Mr. TIME: Portraits by Boris Chaliapin

Now - January 5, 2014
2nd Floor, North Corridor

On view are 26 portraits by artist Boris Chaliapin, most of which appeared on Time magazine's cover during his 28-year career. Chaliapin was the portrait artist Time magazine’s editors turned to first when they needed a cover in a hurry. As Time’s most prolific artist, he created 413 covers for the publication. He could execute excellent likenesses in as little as 12 hours; record speed for the years between 1942 and 1970, when he was with the magazine. Week after week, millions of faithful readers recognized Chaliapin’s familiar signature on the cover, and his coworkers aptly nicknamed him “Mr. TIME.” 

Related online exhibition: Cover Art: The TIME Collection at the National Portrait Gallery

Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013

Now - February 23, 2014

The National Portrait Gallery presents 48 of the finalists' works that were selected from the third triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The works were produced by artists across the nation and include portraits in such traditional media as oil paintings, drawings, and photographs, as well as more surprising materials such as rice, glitter, thread, and video. The winner of the competition receives the grand prize of $25,000 and an opportunity to create a portrait for the Portrait Gallery's permanent collection. The competition invited professional artists age 18 and over working in the figurative arts to submit portraits completed after January 1, 2010. The public had the opportunity to vote for its favorite work among the finalists to receive the People's Choice Award.

The two winning portraits from the National Portrait Gallery's first Teen Portrait Competition—by McNeel Mann (age 14) of Alaska and Allen Chiu (age 17) from California—are on view near the exhibition entrance.

Related publication: $14.95

Mobile app: www.npg.si.edu/app/

Bound for Freedom's Light: African Americans and the Civil War

Now - March 2, 2014
1st Floor, East

Drawing principally from images in the museum's collection, this exhibition explores the roles individual African Americans played during the Civil War and focuses attention on the impact of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Among the featured stories are those of Frederick Douglass; Martin Delaney; Sojourner Truth; and Gordon, who escaped from enslavement on a Louisiana plantation to join a black regiment and fight for the Union.

Portraiture Now: Drawing on the Edge

Now - August 18, 2013
1st Floor, Northeast

Artists Mequitta Ahuja, Mary Borgman, Adam Chapman, Ben Durham, Till Freiwald, and Rob Matthews expand the narrow boundaries that once defined drawing and portraiture. Probing the intersection between drawing and photography, painting, video, textual writing, and computer technology, all six artists show a commitment to direct, immediate, highly personal mark-making. Each of them employs a painstaking technique; their meticulous, repetitive actions result in a contemplative, almost meditative, engagement with process that adds a psychological depth to their work.

Recent Acquisitions

Now - October 27, 2013
1st Floor, North

On view are works recently aquired by the museum, including paintings of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Adolph Ochs; a bronze of Ethel Waters; photographs of Marjorie Merriweather Post, Mary Pickford, and Muhammad Ali; and prints of George Washington and Samuel Adams.

A commissioned portrait of General Colin Powell by artist Ron Sherr goes on view outside the exhibition entrance on December 3, 2012.

One Life: Amelia Earhart

Now - May 27, 2013
1st Floor, East

Amelia Earhart achieved international celebrity status as the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane in 1928. Timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of her disappearance in 1937, this one-room exhibition tells the story of her remarkable life and career, focusing particular attention on her role in breaking barriers for women. On view is a selection of portraits in all artistic media, along with rare vintage film and audio excerpts.

Ambrotypes from the National Portrait Gallery

Now - 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, East Wing, Alcove in American Origins

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),

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.

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.

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.

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 to Juliette Gordon Low 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, Michael Jackson, Denyce Graves, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Henson, among others -- tell the story of America's 20th century.

Artist Lincoln Schatz's The Network, a video group portrait featuring 89 people (mostly Washington power players), was added December 11, 2012.

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.

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.

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, and two life masks of Abraham Lincoln. 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 interpretive materials augment the exhibition.

The America’s Presidents app is available on the iPad at www.AppStore.com/AmericasPresidents.

Outdoor Sculptures: Daguerre Memorial

Permanent Exhibit
Outdoors, on the 7th Street side of the building

Daguerre Memorial (1890): This bronze and marble statue by Jonathan Scott Hartley (1845-1912) features a small relief bust of Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre in front of a large globe on top of a curved pedestal base. A  female figure of Fame frames his face with a laurel garland, while another garland encircles a globe to exemplify the universality of photography. On loan from the National Museum of American History.