12, 1912; renamed Girl Scouts of the USA in 1913, the organization celebrates its centennial in 2012. Eighteen girls registered in the first American Girl Guide troop; now, one 100 years later, there are 3.3 million members, making the Girl Scouts the largest educational organization for girls in the world.

Recent Acquisitions

Now - November 4, 2012
1st Floor, North

On view are approximately 40 new works of art acquired by the museum from 2007 to 2011, including caricatures of Beverly Sills and Earl “Fatha” Hines by Al Hirschfeld, photographs of former first ladies Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush by Diana Walker, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Chuck Close, and poet Sadakichi Hartmann by Zaida Ben-Yusuf, as well as a pewter sculpture of choreographer Martha Clarke by Philip Grausman.

Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter

Now - October 14, 2012
1st Floor, South

Through the work of seven artists from across the country, this exhibition offers provocative artistic responses to the Asian experience in America and the meaning of being Asian American. The artists' visual stories offer representations against and beyond the stereotypes that have long obscured the complexity of being Asian in America. Their approaches to identity and portraiture elicit mixed feelings of ambivalence, individuality, nostalgia, pride, and pain. The disparate threads of race, ethnicity, gender, diaspora, hybridity, and transnationalism are laid bare in these rich and exciting portraits of encounter. Presented in collaboration with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program.

The following artists are represented:

• CYJO (Cindy Hwang), New York
• Hye Yeon Nam, Atlanta and New York
• Shizu Saldamando, Los Angeles
• Roger Shimomura, Lawrence, Kansas
• Satomi Shirai, New York
• Tam Tran, Memphis, Tennessee
• Zhang Chun Hong, Lawrence, Kansas

One Life: Ronald Reagan

Now - May 28, 2012
1st Floor, East

The One Life gallery within the museum is devoted to the exploration of the life of one individual.

The Portrait Gallery observes the centennial of the 40th president’s birthday with a one-room exhibition chronicling Ronald Reagan’s early years in Illinois through his acting and political career, to his presidency from 1981-1989. Andy Warhol's 1985 portrait of Reagan, mixing personality, politics, and public image, is featured.

 

The Struggle for Justice

Permanent Exhibit
2nd Floor, West

This permanent exhibition showcases major cultural and political figures -- from key 19th-century historical figures to contemporary leaders -- who struggled to achieve civil rights for disenfranchised or marginalized groups. On view are more than 40 photographs, paintings, posters, buttons, and sculptures, including portraits of Civil Rights leaders Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., and Andrew Young; women's-rights advocates Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Betty Friedan; Native American activist Leonard Crow Dog; cultural icons Jackie Robinson and singer Marian Anderson; United Farm Workers organizer César Chávez; gay and lesbian rights leaders; Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver; and Japanese American activist Fred T. Korematsu.

A video created exclusively for the exhibition and narrated by Soledad O'Brien is also featured.

See "Around the Mall: What's Up" in the April 2010 Smithsonian magazine: p. 26.

Renovating a Landmark: From Patent Office to Reynolds Center

Permanent Exhibit
Historic Fabric Room, 1st Floor, near lockers

This small exhibition commemorates the opening of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard, the final phase of a major renovation of the National Historic Landmark building that houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. It highlights aspects of the renovation with photographs, architectural artifacts from the building, and objects discovered during the excavation of the courtyard. Also included are historic images of the building, a 7-foot segment of one of the 19th-century cast iron fountains from the courtyard, and an architect's model of the building.

Related publication: Temple of Invention: History of a National Landmark by Charles Robertson, who is also the guest curator of the exhibition: $19.95 (paper)

Note: This National Historic Landmark building was formerly the Patent Office Building.

America's Presidents

Permanent Exhibit
2nd Floor, South

This exhibition displays multiple images of the 43 presidents of the United States, including the greatest historical painting in our nation's history, Gilbert Stuart's "Lansdowne" portrait of George Washington. Also included are whimsical sculptures of Presidents Johnson, Carter, and Nixon by caricaturist Pat Oliphant. Five presidents are given expanded attention because of their significant impact on the office: Washington, Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Audio and video interpretive materials augment the exhibition.

Jo Davidson: Biographer in Bronze

Permanent Exhibit
2nd Floor, North

On view are 14 bronze and terra-cotta portraits made by renowned American sculptor Jo Davidson between 1908 and 1946, including depictions of Gertrude Stein, Franklin D. Roosevelt, artist John Marin, and Lincoln Steffens.

American Origins, 1600-1900

Permanent Exhibit
1st Floor, West

In 17 galleries and alcoves, this exhibition chronologically arranged starts from the days of contact between Native Americans and European explorers through the struggles of independence to the Gilded Age. Major figures from Pocahontas to Chief Joseph, Sam Adams to Henry Clay, and Nathaniel Hawthorne to Harriet Beecher Stowe are included. Three of the galleries are devoted to the Civil War, examining this conflict in depth. Complementing this section is a group of modern photographic prints produced from Mathew Brady's original negatives. Highlights from its daguerreotype collection -- the earliest practical form of photography -- also are on view.

Twentieth-Century Americans

Permanent Exhibit
3rd Floor, South

Four galleries showcase the major cultural and political hallmarks of the 20th century. Paintings, sculpture, photographs, and prints portray those who were at the center of these moments. People from a range of backgrounds -- Jane Addams, Douglas MacArthur, Robert F. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Michael Jackson, among others -- tell the story of America's 20th century.

 

Bravo! and Champions

Permanent Exhibit
3rd Floor, South, Mezzanines

Two exhibitions feature particular themes in American life:

• BRAVO! showcases individuals who have brought the performing arts to life, beginning with P.T. Barnum, who raised the curtain on modern entertainment in the late 19th century and continuing to the present.
• Champions showcases American sports figures whose impact has extended beyond the ring, the court, and the field to become a part of the larger story of the life and culture of our nation.

Note: A lively combination of portraits, artifacts, memorabilia, and videos enhances both exhibitions.