Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013

March 22, 2013 - January 4, 2014

The National Portrait Gallery calls for entries to the third triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The winner of the competition will receive the grand prize of $25,000 and an opportunity to create a portrait for the Portrait Gallery's permanent collection. The competition invites professional artists age 18 and over working in the figurative arts to submit portraits completed after January 1, 2010. Submissions are accepted in all visual arts media, including film, video, and digital animation. Initial submissions must be made online September 1-October 31, 2011 (see web link below for details). The first round of jurying will be done online; semifinalists' works will be transported to Washington, where the judges will select the winners and other exhibitors. The public will have the opportunity to vote for its favorite work among the finalists to receive the People's Choice Award. 

Portraiture Now: Drawing on the Edge

November 16, 2012 - August 18, 2013

Poetic Likeness: Modern American Poets

October 12, 2012 - April 14, 2013

One Life: Amelia Earhart

June 29, 2012 - May 27, 2013

Meade Brothers: Pioneers in American Photography

May 25, 2012 - June 2, 2013

Portrait of Alice Waters

TBA
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

Now - January 6, 2013
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.

The Black List: Photographs by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Now - April 22, 2012
2nd Floor

This photographic exhibition features portraits of prominent African Americans of various professions, disciplines, and backgrounds. Historically, “blacklist” denotes a group of people marginalized and denied work or social approval. In an effort to redefine the word, 50 prominent African Americans provide insight on the struggles, triumphs, and joys of life in the United States. These portraits are both pictorial and verbal, representing some of the most dynamic and inspiring personalities in the fields of politics, music, business, civil activism, literature, the arts, and athletics. Featured are American political activist and university professor Angela Davis; musician John Legend; United Negro College Fund chairman and CEO Michael Lomax; artist Kara Walker; and actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, and composer Martin Van Peebles.

Steve Jobs Portrait

TBA
1st Floor, North

A portrait of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (1955-2011) by photographer Diana Walker is on view.

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.

 

Mementos: Painted and Photographic Miniatures, 1750-1920

Now - May 13, 2012
American Origins, 1st Floor

The word "miniature" was originally associated with the creation of small images and portraits. Tiny, often expensive likenesses -- requiring a highly trained artist with good eyesight and a steady hand -- were often made as mementos, love tokens, or memorials that could be kept close to the body. Their carefully worked metal housings were often bracelets, pendants, or brooches with glass coverings to protect the surface of the paintings. This exhibition showcases 23 of the museum's collection of miniature portraits and includes portraits of John Paul Jones, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, and Samuel Clemens, by artists as varied as John Singleton Copley, William Dunlap, George Caleb Bingham, Eulabee Dix, and Lucy May Stanton.

150th Commemoration of the Civil War: The Death of Ellsworth

Now - March 18, 2012
1st Floor, East

On the site of a former Civil War hospital, the National Portrait Gallery marks the 150th anniversary of the war through a series of four alcove exhibitions -- one each year -- commemorating this period of American history.

The first of these exhibitions recounts the death of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth in Alexandria, Virginia. Ellsworth was the first Union officer to be killed in the four-year-long struggle. A friend of President Abraham Lincoln, Ellsworth commanded a regiment of New York Fire Zouaves -- regiments raised for volunteer service -- which participated in the invasion of Northern Virginia on May 24, 1861. Ellsworth's death at the hands of a local innkeeper made headlines throughout the country and he became a martyr in the North and an inspirational figure for legions of Yankees marching off to war. His funeral services were held in the White House, where thousands of mourners viewed his corpse lying in state in the East Room. Throughout the Civil War, his name, face, and heroism were recalled in stationery, sheet music, and memorial lithographs. Francis E. Brownell, the soldier who mortally avenged Ellsworth's assailant, bequeathed several artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution, including the weapons used in the incident and Brownell's Congressional Medal of Honor. The exhibition brings together a select grouping of once-prized mementoes, including portraits of Ellsworth and Lincoln, as well as Alonzo Chappel's historic painting The Death of Ellsworth.

Visit www.civilwar150.si.edu to learn about other exhibitions and events commemorating the Civil War at the Smithsonian.

The Struggle for Justice

Permanent
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; and Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver. 

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
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
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
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
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
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.