Face-to-Face, from the National Portrait Gallery
By National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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Podcast Description
Face-to-Face is a podcast series from the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Listen to Face-to-Face portrait talks, interviews with artists, and lectures from the museum. Face-to-Face portrait talks occur every Thursday at 6pm, in the museum. For more, see the Face-to-Face blog at http://face2face.si.edu/ and the National Portrait Gallery's website at http://npg.si.edu/
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John Carlos, author talk | The John Carlos Story" -- olympian John Carlos discusses his memoir. Introduction by writer Dave Zirin. Dave Zirin and John Wesley Carlos discuss and sign copies of "The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World." Seen around the world, John Carlos and Tommie Smith's Black Power salute on the 1968 Olympic podium sparked controversy and career fallout. Yet their show of defiance remains one of the most iconic images of Olympic history and the Black Power movement. Here is the remarkable story of one of the men behind the salute, lifelong activist John Carlos. | 12/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
Henry Casselli, artist talk (Pt3) | Portraits of astronauts John Glenn, Bob Crippin and John Young, by Henry Casselli -- the artist discusses his work. Image: John Glenn / Henry C. Casselli, Jr. / Graphite and watercolor on paper, 1998 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Gift of Taylor Energy Company LLC | 11/30/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Henry Casselli, artist talk (Pt2) | Portrait of Ronald Reagan by Henry Casselli -- the artist discusses his work. Recorded at NPG, September 24, 2010. Image: Ronald Wilson Reagan / Henry C. Casselli, Jr. / Oil on canvas, 1989 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Herman Chanen, Tom Chauncey and other Friends, Copyright Henry C. Casselli, Jr. | 11/29/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Henry Casselli, artist talk (Pt1) | Portrait of Muhammad Ali by Henry Casseli -- the artist discusses his work. Recorded at NPG, September 24, 2010. Image: Muhammad Ali / Henry C. Casselli, Jr. / Oil on canvas, 1981 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Sig Rogich Family Trust | 11/28/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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5 |
Mary Cassatt portrait, Face-to-Face talk | The NPG's Cara Fama discusses a portrait of American artist Mary Cassatt by Edgar Degas. Recorded at NPG, March 31, 2011. Image: Mary Stevenson Cassatt / Edgar Degas / Oil on canvas, 1880-1884 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and the Regents' Major Acquisitions Fund, Smithsonian | 11/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Stacilee Ford, author talk | "Troubling American Women: Narratives of Gender and Nation in Hong Kong" -- author Stacilee Ford discusses her book. American women have lived in Hong Kong and neighboring Macao for nearly two centuries. Many were changed by their encounter with Chinese life and British colonialism. Their openness to new experiences set them apart, while their "pedagogical impulse" gave them a reputation for outspokenness that troubled others. Drawing on memoirs, diaries, newspapers, films, and other texts, Stacilee Ford tells the stories of several American women and explores how, through dramatically changing times, they communicated their notions of national identity and gender. "Troubling American Women: Narratives of Gender and Nation in Hong Kong" is a lively and provocative study of cross-cultural encounters between Hong Kong and the U.S. and of stereotypes of American womanhood in Hong Kong popular culture. Recorded at NPG, October 19, 2011. | 11/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Ronald Reagan as an actor, Face-to-Face talk | Anjuli Singh of the American Film Institute talks about former president Ronald Reagan as an actor, and a 1942 lobby card for the film "Kings Row."Recorded at NPG, September 29, 2011. Image: Ronald Wilson Reagan / "Kings Row" lobby card / Warner Brothers Archive, 1942 / Courtesy University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, Warner Bros. Archives | 10/17/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Brian Behnken, author talk | "Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas" -- author Brian Behnken discusses his book. By comparing the histories of these movements in one of the few states in the nation to witness two civil rights movements, Behnken bridges the fields of Mexican American and African American history, revealing the myriad causes that ultimately led these groups to "fight their own battles. Recorded at NPG, September 7, 2011. | 10/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
Will Kaufman, author talk | "Woody Guthrie, American Radical (Music in American Life)" -- author Will Kaufman discusses his book and plays songs by woody Guthrie. Kaufman's book reclaims the politically radical profile of America's greatest balladeer. Using a wealth of previously unseen archival materials, it introduces a heretofore unknown Guthrie: the canny political strategist, fitful thinker, and cultural front activist practically buried in the general public's romantic celebration of the "Dust Bowl Troubadour." Recorded at NPG, August 17, 2011. | 9/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Richard Carlin, author talk | "Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways" -- author Richard Carlin discusses his book and the life of Moses Asch and his and larger-than-life dream -- to document and record all the sounds of his time. From 1940 until his death in 1986, Asch -- with the help of collaborators ranging from the eccentric visionary Harry Smith to academic musicologists -- created more than 2000 albums, a sound-scape of the contemporary world still unequaled in breadth and scope. Recorded at NPG, August 10, 2011. | 8/24/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Mamie Eisenhower portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Susan Eisenhower, descendant of President Dwight Eisenhower, speaks about first lady Mamie Eisenhower and her portrait by Dwight Eisenhower. Recorded at NPG, July 14, 2011. Image: Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower by Dwight David Eisenhower / Oil on artist's board, c. 1952, after 1941 photograph / Private collection | 8/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Christopher Webber, author talk | "American to the Backbone: The Life of James Pennington, The Fugitive Slave Who Became One of the First Abolitionists" -- author Christopher Webber discusses his book. Recorded at NPG, July 13, 2011. | 8/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Alexander Calder self-portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Beth Turner, Vice Provost for the Arts at UVA, talks about artist Alexander Calder Recorded at NPG, July 7, 2011. Image: Self-portrait by Alexander Calder / Wire, 1968 / Calder Foundation, New York; Copyright 2010 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Photograph Copyright Calder Foundation, New York / Art Resource, NY | 8/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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John Ferling, author talk | "Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free"-- author John Ferling discusses his book on America's political journey from protest to revolution. Recorded at NPG, July 6, 2011. | 7/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 15 | Video"The Death of Ellsworth" Civil War exhibition | Jim Barber, historian at NPG discusses the exhibiton "The Death of Ellsworth" | 7/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Penny Colman, author talk | "Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Changed the World" -- author Penny Colman discusses her book. Recorded at NPG, June 15, 2011. | 6/24/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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17 |
Jon Friedman, artist talk | Bill and Melinda Gates portrait -- discussion by artist Jon Friedman. Jon Friedman discusses his portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates in the exhibition "Recent Aquisitions" and the process he used to create the work. Friedman 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. 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. Recorded at NPG, May 17, 2011. Image: 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 | 6/20/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Roger DiSilvestro, author talk | "Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands: A Young Politician's Quest for Recovery in the American West" -- author Roger DiSilvestro discusses his book. Recorded at NPG, June 8, 2011. | 6/17/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Varina H. Davis portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Margaret Vining, National Museum of American History curator in Military History, talks about Varina H. Davis (1826-1906), first lady of the Confederacy. Recorded March 24, 2011. Image: Varina Howell Davis / John Wood Dodge / Watercolor on ivory, 1849 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Varina Webb Stewart | 6/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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A Conversation with Andrew Young | A Conversation with Andrew Young: Ambassador Andrew Young, joined by his longtime friend Jack H. Watson Jr., discusses his role in the American Civil Rights movement. Watson is chair of the National Portrait Gallery's Commission; he served as chief of staff for former President Jimmy Carter and is a fellow Atlantan. His portrait is now on view in our exhibition "The Struggle for Justice." Recorded at NPG, April 30, 2011. Image: Andrew Young by Ross R, Rossin, oil on canvas, 2009, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Jack Watson, Copyright 2009 Ross R. Rossin | 5/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Exhibit lighting and Alexander Calder's wire portraits | Alex Cooper, NPG lighting designer, on lighting the exhibition "Calder's Portraits: A New Language." Alex Cooper uses Calder's portrait of composer Edgar Varese (1883-1965) as an example of lighting three-dimensional objects in exhibits. Recorded at NPG, May 5, 2011. Image: Edgar Varese / Alexander Calder / Wire, c. 1930 / Whitney Museum of American Art, New York / Copyright 2010 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York . See more portraits on the exhibit website: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/calder/ | 5/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Howard Means, author talk | "Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story" discussion by author Howard Means. Howard Means discusses and signs copies of his book "Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story." Recorded at NPG, May 11, 2011. | 5/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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William T. Sherman portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Trevor Plante, chief of Reference at the National Archives, talks about Union General William T. Sherman (1820-1891) Recorded at NPG, April 28, 2011. Image: William Tecumseh Sherman, / George Peter Alexander Healy / Oil on canvas, 1866 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the Smithsonian American Art Museum; gift of P. Tecumseh Sherman, 1935 | 5/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Adam Goodheart, author talk | "1861: The Civil War Awakening" discussion by author Adam Goodheart. Historian, journalist, and travel writer Adam Goodheart discusses his new book "1861: The Civil War Awakening," a gripping account of the early days of the Civil War. Goodheart is director of Washington College's C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. This is a joint program with the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Recorded at NPG, April 23, 2011. | 5/3/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Kate Millett portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Carolyn Carr, chief curator and deputy director of NPG, discusses a portrait of Kate Millett by Alice Neel. Kate Millett born 1934 Born St. Paul, Minnesota The emergence of the modern feminist movement in the 1960s had initially seemed but a sidelight to the massive demonstrations for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. Yet it was clear that the growing cry for equal opportunity for women could not be ignored. In no small measure, the movement owed its quickening pulse to Kate Millett, whose 1970 book Sexual Politics had become something of a bible for feminism. When Time magazine sought a personification of feminist protest for its cover in August 1970, it, not surprisingly, settled on Millett. Unfortunately, Millett herself was not pleased with the choice, feeling that no one person could presume to embody the aspirations of her cause. As a result, when Alice Neel asked her to pose, she refused. Instead, Neel used photographs to make this likeness. Image: Kate Millett / Alice Neel (1900-1984) / Acrylic on canvas, 1970 / Gift of Time magazine. Recorded at NPG, October 28, 2010. | 4/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Keith Waters, author talk | Discussion of Miles Davis. Author Keith Waters on "The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68." Part of Jazz Appreciation Month at the Smithsonian. Recorded at NPG, April 20, 2010. | 4/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Juliette Gordon Low portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Geri Provost-Lyons, Education specialist, discusses Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts. Recorded at NPG, March 10, 2011. Image: Juliette Gordon Low / Edward Hughes / Oil on canvas, 1887 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America; Frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee | 4/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 28 | VideoAmbrose Burnside and the 1st RI at Camp Sprague (near Washington, D.C.), 1861 | Frank Goodyear, associate curator of photography at the National Portrait Gallery discusses an 1861 photograph of Ambrose Burnside and the Rhode Island 1st Volunteer Infantry, taken at Camp Sprague (near Washington, D.C.) by an unidentified photographer. Goodyear was interviewed by the NPG's Warren Perry on February 22, 2011. | 4/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 29 | VideoLincoln's Beard - Why Did He Grow It? | Abraham Lincoln grew beard after he became president in 1861. David C. Ward, historian at the National Portrait Gallery, discusses the reasons that Lincoln changed his appearance. Interview by Warren Perry, recorded March 3, 2011. | 4/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| 30 | VideoLincoln's Life Masks | David C. Ward, historian at the National Portrait Gallery, discusses Abraham Lincoln's life masks. These works, by Leonard Volk and Clark Mills, are on view in the "Americas Presidents" exhibition. Interview by Warren Perry, National Portrait Gallery. Recorded March 3, 2011 at NPG. | 4/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Patti Smith, author talk | Patti Smith on "Just Kids," her National Book Award-Winning memoir. Patti Smith discussed "Just Kids" at the National Portrait Gallery on December 11, 2010. She was interviewed by the NPG's David C. Ward, Historian. "Just Kids" is a memoir of early 1970s Manhattan and of Patti Smith's friendship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. | 3/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Katharine Graham exhibition, Face-to-Face talk | Amy Henderson, historian at NPG, discusses newspaper publisher Katharine Graham. Newspaper publisher Katharine Graham (1917-2001) led an extraordinary life in extraordinary times. Born into privilege, she was catapulted onto the international stage as publisher of The Washington Post during the Watergate scandal. The National Portrait Gallery's exhibition "One Life: Katharine Graham" is on view from October 1, 2010 through May 30, 2011. It includes several photographs to narrate key moments in her life including a portrait by Richard Avedon, drawings, original newspapers from the time of the Watergate scandal, the Pulitzer Prize for her memoir, "Personal History" (1998) and video of a Living Self-Portrait interview of Graham by former Portrait Gallery director Marc Pachter. Amy Henderson is the curator for this exhibition. Recorded at NPG, March 3, 2011. Image: Katharine Graham / Richard Avedon, 1976/ Gelatin silver print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; this acquisition was made possible by generous contributions of the Jeane W. Austin and the James Smithson Society/ Copyright Richard Avedon | 3/10/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Michael Jordan portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David C Ward, historian at NPG, discusses the "Wings" Nike poster of Michael Jordan, by Gary Nolton. One of Nike's most famous posters, "Wings" features Chicago Bulls basketball legend Michael Jordan along with a quote from poet William Blake, "No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." With Jordan as their marquee player, the Bulls dominated the NBA in the 1990s. Jordan could also claim one NCAA championship with the University of North Carolina and six NBA championships. He was a five-time league MVP and a two-time Olympic gold-medal winner, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and briefly played minor-league baseball. In addition to his extraordinary athletic achievements, Jordan became the most successful advertising figure the world had ever known. The "Wings" poster documents a shift in athletes' earning potential from their performance to their endorsement deals; it also marks a historic moment when African American sports figures could serve as role models to all Americans. Recorded at NPG, February 10, 2011. Image: Michael Jordan / Gary Nolton / Halftone poster, 1989 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 3/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Edward G. Lengel, author talk | "Inventing George Washington: America's Founder, in Myth and Memory" discussion by author Edward G. Lengel. From Harper Collins website: George Washington's death on December 14, 1799, dealt a dreadful blow to public morale. For three decades, Americans had depended on his leadership to guide them through every trial. At the cusp of a new century, the fledgling nation, caught in another war (this time with its former ally France), desperately needed to believe that Washington was--and would continue to be--there for them. Thus began the extraordinary immortalization of this towering historical figure. "In Inventing George Washington", historian Edward G. Lengel shows how the late president and war hero continued to serve his nation on two distinct levels. The public Washington evolved into an eternal symbol as Father of His Country, while the private man remained at the periphery of the national vision--always just out of reach--for successive generations yearning to know him as never before. Both images, public and private, were vital to perceptions Americans had of their nation and themselves. Yet over time, as Lengel shows, the contrasting and simultaneous urges to deify Washington and to understand him as a man have produced tensions that have played out in every generation. As some exalted him, others sought to bring him down to earth, creating a series of competing mythologies that depicted Washington as every sort of human being imaginable. "Inventing George Washington" explores these representations, shedding new light on this national emblem, our nation itself, and who we are. Recorded at NPG, February 16, 2011. | 2/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Hart Crane portrait by Marsden Hartley, Face-to-Face talk | David C. Ward, historian and co-curator of "Hide/Seek," discusses Marsden Hartley's portrait of Hart Crane titled "Eight Bells Folly: Memorial to Hart Crane." When the great romantic modernist poet Hart Crane committed suicide, artist Marsden Hartley memorialized him by reverting to the style in which he had painted Karl von Freyburg (see Painting No. 47, Berlin in this exhibition). Crane and Hartley had a difficult relationship in which the always fastidious Hartley disparaged Crane's careless ebullience and love for cruising Manhattan's streets. Packed into Eight Bells Folly were references to Crane's age (thirty-three), his life, his death by jumping off a ship, and, above all, his poetry. Over the entire painting looms a blood-tinged sun (Crane died at high noon, or "eight bells") and two arcs symbolizing the subject of Crane's great poem, The Bridge (1930). Put off by Crane, yet fascinated by him, Hartley signaled his ultimate connection to Crane by calling him, in a memorial poem, Hermano-or brother. Recorded at NPG, January 6, 2011. Image: "Eight Bells Folly: Memorial to Hart Crane" / Marsden Hartley / Oil on canvas, 1933 / Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota. Gift of Ione and Hudson D. Walker.1961.4. | 1/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Michael Jackson portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, researcher at NPG, discusses Andy Warhol's portrait of Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson rocketed to fame-first with his brothers, the Jackson 5, whose first four singles (including "ABC" and "I Want You Back") topped the charts in 1970-and then through solo albums. Jackson was clearly one of the biggest pop stars of the 1980s, and his album Thriller (1982) was a huge popular and critical success, winning an unprecedented eight Grammy Awards. In 1984, when Time magazine commissioned Andy Warhol to make Jackson's portrait, the slightly built dancer and singer was at the height of his fame, and Warhol was the perfect choice to transform Jackson into a pop celebrity icon. The then-twenty-six-year-old star is preserved by Warhol, even though this image had been replaced in the public mind, until the singer's 2009 death, by his masklike visage. Recorded at NPG, October 14, 2010 Image: Michael Jackson / Andy Warhol / Synthetic polymer and silkscreen on canvas, 1984 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine; copyright Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / ARS, New York | 1/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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hide/SPEAK" Panel Discussion at DCJCC | A conversation with David C. Ward, co-curator of "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture." Presented by the Washington DC Jewish Community Center in collaboration with Catherine V. Dawson and Transformer. David C. Ward in conversation with Tyler Green editor and writer of Modern Art Notes; Victoria Reis, co-founder of Transformer; and Dafna Steinberg, artist and director of Ann Loeb Bronfmann Gallery at Washington DCJCC. Recorded at DCJCC, December 20, 2010. | 12/30/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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John Kascht, artist talk | Caricature artist John Kascht discusses celebrity, image-making, and his portraits of Alan Greenspan and Warren Buffett that are currently on view in the exhibition "Twentieth Century Americans." Kascht has published work on the pages of GQ, Times, and the New Yorker. The National Portrait Gallery has 23 of his portraits in its collection. Recorded at NPG, December 11, 2010. Image: Alan Greenspan / John Kascht / Watercolor, colored ink and graphite on paper, 1999 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; copyright John Kascht | 12/15/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Steven Weisman, author talk | Steven Weisman discusses his book "Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary"Recorded at NPG, December 8, 2010. | 12/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Oveta Culp Hobby portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Oveta Culp Hobby portrait, Face-to-Face talk. By her early thirties, Oveta Culp Hobby had helped to codify the banking laws of her native Texas, been an assistant to Houston's city attorney, and served as an editor and executive vice president of the Houston Post. Hobby's already substantial accomplishments only whetted her appetite for other challenges. When this portrait appeared on Time's cover in 1944, she was the commanding officer of the Women's Army Corps, charged with directing one of this country's first experiments in utilizing women in the military. The experiment was succeeding overall, and the performance of Hobby's WACs had long since disputed the initial spate of cynical remarks about a woman's unfitness for the military. But one problem still persisted: much to Hobby's disappointment, the numbers of WAC enlistments had fallen well short of the army's original hopes. Recorded at NPG, October 28, 2010. Image: Oveta Culp Hobby / Ernest Hamlin Baker / Gouache on paper, 1944 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Oveta Culp Hobby; copyright Ernest Hamlin Baker | 11/29/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Charles Schulz, portrait presentation | Charles Schulz, portrait presentation. Speakers: Martin Sullivan, director of the National Portrait Gallery; Edwin C. Anderson, friend of Schulz; Lee Mendelson, producer of "Peanuts" films; Estrellita Karsh, photograph donor; and Jean Schulz, widow of Schulz. A photograph of "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000) was presented to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in a ceremony for invited guests on October 1, 2010. The event recognized the cartoonist's impact on millions of people worldwide and coincides with commemorations surrounding the 60th anniversary of "Peanuts." Image: Charles Schulz / Yousuf Karsh / Chromogenic print, 1986 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Estrellita Karsh in memory of Yousuf Karsh . More about Schulz and his portrait in this article from the NPG's blog: http://face2face.si.edu/my_weblog/2010/10/portrait-of-charles-schulz-commemorates-the-60th-anniversary-of-peanuts-debut.html | 11/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Jack Pierson, artist talk | Jack Pierson, artist talk. Jack Pierson discusses his works on view in "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture." Recorded at NPG, November 7, 2010. Image: Self-portrait 3 / Jack Pierson / Pigment print. 2003 / James R. Hedges, IV. / Courtesy Cheim and Read, New York / Copyright Jack Pierson Image: Barry Morris Goldwater / Bernard Safran / Acrylic on board, 1964 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine | 11/16/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Barry Goldwater, Face-to-Face talk | Barry Goldwater, Face-to-Face talk. Born Phoenix, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater's failed 1964 presidential campaign laid the groundwork for the subsequent triumph of Republican conservatism. Challenging the Republican establishment for its timidity, Goldwater provided a full-throated critique of New Deal and Great Society liberalism. Goldwater lost to Johnson in a landslide, in part because he was depicted as a dangerous extremist who threatened prosperity at home and peace abroad through his reactionary programs. Goldwater returned to the Senate, where he rose to the status of Washington "wise man," helping usher Richard Nixon from office in 1974. He lived long enough to see his more aggressive, populist vision of the Republican Party, one based in the South and West, triumph under Ronald Reagan. Recorded at NPG, October 7, 2010. Image: Barry Morris Goldwater / Bernard Safran / Acrylic on board, 1964 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine | 11/4/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Thomas Jefferson portrait by Mather Brown, Face-to-Face talk | Thomas Jefferson portrait by Mather Brown, Face-to-Face talk. As the new American republic emerged from its war with the mother country, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, collaborators in the formulation of the Declaration of Independence (although Jefferson wrote the final document), were brought together as trade negotiators in France, where their mutual respect turned into friendship. In the spring of 1786--when Jefferson was the American minister to France and Adams the American minister to England--Jefferson visited Adams, who suggested that he pose for the young Boston-born artist Mather Brown. An exchange of portraits between the two colleagues ensued. This painting, the earliest known likeness of Jefferson, remained in Adams's family until given to the nation in 1999. The background contains the classical figure of Freedom holding a staff topped by a cap, which had its origins in the conical cloth cap adopted by freed Roman slaves as the symbol of their liberty. Recorded at NPG, July, 22, 2010. Image: Thomas Jefferson / Mather Brown / Oil on canvas, 1786 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; bequest of Charles Francis Adams; Frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee | 8/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Bill Clinton portrait by Chuck Close, Face-to-Face talk | Chuck Close's portrait of Bill Clinton, Face-to-Face talk. A key to Bill Clinton's successes as president, along with his resilience and personal affability, was his determination to govern through consensus. Major accomplishments, such as welfare reform, the first budget surplus since the late 1960s, and successful U.S. intervention in the Balkans stemmed from this pragmatic viewpoint. Other proposals, such as universal health care, failed. His administration was plagued by several scandals, such as Whitewater and the consequences of his affair with a White House intern. His denial under oath about this relationship led to his impeachment. He was not convicted in the Senate trial, however, and his popularity actually increased as Americans continued to admire Clinton for his political talents, quick intelligence, and determination. Chuck Close begins all his paintings by taking a photograph of the subject, in this case a 2005 image made as a cover for New York Magazine. He then creates grids on both the canvas and the original image to replicate the information contained in the photograph with a series of abstract modules. The portrait is on loan to the National Portrait Gallery from Ian and Annette Cumming, and is now on view in the "America's Presidents" exhibition on the second floor. Recorded at NPG, June 24, 2010. Image: William Jefferson Clinton / Chuck Close / Oil on canvas, 2006 / Ian and Annette Cumming | 7/12/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Lecture by David Hackett Fischer, cultural historian | David Hackett Fisher, cultural historian, spoke on Emmanuel Leutze's iconic painting, "Washington Crossing the Delaware." It was the third event of this year's American Pictures series at the Smithsonian. After the talk, Fischer signed copies of his book Washington's Crossing, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in History. Held in Washington, D.C., the series is cosponsored by Washington College, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. Recorded at NPG, May 1, 2010. Image: Washington Crossing the Delaware / Emmanuel Leutze, 1851 / The Metropolitan Museum of Art | 7/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Jim Torok self-portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Anne Goodyear, curator at NPG, discusses Jim Torok's self-portrait featured in the temporary exhibition "Portraiture Now: Communities." Jim Torok grew up in Indiana but moved to New York to attend graduate school at Brooklyn College. Although he has worked in several genres, Torok is best known for his small-scale portraits. Painted with oil on panel, they raise intriguing questions about identity and the impermanence of human life. As Torok explains, one of the fundamental issues his work addresses is the problem of likeness. "How do we know a face?" Torok asks. "How do you get a picture of a person to look like that person?" He begins each portrait by taking a series of photographs of his subjects, but his paintings are not photographic. Time spent with his subject is important in these works, which can take up to a year to complete, a duration seemingly out of proportion to their size. Recorded at NPG, June 3, 2010. Image: Self-portrait by Jim Torok / Oil on panel, 2008 / Baron and Budd, P.C. / Copyright Jim Torok | 6/29/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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John Wayne portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Amy Henderson, historian at NPG, discusses John Wayne. >One of the archetypal heroic figures of twentieth-century film, John Wayne conveyed a decisive, solitary, reverent screen persona that reflected traditional American values. Wayne's collaboration with director John Ford led to such classics as Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Quiet Man. During World War II, Wayne starred in several morale-boosting movies, including Flying Tigers and Back to Bataan. He finally won an Oscar for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). About his long-lived popularity he said, "I play John Wayne in every part regardless of the character, and I've been doing okay, haven't I?" Recorded at NPG, June 17, 2010. Image: John Wayne / Harry Jackson / Polychromed bronze, 1969 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine | 6/25/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Lecture by Jules Feiffer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and playwright | Jules Feiffer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and playwright spoke on a photograph of Fred Astaire by Bob Landy. The second event of this year's American Pictures series at the Smithsonian featured cartoonist, screenwriter, and playwright Jules Feiffer speaking on Bob Landry's visually thrilling photograph, "Fred Astaire in 'Puttin' on the Ritz,' 1945." After the talk, Feiffer signed copies of his recently released memoir, Backing into Forward, published this spring by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. Held in Washington, D.C., the series is cosponsored by Washington College, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. Recorded at NPG, April 17, 2010. Image: Bob Landry, Fred Astaire in "Puttin' on the Ritz," 1945, Time and Life Pictures. | 6/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Mark Twain portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Frank Goodyear, curator at NPG, discusses Mark Twain. Using the pen name Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens had become one of this country's favorite satiric writers by the early 1870s, routinely making light of everyday human foibles. But it was the publication of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) that assured him a lasting place in American letters. Inspired in part by Clemens's own boyhood, these two tales set along the Mississippi River did more than capture the rhythms of youth in antebellum America. In both novels, Clemens examined with sardonic wit various tensions that underlay contemporary society, including, most importantly, the question of race. In later years, his success in this country and abroad was tempered by financial and personal setbacks and by a contempt for American and British imperialism. Recorded at NPG, May 27, 2010. Image: Samuel Langhorne Clemens / John White Alexander, 1912 or 1913 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 6/4/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Stonewall Jackson portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David Ward, historian at NPG, discusses Stonewall Jackson. At the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861, the unrelenting vigor with which Confederate General Thomas Jonathan Jackson held his position inspired a general nearby to rally his troops with the cry, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall." From that moment on, he was known as "Stonewall" Jackson, a name that he repeatedly lived up to, fighting under the command of General Robert E. Lee.The deeply religious Jackson believed intensely in the righteousness of the southern cause, and a key to his success was his ability to instill his own fighting fervor in his men. One of his most brilliant victories came at Chancellorsville in the spring of 1863. Tragically for Jackson and the South, this would prove to be his last battle, as he died of wounds accidentally inflicted by his own men. Recorded at NPG, May 20, 2010. Image: Thomas Jonathan Jackson / J. W. King, copy after: Unidentified Artist, (Photographer) / Oil on canvas, 1864 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; given in memory of Lieselotte Richardson | 6/2/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Elvis in the army, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, curator of "Echoes of Elvis," discusses Elvis's time in the army and his portrait by Howard Finster. Elvis Presley's humble nature and patriotism appealed greatly to visionary artist Howard Finster. Born in 1915 in DeKalb County, Alabama, Finster claimed to have his first vision in early childhood; his later visions would dictate decisions affecting both his life and his art. Finster was an evangelical Baptist minister before coming to view painting as the vehicle chosen for him to spread the gospel. Included in the current NPG "Echoes of Elvis" exhibition are two of Finster's painted, wood-cutout Elvis images: Elvis at Three and Elvis in Army Uniform, both done in 1990 and from the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Elvis at Three, which features a baby Elvis Presley adorned with angel wings and inscribed with Bible verses, conjures Finster's idea of Elvis as a special Christian emissary on earth. Elvis in Army Uniform presents a more secular image of Presley with a reference to his military service. Recorded at NPG, May 6, 2010. Image: Elvis in Army Uniform / Howard Finster / Paint on Wood, 1991 / High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; purchase with funds from the Cousins Foundation, Inc., and donors to the Paradise Project Campaign | 5/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Lena Horne portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Ann Shumard, curator at NPG, discusses Lena Horne and her portrait by Florence Homolka. Singer and actress Lena Horne helped break the color barrier in mainstream popular culture in the mid-twentieth century, beginning her stage career in the chorus at Harlem's Cotton Club in 1933, where Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway mentored her. In 1942 Hollywood beckoned, but her roles were often musical cameos that southern theaters could cut; Horne once said that Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky were the only films "in which I played a character who was involved in the plot." She became Hollywood's highest-paid African American actor, and her renditions of "Stormy Weather" and "Just One of Those Things" were considered classics. During this time, Horne also became a vocal spokesperson for civil rights. She also continued to enjoy a successful nightclub and recording career, and triumphed in the 1980s with her one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music.Recorded at NPG, April 29, 2010. Image: Lena Horne / Florence Homolka / Silver gelatin print, c.1950 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired through the generosity of Elizabeth Ann Hylton | 5/11/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Lecture by James McPherson, Civil War Historian | Acclaimed Civil War historian James M. McPherson delivered the first talk of the 2010 "American Pictures" Series before an enthusiastic audience at the Smithsonian. The series, a co-production of Washington College, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery, pairs great works of art with leading figures of contemporary American culture. Each talk features an eminent writer, artist, critic or historian who chooses a single, powerful image and investigates its meanings, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields. McPherson chose Alexander Gardner's stirring 1862 photograph "Confederate Dead by a Fence on the Hagerstown Road, Antietam," one of the first pictures to bring the shocking realities of war before the eyes of the American public. Introduction by Adam Goodheart, head of washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. Recorded at NPG, April 10, 2010. Image: "Antietam, Md. Confederate dead by a fence on the Hagerstown road" by Alexander Gardner, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. | 5/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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1960s San Francisco rock groups, Face-to-Face talk | Curatorial assistant Amy Baskette speaks about 1960s San Francisco rock groups, particularly Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and The Grateful Dead. Recorded at NPG, April 22, 2010. Image: Rock groups, San Francisco, 1967 / Irving Penn / Platinum-palladium print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Irving Penn | 4/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Elvis Presley portrait by Red Grooms, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, curator of "Echoes of Elvis" discusses a portrait of Elvis Presley by Red Grooms. Red Grooms, like fellow Tennessean William Eggleston (whose work is also featured in the exhibition), has often memorialized Elvis in his art. In this image, he arms Elvis with his trademark flashy apparel and accompanying guitar, but a slightly closer observation will yield several other components of Elvis's iconographic ensemble-the lip curl, the slick, combed-back hair, the omnipresent Cadillac, Graceland, and the stylized stage posture. One of the famous gates of Graceland is swung open behind the entertainer while a woman in a red dress and black high heels observes the singer from the porch of the mansion. Grooms is to American art as Mark Twain is to American writing; he is the foremost humorist in his discipline. He is also a prolific artist who works in many media. Recorded at NPG, April 8, 2010. Image: Elvis Presley / Red Grooms (born 1937) / Lithograph, 1987 / Copyright 2010 Red Grooms / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York | 4/21/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Gertrude Stein portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Wendy Wick Reaves, curator at NPG, discusses Gertrude Stein and her portrait by Jo Davidson. American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein was a high priestess of early-twentieth-century modernism for the many who visited her fabled Paris apartment. She collected and promoted the art of the avant-garde, including that of Picasso and Matisse, and her own abstract, repetitive prose inspired the experiments of playwrights, composers, poets, and painters. "There was an eternal quality about her," sculptor Jo Davidson wrote. "She somehow symbolized wisdom." He chose to depict her here as "a sort of modern Buddha." Delighted by the sculpture, Stein composed one of her famous prose portraits of Davidson, later published in Vanity Fair alongside a photograph of this work. The sculpture is on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "Twentieth-Century Americans" on the museum's third floor. Recorded at NPG, March 25, 2010. Image: Gertrude Stein / Jo Davidson / Terra cotta, 1922-1923 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Dr. Maury Leibovitz | 4/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Julia Child portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Rayna Green, curator at the National Museum of American History, discusses Julia Child and her portrait by David Martin. With the 1961 publication of her groundbreaking cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking(co-authored with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle), Julia Child launched a highly successful effort to demystify French cuisine by enabling American cooks "to create French dishes in American kitchens with American foods." Mastering the Art of French Cooking sold more than 100,000 copies in its first year and also provided the springboard to Child's improbable career in television. In February 1962, just four months after her cookbook's release, Child appeared on a local interview program on WGBH in Boston and matter-of-factly prepared a mushroom omelet. Viewers were enchanted, and letters poured in asking for more opportunities to see Child in action. The result was the debut on July 26, 1962, of The French Chef--the half-hour cooking show on public television that would make Julia Child a household name and a culinary icon. Rayna Greene, curator at the National Museum of American History, discussed Child and her portrait by David Marlin. Greene was instrumental in bringing Julia Child's kitchen to the Smithsonian. Recorded at NPG, March 18, 2010. Image: Julia Child / David Marlin / Gelatin silver print, 1971 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired through the generosity of Ann M. Shumard in honor of Thomas D. Matteson | 3/25/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Lecture on Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Historic Preservation and Architecture | On Friday, March 5, 2010 the National Portrait Gallery paid tribute to one of the United States's greatest historical preservation advocates and public servants. Order of speakers: architect David Childs; current president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation Richard Moe; and Public Buildings Service Commissioner Robert Peck. Ashton Hawkins, former Metropolitan Museum vice president was not included in the recording, due to technical issues. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) was a member of four successive presidential administrations: those of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford. He was both ambassador to India and to the United Nations and later served four terms in the United States Senate, beginning in 1976. The late senator was a dedicated and frequent visitor to the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum. He was also passionate about the Penn Quarter revitalization. Recorded at NPG, March 5, 2010. Image: Daniel Patrick Moynihan / Ross Barron Storey / Acrylic on board, 1975 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine . More information at: http://face2face.si.edu/my_weblog/2010/03/daniel-patrick-moynihan-lecture-historic-preservation-and-architecture.html | 3/19/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Katharine Hepburn's four Oscars and portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Amy Henderson, historian at NPG, discusses Katharine Hepburn's four Oscars and her portrait by Everett Raymond Kinstler. Screen legend Katharine Hepburn fashioned herself into a cultural icon by sheer will and a shrewd business sense. She won the first of her record four Best Actress Oscars in 1933 for Morning Glory and made several popular films in the mid-1930s. But her subsequent choices like Christopher Strong and Sylvia Scarlett baffled her audience, and by 1938 she was branded "box office poison." Even such screwball comedies as Bringing Up Baby (1938) failed to renew her popularity, and it wasn't until The Philadelphia Story (1940) that she was back on top. Hepburn partnered in nine films with Spencer Tracy, winning an Oscar for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. She also won Oscars for The Lion in Winter and On Golden Pond. She received a Kennedy Center Honors award in 1990. In 2009, the National Portrait Gallery acquired Hepburn's four Oscar statuettes as a gift from the Katharine Hepburn estate. They are now on view in the "Twentieth-Century Americans" gallery on the museum's third floor, next to a 1982 portrait of Hepburn by artist Everett Raymond Kinstler, which she termed her "favorite." Recorded at NPG, March 11, 2010. Image: Katharine Hepburn's four Best Actress Academy Awards (Morning Glory, 1933; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1967; The Lion in Winter, 1968; On Golden Pond, 1981) / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the estate of Katharine Hepburn . In background: Katharine Hepburn / Everett Raymond Kinstler, 1982 / Oil on canvas/National Portrait Gallery; gift of Everett Raymond Kinstler / Copyright 1982 Everett Raymond Kinstler | 3/15/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Clement Greenberg portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David Ward, historian at NPG, discusses art critic Clement Greenberg. Art critic and public intellectual Clement Greenberg was one of the most important advocates for American abstract painting after World War II. Championing such artists as Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, and especially Jackson Pollock, Greenberg provided the art-historical background to what he called "abstract expressionism." Pugnacious and driven by a sense of cultural mission, Greenberg, in his criticism and in articles like "'American Type' Painting" (1955), became the model of the engaged intellectual, making as many enemies as he did friends. As he said, "The first obligation of an art critic is to deliver value judgments." The art world eventually turned on Greenberg, but his four volumes of collected writings are an unmatched survey of American art and culture in the mid-twentieth century. Rene Bouche's 1955 portrait of Greenberg was praised as an abstraction "softening the edges of representation." Recorded at NPG, March 4, 2010. Image info: Clement Greenberg / Rene Bouche / Oil on canvas, 1955 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Denise Bouche Fitch | 3/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Thurgood Marshall portrait, Face-to-Face talk | L. Michael Seidman, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and a former clerk of Justice Marshall's, discusses a portrait of Thurgood Marshall by Betsy Graves Reyneau. Thurgood Marshall played a major role in the 1940s and 1950s as a leader in the struggle to end racial discrimination in the United States. From 1938 to 1961, he served as chief staff lawyer for the NAACP. Marshall devoted much effort to tailoring arguments that led the Supreme Court to its unanimous 1954 Brown v. the Board of Education of the City of Topeka decision, which ruled segregation of public schools by race to be unconstitutional. But he realized that the struggle was not over. At a party celebrating the Brown decision, Marshall warned his colleagues, "I don't want any of you to fool yourselves, it's just begun; the fight has just begun." He went on to become the first African American Supreme Court justice, nominated by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. The work is on display at the National Portrait Gallery in the new permanent exhibition "The Struggle for Justice" on the museum's second floor. Recorded at NPG, February 25, 2010. Image info: Thurgood Marshall / Betsy Graves Reyneau / Oil on canvas, 1956 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Harmon Foundation | 3/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Booker T. Washington portrait, Face-to-Face talk | James Barber, historian at the NPG, discusses Booker T. Washington. In the face of racial hatred, segregation, and disenfranchisement following the Civil War, it was unrealistic, Booker T. Washington contended, to expect African Americans to gain entry into America's white-collar professions. Instead, he suggested they establish themselves as a skilled and indispensable laboring class. With that accomplished, racial discrimination would gradually disappear. In 1881 Washington put this theory to the test, becoming the director of the newly created Negro Normal School in Tuskegee, Alabama. As the school grew, Washington became viewed as the nation's leading spokesman for African Americans. Yet by the century's end, many critics began to challenge his "get along" philosophy. Recorded at NPG, February 18, 2010. Image info: Booker T. Washington / Cast after: Richmond Barthe / Bronze, 1973 cast after 1946 original / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 2/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Frederick Douglass portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Rose Weiss and Braden Paynter of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, discuss a portrait of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass became the first nationally known African American in United States history by turning his life into a testimony on the evils of slavery and the redemptive power of freedom. He had escaped from slavery in 1838 and subsequently became a powerful witness for abolitionism, speaking, writing, and organizing on behalf of the movement; he also founded a newspaper, the North Star. Douglass's charisma derived from his ability to present himself as the author of his own destiny at a time when white America could barely conceive of the black man as a thinking and feeling human being. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is not only a gripping nonfiction account of one man's struggle for freedom; it is also one of the greatest American autobiographies. This powerful portrait shows Douglass as he grew in prominence during the 1840s. Recorded at NPG, February 4, 2010. Image info: Frederick Douglass / Unidentified artist / Oil on canvas, c. 1844 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 2/19/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Zitkala-Sa portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Francis Flavin, historian at the U.S. Department of the Interior, discusses a portrait of Zitkala-Sa, Native American writer and educator, by Joseph T. Keiley. This portrait pictures Zitkala-Sa--also known as Gertrude Bonnin--at age twenty-two, during a period when she taught at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Although she left Carlisle to study violin at the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music, she is best remembered not as a musician but rather as a writer and political activist. In 1900 she began publishing short stories and essays about her childhood and about the issues then affecting Native Americans. Following her marriage in 1902, she resettled in the West, where she worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, led community service programs, and taught school again. In 1916 Zitkala-Sa was elected the secretary of the Society of American Indians, an appointment that prompted her to move to Washington, D.C. There she worked on various Native American campaigns, including the effort that led to the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924. Recorded at NPG October 29, 2009. Image info: Zitkala-Sa 1876-1938 / Joseph T. Keiley (1869-1914) / Glycerine-developed platinum print, 1898 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. | 2/16/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Memphis radio deejay George Klein discusses Elvis Presley | George Klein, author of "Elvis: My Best Man" speaks about Elvis Presley. Introduction by Warren Perry, curator of "One Life: Echoes of Elvis" http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/elvis Recorded at NPG January 23, 2010. | 1/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon, Face-to-Face talk | Jason Schultz, archivist at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, speaks about the meeting of Richard Nixon and Elvis, at the White House on December 21, 1970. Recorded at NPG January 21, 2010. Image info: Richard M. Nixon and Elvis Presley at the White House / Series: Master Print File, compiled 1969-1974 (Collection RN-WHPO) / 12/21/1970 / National Archives at College Park - Archives II (College Park, MD) | 1/25/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Elvis Presley sculpture, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, curator of the "Echoes of Elvis" exhibit, discusses a sculpture of Elvis Presley by Robert Arneson. Elvis as Julius Caesar is Robert Arneson's variation on Elvis as the King of Rock and Roll. Arneson's sly, monumental tribute is a humorous homage to Elvis's place at the pinnacle of twentieth-century entertainment. Satire, caricature, and exaggeration are all part of Arneson's portraiture. His early work as a cartoonist is evident in his irreverent ceramic sculptures, which are often visual puns full of political and social commentary. Arneson deliberately pushed artistic boundaries by rejecting traditional decorative or functional work in clay to create boldly expressive sculptures that would shock and amuse his audiences. Recorded at NPG January 14, 2010. Image info: Robert Arneson (1930-1992) / Glazed ceramic, 1978 / Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Sydney and Frances Lewis Foundation, 1985 / Copyright Estate of Robert Arneson / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY | 1/20/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Ralph Wolfe Cowan, artist interview | Interview by Warren Perry, curator of "Echoes of Elvis." Elvis Presley released hundreds of records throughout a career that spanned slightly more than two decades. He also starred in thirty-one feature films and two documentaries. He was photographed throughout his career, and images of him on film are part of the American visual experience. However, the King of Rock and Roll only sat for one portrait painter--Ralph Wolfe Cowan. Elvis sat for Cowan in 1969, and Cowan produced the portrait that hangs today at Graceland. At the time, Cowan also made sketches for this portrait but left them alone until 1988, when he completed this work. At the time this portrait was drafted, Elvis was transitioning from making films to performing live; from 1968 until his death in 1977, he toured regularly. Of Elvis, Cowan said, he "was funny and had charisma that was bigger than life. I enjoyed our friendship." Cowan's portrait is on display as part of the National Portrait Gallery's new exhibition "One Life: Echoes of Elvis." ( http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/elvis/ ) This one=room exhibition marks the seventh-fifth anniversary of Elvis Presley's birth and also includes works by William Eggleston, Red Grooms, Robert Arneson, and others. Recorded at NPG, May 27, 2009. Image info: Elvis Presley / Ralph Wolfe Cowan (born 1931) / Oil on canvas, 1976-88 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of R. W. Cowan | 1/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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"Sarah, David" portrait by photographer Yolanda del Amo, Face-to-Face talk | Carolyn Carr, deputy director of the NPG, discusses the photograph "Sarah, David" by artist Yolanda del Amo. She also discusses the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition."Sarah, David" by photographer Yolanda del Amo is on display at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009. Del Amo's portrait, and works from forty-eight other artists, are on display until August 22, 2010. To view images of the works, see the exhibition Web site at http://www.portraitcompetition.si.edu/exhibition2009/AllFinalists.aspx . Although "Sarah, David" was not place-winning, it was highlighted as a commended piece. Carolyn Carr, deputy director of the National Portrait Gallery, recently discussed "Sarah, David" at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. Recorded at NPG, November 11, 2009. Image info: "Sarah, David" by Yolanda del Amo / Brooklyn, New York / C-print, 2007 / 101.6 x 127 cm (40 x 50 in.) | 12/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Joshua A. Norton portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Maya Foo, researcher at NPG, discusses Joshua A. Norton. After going bankrupt in 1858 owing to a failed attempt to control a commodities market in San Francisco, Joshua A. Norton proclaimed himself "His Imperial Majesty Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico."Despite having lost his mental equilibrium, Norton enjoyed a twenty-two-year "reign," during which he used his celebrity status to trumpet San Francisco's virtues and to recommend improvements. Local newspapers published his "decrees," which included a proposal--far-fetched in its day--to build a suspension bridge between Oakland and San Francisco, thus connecting the East Bay to the city.As this photograph shows, Norton often wore a navy commodore's costume and a silk hat with feathers. Period publications described Norton as "the gentlest, most inoffensive, and most agreeable monomaniac that ever lived." It was reported that thirty thousand people attended his funeral, a testament to his extraordinary popularity. Mayo Foo, researcher at the National Portrait Gallery, discussed Joshua A. Norton at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. This circa 1870 portrait by Henry Bradley and William Rulofson is on view at the Portrait Gallery, in the exhibition "Faces of the Frontier: Photographic Portraits from the American West, 1845-1924," on the museum's second floor. Recorded at NPG October 8, 2009 | 12/8/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Domingo Ghirardelli portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Ann Shumard, curator of photographs at NPG, discusses Domingo Ghirardelli (of chocolate fame). A confectioner from Italy, Domingo Ghirardelli established himself as a chocolate merchant in Lima, Peru, before immigrating to California in 1849. Unsuccessful as a miner, Ghirardelli returned to the confectioner's trade shortly thereafter, opening his first shop in Stockton, California. Ghirardelli's business selling chocolate, coffee, and dried fruit was profitable, leading him to open a second store in San Francisco. Although a fire destroyed this establishment in 1851, he rebuilt. Ghirardelli was one of only two chocolate manufacturers in the United States before the Civil War, and his product dominated the western market. By the 1880s he was importing more than 450,000 pounds of cocoa beans a year. The photographer of this carte-de-visite portrait was George H. Johnson, who--like Ghirardelli--relocated to California during the gold rush. He also failed as a prospector, but earned a reputation for opening one of the first photography studios in San Francisco. Recorded at NPG, october 22, 2009. Image info: Domingo Ghirardelli / George H. Johnson / Albumen silver print, 1860 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; gift of Sidney S. Lawrence III, in memory of Polly Ghirardelli Lawrence | 12/1/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Chinese experience in 19th century American West, Face-to-Face talk | Franklin Odo, Director of Smithsonian's APA program, discusses Chinese experience in 19th century American West. This unidentified man and his Chinese servant were photographed during the early years of the California Gold Rush. During the thirty-year period before the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, more than one hundred thousand Chinese immigrated to the United States. For many, "Gold Mountain"-the Chinese name for California-presented an extraordinary opportunity. Jobs were more plentiful in the West than at home, and some achieved a degree of economic independence. Yet most Chinese people endured tremendous hardship and discrimination in their new home. In response to the public outcry regarding "yellow peril," the Chinese were denied basic civil rights, forced into segregated areas, and ultimately, in 1882, refused entry into the United States. Before then, the Chinese-recruited to work on the transcontinental railroad's construction or in the mining industry-fulfilled the demand for inexpensive labor. Recorded at NPG October 15, 2009. Image info: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; gift of the Hall Family Foundation, 2005.37.103 | 11/25/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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John Singleton Copley self-portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Liz Rideal, of London's National Portrait Gallery, discusses John Singleton Copley's self portrait on display in the exhibition "American Origins."John Singleton Copley, proclaimed John Adams, is "the greatest Master, that ever was in America." While still a teenager, Copley was capable of gratifying Bostonians' desire for realistic portraits; by the time he was twenty, the essentially self-taught artist was painting better pictures than he had ever seen. Frustrated by the limitations of his provincial environment, where people, he complained, generally regarded art as "no more than any other useful trade," Copley longed to go to Europe to study. Increased political turmoil in the wake of the Boston Tea Party of December 1773--his father-in-law was one of the merchants who were supposed to receive the tea dumped in the harbor--spurred his departure for England in June 1774. There, in the flush of new success, he painted his own likeness. He never returned to America. Recorded at NPG September 10, 2009. Image info: John Singleton Copley self-portrait / Oil on canvas, 1780-1784 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 10/19/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Martin Schoeller, artist talk | Martin Schoeller has exhibited his portraits internationally and has received numerous awards. His photographs have appeared in many prominent magazines, including the New Yorker, Gentleman's Quarterly (GQ), Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone. A native of Germany, Schoeller, who now lives and works in New York, honed his skills by working with Annie Leibovitz. "Watching her deal with all of the elements that have to come together-subjects, lighting, production, weather, styling, location-gave me an insight into what it takes to be a portrait photographer," he explains. Equally important for Schoeller was the photography of German minimalists Bernd and Hilla Becher, who "inspired me to take a series of pictures, to build a platform that allows you to compare." Schoeller's portraiture brings viewers eye-to-eye with the well-known and the anonymous. His close-up style emphasizes, in equal measure, the facial features, both studied and unstudied, of his subject--presidential candidates and Piraha tribespeople, movie stars and artists--leveling them in an inherently democratic fashion. Schoeller's photographs challenge us to identify the qualities that may, under varying circumstances, either distinguish individuals or link them together, raising a critical question: What is the very nature of the categories we use to compare and contrast. Recorded at NPG September 28, 2009. Image info: Jack Nicholson / Martin Schoeller / Digital C-print, 2002 / Published in Entertainment Weekly, January 3, 2003 / Collection of the artist, courtesy Hasted Hunt, New York City / Copyright Martin Schoeller | 10/13/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Red Cloud portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Frank Goodyear,curator at NPG, discusses a portrait of Red Cloud by by Charles M. Bell, on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "Faces of the Frontier.""I have tried to get from my Great Father what is right and just," exclaimed Red Cloud to government officials at the conclusion of his first trip to the East in 1870. Two years earlier, the celebrated Lakota leader had forced U.S. authorities to abandon a series of newly constructed forts meant to protect settlers moving across traditional Native lands. Beginning in 1870, however, Red Cloud would choose diplomacy, not warfare, to protect the Lakota's land base and to ensure the tribe's political and cultural independence. Although the westward migration of American settlers would continue largely unabated, Red Cloud remained dedicated to the future welfare of the Lakota, meeting with five different U.S. presidents over a period of thirty years. Washington photographer Charles M. Bell seated Red Cloud next to a papier-mache' rock and a painted seascape backdrop for this portrait, taken during one of the Lakota leader's many trips to the nation's capital. Frank Goodyear, associate curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, recently discussed Red Cloud at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. This 1880 portrait is on view at the Portrait Gallery, in the exhibition "Faces of the Frontier: Photographic Portraits from the American West, 1845-1924," on the museum's second floor. Recorded at NPG, October 2, 2009. Image info: Red Cloud 1821-1909 / Charles M. Bell (1848-1893) / Albumen silver print, 1880/ National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. | 10/7/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Woodrow Wilson portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Frank Aucella, executive director at the Woodrow Wilson House, discusses a portrait of Wilson by John Christen Johansen, on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "America's Presidents."Elected to the White House after winning wide acclaim as the reforming governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson left an impressive legacy of change that sought to curb abusive business practices and improve conditions for workers. But Wilson was not as successful in winning approval for his international idealism during World War I. Determined to make this conflict "the war to end all wars," he sought at its end to create a world order that put peace ahead of national self-interest. America's European allies, however, undermined these hopes, insisting on a postwar peace settlement that contained the seeds of another war. A far worse disappointment for Wilson himself was his failure to persuade his own country to join the League of Nations, an organization he had conceived as the best hope for avoiding future wars. Having suffered a stroke while campaigning for American entry into the league, he left office in 1921, broken in both health and spirit. Recorded at NPG, September 24, 2009. Image info: Woodrow Wilson / John Christen Johansen / Oil on canvas, c 1919 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the Smithsonian American Art Museum; gift of an anonymous donor, 1926 | 10/5/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Calvin Tomkins on Marcel Duchamp | New Yorker art critic Calvin Tomkins talks with the Anne Goodyear, associate curator of prints and drawings at NPG. Tomkins has been a staff writer and art critic for the New Yorker since 1960. He has written profiles on Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Frank Stella, among many others. Recorded at NPG, June 20, 2009. Image info: Profile Portrait of Marcel Duchamp / Man Ray (1890-1976) / Gelatin silver print, 1930 (printed later) / Gelatin silver print, 1930 (printed later) / Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. / Copyright 2009 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris | 9/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Tommy Lasorda, Portrait Dedication Ceremony | The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery installed a portrait of Tommy Lasorda, Hall of Fame manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers Tuesday, Sept. 22.Painted by artist Everett Raymond Kinstler, the life-sized portrait measures 60 by 50 inches and was commissioned to commemorate Lasorda's legacy as part of the Dodger's organization. September 22 was Lasorda's 82nd birthday and the first night of a three-game series between the Dodgers and the Washington Nationals in Washington, D.C. The portrait is on view in the museum's exhibition "New Arrivals" on the first floor through Nov. 15, 2009. After a brief Major League career as a left-handed pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Lasorda became one of the most enthusiastic and successful managers in baseball history. In his 20-year career as the Dodgers' manager, Lasorda led the team to eight division titles and two World Championships. After his retirement, he became a Dodgers executive, and this year marks his 60th season with the Dodger organization and his fifth year as special advisor to the chairman. Lasorda was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, and he managed the U.S. team to its first-ever baseball gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.Kinstler has painted more than 1,200 portraits of well-known personalities and public figures. The Portrait Gallery's collection includes paintings and sketches of Katharine Hepburn, Tony Bennett, Richard Nixon, Norman Rockwell and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lasorda sat for the portrait at Kinstler's National Arts Club studio in New York City in June 2009. The portrait is a gift from friends of Lasorda. Recorded at NPG, Sept 22, 2009. Image info: Thomas Charles Lasorda / Everett Raymond Kinstler / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 9/23/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Albert Einstein portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David Ward, historian at the National Portrait Gallery, discusses a portrait of Albert Einstein by Max Westfield, on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "Twentieth Century Americans."The most brilliant scientist of the twentieth century, physicist Albert Einstein inspires comparisons to Isaac Newton. By the time he reached thirty, his theory of relativity and work in quantum mechanics had revolutionized physics and profoundly altered our perception of the world.Einstein naturally commanded great prestige in the United States when he sought refuge from the Nazi regime of his native Germany in 1933. His words thus carried enormous weight in 1939 when he wrote a letter alerting President Roosevelt that Germany was moving toward the development of nuclear weaponry. Eventually, that warning gave impetus to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret venture that in 1945 produced the world's first atomic bomb. While sitting for this likeness in 1944, Einstein mused to his portraitist, "After fifty years they will say of me, either he was a great man or a fool!"Recorded at NPG, September 3, 2009. Image info: Albert Einstein / Max Westfield / Oil on canvas, 1944 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the artist | 9/4/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Thomas Jefferson portrait, Face-to-Face talk- | Chrysanthe Broikos, curator at the National Building Museum, discusses a portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Mather Brown,on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "America's Presidents."As the new American republic emerged from its war with the mother country, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, collaborators in the formulation of the Declaration of Independence (although Jefferson wrote the final document), were brought together as trade negotiators in France, where their mutual respect turned into friendship. In the spring of 1786-when Jefferson was the American minister to France and Adams the American minister to England-Jefferson visited Adams, who suggested that he pose for the young Boston-born artist Mather Brown. An exchange of portraits between the two colleagues ensued. This painting, the earliest known likeness of Jefferson, remained in Adams's family until given to the nation in 1999. The background contains the classical figure of Freedom holding a staff topped by a cap, which had its origins in the conical cloth cap adopted by freed Roman slaves as the symbol of their liberty. Recorded at NPG, July 30, 2009. Image info: Thomas Jefferson / Mather Brown / Oil on canvas, 1786 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; bequest of Charles Francis Adams; Frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee | 8/26/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Andrew Jackson portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Sid Hart, senior historian at NPG, discusses a portrait of Andrew Jackson by Ralph E. W. Earl,on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "America's Presidents." With the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, no nineteenth-century president wielded his powers more aggressively than Andrew Jackson, which is confirmed by his use of the presidential veto over Congress. Unlike his predecessors, who invoked that power on strictly constitutional grounds, Jackson vetoed key congressional measures, not because he deemed them illegal, but simply because he did not like them. In doing so, he set a precedent that vastly enlarged the presidential role in congressional lawmaking.Among Jackson's opponents, this executive activism drew charges of dictatorship. Those accusations, however, carried little weight among yeoman farmers and laborers, who doted on Jackson's professed opposition to elitism. This portrait, showing Jackson in military uniform, recalls his early fame as the general who roundly defeated the British at New Orleans during the War of 1812. The painter of the picture, Ralph E. W. Earl, eventually attached himself to Jackson's household and spent much of his time filling the considerable demand for Jackson's likeness. Recorded at NPG, July 23, 2009. Image info: Andrew Jackson / Ralph Eleaser Whiteside Earl / Oil on canvas, 1836 - 1837 / Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian Institution; Transfer from U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia | 8/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Ray Beldner, artist talk | Ray Beldner makes art from the stuff of everyday life. His works can be found in public and private collections, including the Federal Reserve Board, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and here at the National Portrait Gallery. Two of Ray Beldner's works, "Avec Ma Langue Dans Ma Joue," or "With My Language in My Game," and "Duchamp Tout Fait" are on display as part of the museum's exhibition "Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture." This exhibition showcases approximately 100 never-before-assembled portraits and self-portraits of Marcel Duchamp ranging from 1912 to the present, including works by his contemporaries Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, Francis Picabia, and Florine Stettheimer, as well as portraits by a more recent generation of artists, such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Sturtevant, Yasumasa Morimura, David Hammons, Beatrice Wood, Douglas Gordon, and Ray Beldner. Recorded at NPG, July 25, 2009. Image info: "Avec Ma Langue Dans Ma Joue," or "With My Language in My Game" / Ray Beldner / Wood and plaster, flocked with ground money dust, 2007 / Courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco and Caren Golden Fine Arts, New York City | 7/28/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Margaret Sanger portrait, Face-to-Face talk | NPG director Martin Sullivan discusses a sculpture of Margaret Sanger by Joy Buba, on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "20th Century Americans." As a visiting nurse among the immigrants of New York City's Lower East Side in the early 1900s, Margaret Sanger was profoundly affected by the physical and mental toll exacted on women by frequent childbirth, miscarriage, and self-induced abortion. Sanger declared that "no woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother." She spent the rest of her life promoting the availability and use of birth control and is recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in the field. Recorded at NPG, July 9, 2009. Image info: Margaret Higgins Sanger / Joy Buba / Bronze, 1972 cast after 1964 original / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mrs. Cordelia Scaife May | 7/13/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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George Washington portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Laura Simo of Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, discusses a portrait of George Washington by artist Robert Edge Pine, on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the exhibition "America's Presidents." George Washington, appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental army, took command of a ragtag force of some 17,000 men in July 1775. He kept an army together for the next eight-and-a-half years--losing more battles than he won--but effectively ended the war with his victory at Yorktown in October 1781. Mission accomplished, Washington--a hero who could have been king--resigned his military commission before Congress on December 23, 1783, and retired to Mount Vernon. Here, the man all artists yearned to portray posed in his uniform for English artist Robert Edge Pine. He wryly observed, "I am so hackneyed to the touches of the Painter's pencil, that I am now altogether at their beck, and sit like patience on a Monument." Recorded at NPG, July 2, 2009. Image info: George Washington / Robert Edge Pine / Oil on canvas, 1785 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 7/8/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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"Portrait of Marcel Duchamp, 3 leads" by artist Brian O'Doherty, Face-to-Face talk | With "Portrait of Marcel Duchamp, 3 leads," one of sixteen parts of his "Portrait of Marcel Duchamp," Brian O'Doherty sought to bring to life the images produced by the first three leads of Duchamp's electrocardiogram. On the front of the box he attached a carpenter's spirit level with three windows, each etched with an image of the line produced by one of the three leads. Inside, a cylindrical celluloid sleeve moves around a central light, but in reverse, suspending Duchamp in time and making him a living masterpiece. Duchamp spent considerable time looking at this piece at the Byron Gallery in New York City in 1966. Unknown to others, he was carrying a folded piece of paper secreted in a pocket inscribed with his now-famous epitaph, "Besides it is always the others who die." Recorded at NPG, June 25, 2009. Image info: Portrait of Marcel Duchamp, 3 leads / Brian O'Doherty (born 1928) / Wood, glass, Liquitex, motor, 1966 / Brian O'Doherty | 7/7/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Marcel Duchamp's "Wanted" poster, Face-to-Face talk | Jennifer Quick, research assistant at NPG, discusses Marcel Duchamp's "Wanted" poster, on view in the exhibition "Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture." Originally created in 1923, Duchamp's Wanted: 2,000 Dollar Reward was the last work of art he completed before leaving New York that year to return to Paris. Duchamp based the work on a joke notice designed for tourists that he found in a New York restaurant. He pasted two head shots of himself on the poster and had a printer add another alias to those already listed: that of his recently created alter ego Rrose Selavy. Although Wanted challenges traditional conceptions of the creative process, the work, which Duchamp re-created at key moments in his career, also played a significant role in the construction of his artistic identity. This version, based on the now-lost original, is a replica intended for Duchamp's Boite-en-valise, a portable museum of his work. Wanted is on display at the National Portrait Gallery, in the exhibition "Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture" on the second floor. Jennifer Quick, research assistant at NPG, recently spoke about the work in a Face-to-Face portrait talk. Recorded at NPG, June 11, 2009. Image info: Wanted: 2,000 Dollar Reward / Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) / Lithograph, 1961 (replica of 1923 original) / Frances Beatty and Allen Adler Copyright 2009 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris / Succession Marcel Duchamp | 6/15/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Isabel Bishop self-portraits, Face-to-Face talk | Wendy Wick Reaves, curator of prints and drawings, discusses two self-portraits by Isabel Bishop in the NPG's exhibition "Reflections/Refractions." Isabel Bishop chose her subject matter from the New York street life that flowed through Union Square, beneath her studio window. Although she moved to the Bronx after her marriage, Bishop continued to travel almost daily to her studio to observe and sketch laborers, shopgirls, children, and unemployed men. While Bishop's art focused on the urban street life, there were two moments-in her youth and old age-when self-portraiture played an important role. These two self-portraits by Isabel Bishop are on display at the National Portrait Gallery, in the exhibition "Reflections/Refractions: Self-Portraiture in the Twentieth Century" on the second floor. Wendy Wick Reaves, curator of prints and drawings, recently spoke about the pieces in a Face-to-Face portrait talk. Recorded at NPG, June 5, 2009. Image info: Ink wash on paper, c. 1984-85 / The Ruth Bowman and Harry Kahn Twentieth-Century American Self-Portrait Collection / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. AND: Etching, 1929 (printed c. 1988-89) / The Ruth Bowman and Harry Kahn Twentieth-Century American Self-Portrait Collection / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 6/10/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Susan Miller-Havens, artist interview | A tenacious competitor with an impressive work ethic, Carlton Fisk was one of major league baseball's most capable and durable catchers. During twenty-four seasons in the American League (first with the Boston Red Sox and later with the Chicago White Sox), Fisk caught a record-setting 2,226 games and posted home-run tallies that ranked him among the top-hitting catchers of all time. Fisk's accomplishments were all the more remarkable because he repeatedly overcame career-threatening injuries. In 1975, after battling back from reconstructive knee surgery and a broken arm, Fisk gave Red Sox fans a never-to-be-forgotten thrill in the sixth game of the World Series when he drilled a twelfth-inning home run to win the game. Fisk always demanded the best, not only of himself but of his teammates. As he once observed, "You don't play baseball. . . . You work at it." This portrait of Fisk by artist Susan Miller-Havens is on display in the National Portrait Gallery's "Champions" exhibition, on the third-floor mezzanine. Recorded at NPG, May 8, 2009. Image info: Carlton Fisk / Susan Miller-Havens / Oil on cotton duck, 1993/ gift of Peter C. Aldrich, in memory of Duane C. Aldrich of Atlanta, Georgia/ copyright Susan Miller-Havens | 6/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Lyndon Johnson portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Rachael Penman, of the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, discusses images of Lyndon Johnson on view in the NPG's exhibition "Presidents in Waiting"In 1955, with only seven years of seniority, Johnson was elected Senate majority leader. Through his successful courting of the "old bulls" of the "southern caucus," particularly Richard Russell of Georgia, Johnson controlled the agenda of the Senate as no majority leader has before or since. Another element of his mastery was the "Johnson treatment," as displayed here with Senator Theodore Green of Rhode Island. Newspaper columnist Mary McGrory described it as "an incredible, potent mixture of persuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages"; Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee recalled feeling that "a St. Bernard had licked your face for an hour, [and] had pawed you all over"; and Hubert Humphrey described it as a "tidal wave." Johnson's most notable victory as majority leader was the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first such legislation since Reconstruction. Rachel Brenman of the International Spy Museum discussed this photograph by George Tames, along with other images of Lyndon Johnson, at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The 1957 photograph is on view at the National Portrait Gallery, in the exhibition "Presidents in Waiting" on the museum's second floor. Recorded at NPG, May 21, 2009. Image info: Lyndon Johnson and Theodore Green / George Tames, 1957 / Gelatin silver print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Frances O. Tames / Copyright The New York Times/George Tames | 5/28/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Steve Pyke, artist talk | Steve Pyke readily admits that his life in photography has been propelled largely by his fascination with the face. Born in England and now based in New York, Pyke first won notice for his distinctive close-up portrait style in the 1980s, with editorial work for the music press and magazines such as Britain's popular "style bible," The Face. In the intervening decades, Pyke's photographs have reached a wide audience through their publication in major magazines around the world and their exhibition in museums and commercial galleries. In 2004, Steve Pyke joined the New Yorker. "Working as a staff photographer at the New Yorker magazine gives me the immediacy of making portraits and seeing them appear in an editorial context," Pyke explains, "and this has always surprised and stimulated me." In tandem with his career in editorial photography, he has maintained a strong commitment to personally driven projects, including his portrait series documenting the world's leading thinkers and philosophers. A common thread running through both Pyke's editorial and personal work is his abiding interest in what a face can tell us. "The way we live our lives is etched into the landscape of our faces," Pyke observes. "We create the face with which we live." Recorded at NPG, May 2, 2009. Image info: Sir Ian McKellen / Steve Pyke / Gelatin silver print, 2007 / Published in the New Yorker, August 27, 2007 / Collection of the artist, courtesy Flowers Gallery, New York City / Copyright Steve Pyke | 5/21/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Thomas Jefferson portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Sid Hart, senior historian at NPG, discusses a portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Charles Willson Peale. In 1791 Charles Willson Peale added this portrait of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to his museum's collection of American heroes. Jefferson appears younger than his fifty years, perhaps evoking the young man the artist remembered as the Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress. Jefferson was well known to Americans in 1791, having also served as governor of Virginia and ambassador to France. This portrait of Jefferson is from Independence National Historical Park Collection in Philadelphia, and is currently on view at the National Portrait Gallery, in the "Presidents in Waiting" exhibition on the second floor. Sid Hart, senior historian at NPG, recently discussed the painting at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. Recorded at NPG, May 7, 2009. Image info: Thomas Jefferson / Charles Wilson Peale, 1791/ Oil on canvas / Independence National Historical Park Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | 5/14/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Eunice Kennedy Shriver portrait dedication ceremony | Eunice Kennedy Shriver has been a leader in the worldwide struggle to improve and enhance the lives of individuals with intellectual disabilities for most of her life. In 1957 Shriver became director of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, which was created to deal with issues of mental retardation, and several years later she established a summer day camp at her home that became the basis for Special Olympics. In 1968 the Kennedy Foundation, working with the Chicago Park District, organized the First International Special Olympics Summer Games. Currently more than 1.3 million children and adults from more than 150 countries participate in the program. Shriver has received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Theodore Roosevelt Award of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. David Lenz was commissioned to paint this portrait as part of the first prize in the inaugural Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Lenz's winning painting, Sam and the Perfect World, portrays his son, an active participant in Special Olympics events. For this commission, Lenz embraced the idea of making a portrait of Shriver that would also include five persons with intellectual disabilities who have been involved in Special Olympics and the Best Buddies program: (left to right) Airika Straka, Katie Meade, Andy Leonard, Loretta Claiborne, and Marty Sheets. Recorded at NPG, May 9, 2009. Image info: Eunice Kennedy Shriver / David Lenz, 2009 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Commissioned as part of the First Prize, Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006 | 5/9/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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David Lenz, artist interview | Eunice Kennedy Shriver has been a leader in the worldwide struggle to improve and enhance the lives of individuals with intellectual disabilities for most of her life. In 1957 Shriver became director of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, which was created to deal with issues of mental retardation, and several years later she established a summer day camp at her home that became the basis for Special Olympics. In 1968 the Kennedy Foundation, working with the Chicago Park District, organized the First International Special Olympics Summer Games. Currently more than 1.3 million children and adults from more than 150 countries participate in the program. Shriver has received numerous awards and honors for her work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Theodore Roosevelt Award of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. David Lenz was commissioned to paint this portrait as part of the first prize in the inaugural Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Lenz's winning painting, Sam and the Perfect World, portrays his son, an active participant in Special Olympics events. For this commission, Lenz embraced the idea of making a portrait of Shriver that would also include five persons with intellectual disabilities who have been involved in Special Olympics and the Best Buddies program: (left to right) Airika Straka, Katie Meade, Andy Leonard, Loretta Claiborne, and Marty Sheets. Recorded at NPG, May 8, 2009. Image info: Eunice Kennedy Shriver / David Lenz, 2009 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Commissioned as part of the First Prize, Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2006 | 5/9/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Eudora Welty portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, researcher at NPG, discusses a portrait of Eudora Welty by Mildred Nungester Wolfe. Eudora Welty was born 100 years ago this past April 13 and she died on July 23, 2001. She was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and she died in Jackson, Mississippi. Welty attended the Mississippi University for Women (also called the "W") from 1925 through 1927 and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin, from which she graduated in 1929. She enjoyed great acclaim as a writer, and her photography from her service in the Works Progress Administration has been exhibited in many museums. Her short stories are widely anthologized, while one of her novels, The Optimist's Daughter, received the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. An early novel of Welty's, The Robber Bridegroom (1941), was adapted into a Broadway musical in 1976 and earned a 1977 Tony Award for Best Actor (Barry Bostwick) and eight Drama Desk awards. Recorded at NPG, April 30, 2009. Image info: Eudora Welty / Mildred Nungester Wolfe, 1988 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 5/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Ronald Reagan portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Sid Hart, senior historian at NPG, discusses Ronald Reagan. When ex-California governor Ronald Reagan began his presidency in 1981, his warmth and skill in handling the media had already planted the seeds of his reputation as the "great communicator." More significant, however, was how those traits were made to work on behalf of his conservative agenda. By the end of his second term, despite widespread concern over budget deficits and several administration scandals, Reagan's presidency had wrought many significant changes. Under his leadership, the nation had undergone major tax reforms, witnessed a significant easing of relations with the Communist world, and experienced a sharp upturn in prosperity. Reagan left office enjoying a popularity that only a few of his outgoing predecessors had ever experienced. This 1989 portrait of Ronald Reagan by Nelson Shanks is on view in the "America's Presidents" exhibition at National Portrait Gallery, on the museum's first floor. Recorded at NPG, April 16, 2009. Image info: Ronald Reagan / Nelson Shanks, 1989 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the James Dicke Family / Copyright Nelson Shanks | 5/4/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Tony Bennett's portrait of Duke Ellington, donation ceremony | In honor of the 110th birthday of Duke Ellington, the National Portrait Gallery today unveiled a portrait of the composer by his friend and fellow musician Tony Bennett. Bennett spoke briefly at the NPG's McEvoy auditorium this morning, discussing art, music, and his friendship with Ellington. The Duke Ellington School of Performing Arts Jazz Ensemble accompanied the ceremony with a brief set, and they were acknowledged by both NPG Director Martin Sullivan and Bennett. Bennett's watercolor of Ellington was then removed from the auditorium and taken to the NPG "New Arrivals" gallery, on the first floor, where it will be on public display through Labor Day. Bennett, a fifteen-time Grammy Award-winning singer, has a reputation as an accomplished visual artist. This donation marks the third painting he has donated to the Smithsonian. In 2006, Bennett's painting of Central Park was donated to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and in 2002 his portrait of Ella Fitzgerald was donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Recorded at NPG, April 29, 2009. Image info: Duke Ellington, Tony Bennett, 1993 / Watercolor and graphite on paper / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Tony Bennett | 4/29/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Alec Soth, artist talk | Adroitly navigating the disciplines of editorial photography and fine-art work, Alec Soth has emerged as a leading American artist. He is a member of the famed Magnum Photos group, and has shown his work in galleries and museums in the United States and in Europe. Born and based in Minneapolis and educated in New York, Soth first attracted critical notice with his series Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004). Since then, he has published NIAGARA (2006), Fashion Magazine (2007), and Dog Days, Bogota (2007). Unlike many contemporary photographers, Soth works with a large-format 8 x 10-inch camera, which, given the time involved in setting up for a photograph, creates an intense relationship between the artist and subject. Soth sees this as the crux of his work. A selection of Alec Soth's photographs are on display at the National Portrait Gallery as part of "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography." This exhibition highlights six photographers who, by working on assignment for publications such as the New Yorker, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine, bring their distinctive "take" on contemporary portraiture to a broad audience. The exhibition closes on September 27, 2009.' For "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography" we chose a selection of Soth's portraits of women, drawn from past editorial work and fine arts projects, including three portraits from Fashion Magazine, which explored the world of Paris couture and countered those images with subjects from his Minnesota home. As Soth notes, "I'm trying to come to terms with how I honestly see and depict women. Are my pictures romanticized? Sexualized? Why do I see women in this way? For me, photography is as much about the way I respond to the subject as it is about the subject itself." Recorded at NPG, April 19, 2009. Image info: Kristin, St. Paul, Minnesota / Alec Soth / Chromogenic print, 2007 / Published in Fashion Magazine (2007) / Collection of the artist, courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York City / Copyright Alec Soth | 4/21/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Mark Twain portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Ben Click, Professor at St. Mary's College, discusses a portrait of Mark Twain by John White Alexander. Using the pen name Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens had become one of this country's favorite satiric writers by the early 1870s, routinely making light of everyday human foibles. But it was the publication of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) that assured him a lasting place in American letters. Inspired in part by his own boyhood, these two tales set along the Mississippi River did more than capture the rhythms of youth in antebellum America. In both novels, Clemens examined with sardonic wit various tensions that underlay contemporary society, including, most importantly, the question of race. In later years, his success in this country and abroad was tempered by financial and personal setbacks and by a contempt for American and British imperialism. This portrait of Mark Twain, by John White Alexander, is on view in the "American Origins" exhibition at National Portrait Gallery, on the museum's first floor floor. . Recorded at NPG, April 16, 2009. Image info: Samuel Langhorne Clemens / John White Alexander, 1912 or 1913 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 4/20/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Samuel Morse portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Ann Shumard, curator of photographs at NPG, discusses a piece of daguerreian jewelry containing a portrait Samuel Morse. When a scarcity of commissions led Samuel Morse to reconsider his career as an artist, he turned from painting to pursue his earlier interest in inventing. In 1832, he conceived a plan for an electromagnetic recording telegraph and dedicated his energies to developing a working model for his invention. When Morse applied for a patent in 1840, he had succeeded in devising a relay system for transmitting messages over long distances and had created the practical transmission code that bears his name. This button-sized piece of daguerreian jewelry, featuring a portrait of Samuel Morse, was created around 1845 by artist Jonas M. Edwards. The piece is on display at the National Portrait Gallery, in the exhibition "Tokens of Affection and Regard: Photographic Jewelry and Its Makers" on the first floor. See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/jewels . Recorded at NPG, April 9, 2009. Image info: Samuel F. B. Morse / Jonas M. Edwards, c. 1845 / Daguerreotype / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 4/14/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Toni Morrison portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, researcher at NPG a portrait of Toni Morrison by Robert McCurdy. Toni Morrison has been writing about the experiences of African Americans since her first novel, The Bluest Eye, appeared in 1970. With the publication of each new work, both her fan base and critical acclaim grew, and she won the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award for Song of Solomon (1977) and the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved (1987). In 1993 Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first black woman to become a Nobel laureate. This 2006 portrait of Toni Morrison, by Robert McCurdy, is on view in the "Twentieth Century Americans" exhibition at National Portrait Gallery, on the museum's third floor. Warren Perry, researcher at the National Portrait Gallery, discussed the painting at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. Recorded at NPG, April 2, 2009. Image info: Toni Morrison / Robert McCurdy, 2006 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; on loan from Ian and Annette Cumming | 4/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Mary Todd Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Erin Carlson Mast, curator at Lincoln's Cottage, discusses Mary Todd Lincoln. It is difficult to know the character of the Lincolns' relationship. When Lincoln wed Mary Todd in 1842, he married into a well-established Illinois family. Mary was strong-willed, capricious, and adamant. When she eventually showed signs of derangement, her instability colored discussions of her earlier years. Both of Lincoln's secretaries hated her and gained their revenge in their memoirs of the White House years. But from the best evidence, Lincoln was patient with a woman who could be difficult, not least because she suffered terribly at the death of their sons. After Willie died in 1862, she became increasingly fearful and detached, worrying about Lincoln himself, consulting spiritualists, and spending time away from Washington. This small sketch by Pierre Morand, circa 1864, seems to show her departing on such a trip, and the artist has juxtaposed the figures to suggest a gap or tension between them that will never be fully known. Erin Carlson Mast, curator at Lincoln's Cottage, spoke about Mary Todd Lincoln at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The sketch of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln is displayed on the museum's first floor, in the exhibition "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln." See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/lincoln . Recorded at NPG, March 26, 2009. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, c. 1864 / Pierre Morand / Ink and opaque white gouache on paper / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 4/1/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Lady Bird Johnson portrait, Face-to-Face talk | The NPG's Amy Baskette discusses a portrait of Lady Bird Johnson by Boris Artzybasheff. Claudia Taylor's nursemaid declared that she was as pretty as a "ladybird," a nickname that stuck with her through her entire life. Lady Bird Johnson graduated from high school at age fifteen and earned two degrees at the University of Texas: a B.A. in 1933 and a degree in journalism in 1934. That same year, she met Lyndon Johnson, a young legislative secretary. After a brief courtship--best characterized by her statement that "sometimes Lyndon simply takes your breath away"--they were married. Devoted to her husband's political career, Lady Bird Johnson ran his office during World War II and in 1955, after he suffered a heart attack. The couple had two daughters. As first lady, Lady Bird was active in Head Start and her promotion of the Highway Beautification Act. The National Portrait Gallery's Amy Baskette discussed this portrait of Lady Bird Johnson by Boris Artzybasheff at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The work is displayed on the museum's second floor, in the exhibition "America's Presidents." The portrait was originally created for Time magazine's August 28, 1964, edition. Recorded at NPG, March 12, 2009. Image info: Lady Bird Johnson / Boris Artzybasheff, 1964 / Crayon, watercolor, ink and polymer on board / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine / Copyright Brois Artzybasheff | 3/31/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Martha Washington portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Sid Hart, senior historian at NPG, discusses a portrait of Martha Washington by Gilbert Stuart. Gilbert Stuart painted this portrait of Martha Washington at the same time he did that of the president. Both paintings were commissioned by the Washingtons. They were never completed, however, and the artist kept them in his possession until his death. Although Stuart made many copies of the president's portrait, no other likeness of Martha Washington by Stuart is known to exist. Sid Hart, senior historian at the National Portrait Gallery, discussed this 1796 portrait of Martha Washington at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The work is displayed on the museum's second floor, in the exhibition "America's Presidents." Recorded at NPG, March 19, 2009. Image info: Martha Dandridge Custis Washington / Gilbert Stuart, 1796 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; owned jointly with Museum of Fine Arts, Boston | 3/23/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Dolley Madison portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Ellen Miles, curator of painting and sculpture at NPG, discusses a portrait of Dolley Madison by William Elwell. Dolley Madison served as White House hostess during the administrations of the widowed Thomas Jefferson and her own husband, James Madison. Her effervescence doubtless accounted, in part at least, for the popularity of Madison's presidency in its last several years. After the end of Madison's term in 1817, Dolley helped her husband put his papers in order, selling a portion of them to Congress after his death.The work is displayed on the museum's second floor, in the exhibition "America's Presidents." Recorded at NPG, March 5, 2009. Image info: Dolley Dandridge Payne Todd Madison / William S. Elwell, 1848 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 3/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Ornette Coleman portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Reuben Jackson, archivist at the National Museum of American History, discusses Ornette Coleman. For both his musical virtuosity on alto saxophone and his compositions, Ornette Coleman is one of the major forces in American music in the late twentieth century. Like painter Jackson Pollock and writer Walt Whitman, who rejected traditional forms as too constrictive for human expression, Coleman broke with existing jazz diction, creating a raw sound that seemed to deliberately avoid the musical scale in favor of "playing in the cracks." Reuben Jackson, archivist at the National Museum of American History discussed this portrait of Ornette Coleman by Frederick J. Brown at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The work is displayed on the museum's third floor, in the exhibition "20th Century Americans." Recorded at NPG, February 19, 2009. Image info: Thelonious Sphere Monk / Boris Chaliapin, 1964 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, gift of Time magazine | 3/3/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Thelonious Monk portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Jim Barber, historian at NPG, discusses a portrait of Thelonious Monk by Boris Chaliapin. A leader of the postwar jazz revolution, Thelonious Monk--along with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker--sparked the "bebop" movement, a jazz style faster and more frenetic than the swing that had held sway since the thirties. Monk's piano style has been called eccentric: "his melodies were angular, his harmonies full of jarring clusters." Jim Barber, historian at the National Portrait Gallery, discussed this portrait of Thelonious Monk by Boris Chaliapin at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The portrait was created for Time magazine and appeared on the cover of the February 28, 1964, edition. The work is displayed on the museum's third-floor mezzanine, in the exhibition "Bravo!" Recorded at NPG, February 19, 2009. Image info: Thelonious Sphere Monk / Boris Chaliapin, 1964 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, gift of Time magazine | 2/24/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Maria Callas portrait, Face-to-Face talk | The NPG's Lauren Johnson discusses a portrait of Maria Callas by Henry Koerner. In a postwar opera world that needed stars, Maria Callas was said to have "restored the ancient luster to the title of prima donna." Born in New York and raised in Greece, Callas, by sheer force of personality and artistry, rejuvenated the public's interest in this classic music genre. The National Portrait Gallery's Lauren Johnson discussed this 1956 portrait of Callas by Henry Koerner at a Face-to-Face portrait talk. The work is displayed on the museum's third-floor mezzanine, in the exhibition "Bravo!" Recorded at NPG, February 12, 2009. Image info: Maria Callas / Henry Koerner, 1956 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine / Frame conserved with funds from the Smithsonian Women's Committee | 2/18/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Bette Midler portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Maya Foo, researcher at NPG, discusses a portrait of Bette Midler by artist Richard Amsel. Richard Amsel, an emerging talent who had recently won a nationwide contest to design the poster for Hello, Dolly!, caught Midler's energy and flair in his 1973 poster. Midler's accompanist, Barry Manilow, who produced her first and second albums, admired Amsel's work, and Midler agreed he should design the cover and advertising art. Amsel's stylized strutting figure graced Midler's second album, promoted a national tour, and here announced her appearance to sold-out audiences at New York's Palace Theater in December 1973. A similar image was reused for later albums and tours. This poster was on view in the exhibition "Ballyhoo: Posters as Portraiture," view the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/ballyhoo/index.html . Recorded at NPG, February 5, 2009. Image info: Bette Midler/ Richard Amsel, 1973 / Color photolithographic poster/ National Portrait Gallery; gift of Jack Rennert/ Copyright Richard Amsel | 2/6/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Michael J. Fox portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Ann Shumard, curator of photographs at NPG, discussed this portrait of Michael J. Fox by Steve Pyke. The image is on display in the exhibition "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography." View the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/feature . Recorded at NPG, January 29, 2009. Image info: Michael J. Fox / Steve Pyke / Gelatin silver print, 2007 / Collection of the artist, courtesy Flowers Gallery, New York City / Copyright Steve Pyke | 1/30/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Portrait by Alec Soth, Face-to-Face talk | Brandon Fortune, curator of painting and scuplture at NPG, discusses a portrait by photographer Alec Soth. The photograph - titled Adelyn, Ash Wednesday, New Orleans, Louisiana - was taken by Soth in New Orleans, while he was working on his book Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004). The image is on display in the recently opened exhibition "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography." View the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/feature . Recorded at NPG, January 22, 2009. Image info: Adelyn, Ash Wednesday, New Orleans, Louisiana / Alec Soth / Chromogenic print, 2000 / Collection of the artist, courtesy Gagosian Gallery, New York City / Copyright Alec Soth | 1/27/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Shepard Fairey, artist interview | The portrait that came to symbolize the historic campaign of President-elect Barack Obama is now on display at the National Portrait Gallery. This large-scale mixed-media stenciled collage is on view in the "New Arrivals" exhibition, on the museum's first floor. Fairey's Barack Obama "Hope" poster became the iconic campaign image for the first African American president of the United States. Early in 2008, Fairey produced his first Obama portrait, with a stenciled face, visionary upward glance, and the caption "Progress." In this second version, Fairey repeated the heroic pose and patriotic color scheme, substituting the slogan "Hope." Recorded at NPG, January 17, 2009. Image info: Barack Obama / Shepard Fairey, 2008 / Hand-finished collage, stencil and acrylic on paper / Gift of the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection in honor of Mary K. Podesta / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Copyright Shepard Fairey/ObeyGiant.com | 1/17/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Ryan McGinley self-portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Frank Goodyear, curator at NPG, discussed this self-portrait by photographer Ryan McGinley. The portrait, Untitled (Morrissey 1), has the English musician Morrissey in the background. The photograph is on display in the recently opened exhibition "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography." View the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/feature . Recorded at NPG, January 15, 2009. Image info: Untitled (Morrissey 1) / Ryan McGinley 2004-6 / Chromogenic print / Ann and Mel Schaffer Family Collection / Copyright Ryan McGinley | 1/16/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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"Four Indian Kings," Face-to-Face portrait talk | Martin Sullivan, director of NPG, discusses portraits from the exhibition "Four Indian Kings."The paintings for this special installation were lent by the Portrait Gallery of Canada, a program of the Library and Archives of Canada. In 1710, a delegation of four Native American leaders--three Mohawk from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) alliance and one Mohican from the Algonquin nations--traveled to the Court of Queen Anne in London. The delegation traveled to London with British military leaders seeking to court support against competing French and their allied Native interests in North America. To commemorate the delegates' visit, Queen Anne commissioned John Verelst, a Dutch portrait artist residing in London, to paint their official portraits. They are the earliest known surviving oil portraits from life of Native people of North America. So popular were the "Four Indian Kings" that printmaker John Simon created mezzotints after these paintings. While the "Four Kings," as they became known, were not the first Native visitors to Britain, their presence at Court and their interactions with Londoners, who treated them as celebrities, ignited the British imagination. Poems, ballads, and music were written about them. View the online exhibition at: http://npg.si.edu/exhibit/kings/slideshow/kings.htm . Recorded at NPG, November 6, 2008. Image info: Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow, King of the Maquas, lifedates unknown / John Verelst (c. 1675-1734) / Oil on canvas, 1710 / Library and Archives Canada / Acquired with a special grant from the Canadian Government, 1977 | 1/13/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Cindy Sherman portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Anne Goodyear, who is assistant curator of prints and drawings at NPG, discussed this portrait of Cindy Sherman by photographer Martin Schoeller. The portrait is on display in the recently opened exhibition "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography." Cindy Sherman, who is well known for creating photographs of herself adopting a broad range of persona, has a face that is surprisingly unfamiliar to viewers. Schoeller's portrait of Sherman, originally published with a New Yorker profile by Calvin Tomkins, "Her Secret Identities," unmasks the influential artist. View the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/feature . Recorded at NPG, January 8, 2009. Image info: Cindy Sherman / Martin Schoeller, 2000 / Digital C-print / Collection of the artist, courtesy Hasted Hunt, New York City / Copyright Martin Schoeller | 1/9/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Elvis Presley portrait by Ralph Wolfe Cowan, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, researcher at NPG, discusses a portrait of Elvis Presley by Ralph Wolfe Cowan. On this day in 1935, Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. Many stories about the King of Rock and Roll have taken on monumental and mythical status. Most everyone who has heard of Elvis has also heard the story about the King shooting the television set, the late-night exploits of the Memphis Mafia at Graceland, or Elvis flying from Memphis to Denver to pick up a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. Recorded at NPG, January 8, 2009. Image info: Elvis Aron Presley / Ralph Wolfe Cowan,1976-1988 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of R.W. Cowan | 1/8/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Obama "Hope" portrait, interview with NPG deputy director Carolyn Carr | Carolyn Carr, deputy director of NPG, discusses the aquisition of the Barack Obama "Hope" poster by Shepard Fairey. Interview by NPG's Warren Perry. The portrait that came to symbolize the historic campaign of President-elect Barack Obama will make its permanent home only a few blocks from the White House at the National Portrait Gallery. The piece, created by Los Angeles artist Shepard Fairey, came to the museum through the generosity of Washington, D.C., art collectors Heather and Tony Podesta, in honor of Tony Podesta's mother, the late Mary K. Podesta. Recorded at NPG, January, 2009. Image info: Barack Obama / Shepard Fairey, 2008 / Hand-finished collage, stencil and acrylic on paper / Gift of the Heather and Tony Podesta Collection in honor of Mary K. Podesta / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Copyright Shepard Fairey/ObeyGiant.com | 1/7/09 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Barack Obama portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Anne Goodyear, who is assistant curator of prints and drawings at NPG, discussed this portrait of Barack Obama by photographer Martin Schoeller. The portrait is on display in the exhibition "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography." Martin Schoeller photographed Barack Obama for a December 2004 feature on "Men of the Year," in Gentleman's Quarterly (GQ), where a variant of this photograph appeared. View the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/feature/index.html . Recorded at NPG, December 18, 2008. Image info: Barack Obama/Martin Schoeller, 2004 / Digital C-print/Collection of the artist, courtesy Hasted Hunt, New York City / Copyright Martin Schoeller | 12/31/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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George W. Bush and Laura Bush, presidential portait unveiling ceremony | President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush unveiled portraits of themselves commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery in a private ceremony at the museum this morning. The speakers are Martin E. Sullivan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery; G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Mrs. Laura Bush; and President George W. Bush. This is the first time that the Portrait Gallery presented the official likenesses of a sitting president and first lady. President Bush's portrait is installed in the exhibition "America's Presidents," on the museum's second floor. The portrait of Laura Bush is hung on the first floor in the north hall of the National Portrait Gallery. Recorded at NPG, December 19, 2008. Image info: George W. Bush / Robert Anderson , 2008 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Gift of American Fidelity Foundation, J. Thomas and Stefanie Atherton, William S. and Ann Atherton, Dr. Jon C. and Jane G. Axton, Dr. Lee and Sherry Beasley, Thomas A. Cellucci, A. James Clark, Richard H. Collins, Edward and Kaye Cook, Don and Alice Dahlgren, Mr. and Mrs. James L. Easton, Robert Edmund, Robert and Nancy Payne Ellis, Dr. Tom and Cheryl Hewett, Dr. Dodge and Lori Hill, Pete and Shelley Kourtis, Tom and Judy Love, David L. McCombs, Tom and Brenda McDaniel, Herman and LaDonna Meinders, The Norick Family, Kenneth and Gail Ochs, Robert and Sylvia Slater, Richard L. Thurston, Lew and Myra Ward, Dr. James and Susan Wendelken, Jim and Jill Williams | 12/19/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Robert Anderson, artist interview | Robert Anderson was selected by the White House to paint George W. Bush's presidential portrait portrait. Anderson was a classmate of Bush's at Yale University and received his training in fine arts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. A professional portraitist based in Darien, Conn., Anderson has also painted a portrait of Bush for the Yale Club in New York. Bush's portrait is installed in the exhibition "America's Presidents," on the museum's second floor. Interview by Warren Perry. Recorded at NPG, at the unveiling ceremony, December 19, 2008. Image info: George W. Bush / Robert Anderson , 2008 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Gift of American Fidelity Foundation, J. Thomas and Stefanie Atherton, William S. and Ann Atherton, Dr. Jon C. and Jane G. Axton, Dr. Lee and Sherry Beasley, Thomas A. Cellucci, A. James Clark, Richard H. Collins, Edward and Kaye Cook, Don and Alice Dahlgren, Mr. and Mrs. James L. Easton, Robert Edmund, Robert and Nancy Payne Ellis, Dr. Tom and Cheryl Hewett, Dr. Dodge and Lori Hill, Pete and Shelley Kourtis, Tom and Judy Love, David L. McCombs, Tom and Brenda McDaniel, Herman and LaDonna Meinders, The Norick Family, Kenneth and Gail Ochs, Robert and Sylvia Slater, Richard L. Thurston, Lew and Myra Ward, Dr. James and Susan Wendelken, Jim and Jill Williams | 12/19/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Aleksander Titovets, artist interview | Aleksander Titovets was selected by the White House to paint Laura Bush's portrait. Titovets is a native Russian painter who now lives in El Paso, Texas. Trained at the St. Petersburg State University College of Fine Arts, he specializes in figurative and landscape painting inspired by his native Russia as well as the landscape of the Southwest. Initially, the portrait of Laura Bush will be hung on the first floor in the north hall of the National Portrait Gallery. Interview by Warren Perry. Recorded at NPG, at the unveiling ceremony, December 19, 2008. Image info: Laura Bush/ Aleksander Titovets, 2008/ Oil on canvas/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution / Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. O. Stewart | 12/19/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Abraham Lincoln portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David Ward, historian at NPG, discusses Lincoln, and a selection of portraits in the exhibition "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln."Every Thursday evening, the National Portrait Gallery presents "Face-to-Face," a talk about selected portraits on view in the gallery. As part of this regular series, NPG historian David Ward discussed a few photographs of Lincoln on display in the recently opened exhibition "One Life: Mask of Lincoln." View the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/lincoln/ . Recorded at NPG, December 11, 2008. Image info: Abraham Lincoln / Alexander Gardner, 1861 / Albumen silver print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 12/15/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Jocelyn Lee, artist interview | The exhibition "Portraiture Now: Feature Photography" is on view at the National Portrait Gallery, until September 27, 2009. This exhibition features works by six critically acclaimed photographers = Katy Grannan, Jocelyn Lee, Ryan McGinley, Steve Pyke, Martin Schoeller and Alec Soth. NPG associate curator of photographs, Frank Goodyear, sat down with photographer Jocelyn Lee to discuss her work. Lee's photographs for this exhibition were drawn from work that she has completed in Maine, a place where she has spent much time. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Lee has served as a professor of photography at Princeton University since 2003. View the online exhibition for "Feature Photography" at http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/feature . Recorded at NPG, December 8, 2008. Image info: Untitled (Kara on Easter) / Jocelyn Lee, 1999 / Chromogenic print / Collection of the artist / Copyright Jocelyn Lee | 12/10/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, researcher at NPG, discusses FDR and his role in turning back Prohibition. As part of the National Portrait Gallery's regular "Face-to-Face" portrait talks, NPG researcher Warren Perry discussed Roosevelt and his role in turning back Prohibition. This 1945 portrait of FDR, by artist Douglas Granville Chandor, can be viewed in the America's Presidents exhibition, on the museum's first floor. Recorded at NPG, December 4, 2008. Image info: Franklin Delano Roosevelt / Douglas Granville Chandor, 1945 / Oil on canvas/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 12/5/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Sequoyah portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Francis Flavin, historian at the U.S. Department of the Interior, discusses a portrait of Sequoyah by Henry Inman. Sequoyah, the son of a Cherokee chief's daughter and a fur trader from Virginia, was a warrior and hunter and, some say, a silversmith. For twelve years he worked to devise a method of writing for the Cherokee language. His syllabary of eighty-five symbols, representing vowel and consonant sounds, was approved by the Cherokee chiefs in 1821, and the simple utilitarian system made possible a rapid spread of literacy throughout the Cherokee nation. Medicine men set down ceremonies for healing, divination, war, and traditional ball games; missionaries translated hymns and the New Testament into the native language; and in 1828 the Cherokee Phoenix, a weekly bilingual newspaper, began publication at New Echota, Georgia. This portrait of Sequoyah by artist Henry Inman, is on display in the "American Origins" exhibition on the museum's first floor. Recorded at NPG, November 11, 2008. Image info: Sequoyah / Henry Inman, c. 1830 / Oil on canvas/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 12/4/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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"Herblock's Presidents: 'Puncturing Pomposity'" exhibition, interview with Sid Hart, NPG senior historian | The political cartoons of Herbert Block (1909-2001) appeared in American newspapers for more than seven decades under the pen name Herblock. He achieved his greatest prominence as the editorial cartoonist of the Washington Post, where he worked from 1946 until his death in 2001. The exhibition contains Block's original drawings of presidential cartoons from Franklin Roosevelt through Bill Clinton. The exhibition ran from May 2-November 30, 2008. Recorded at NPG, November 2008. See the online exhibiton at http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/herblock . Image info: "Look-Nice Tapes-Okay, Boy? Okay?"/ Herbert Lawrence Block, October 24, 1973 / Pencil on paper Herbert L. Block Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C./ Copyright The Herb Block Foundation | 11/26/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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George C. Marshall portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Martin Sullivan, director of NPG, discusses a portrait of George C. Marshall by Thomas Edgar Stephens. George C. Marshall was, according to one expert observer, the "perfect" soldier. Endowed with a quick mind, a good memory, and a superb sense of strategy, he did not particularly relish war. Yet as chief of staff during World War II, he proved to be a masterful orchestrator of military mobilization. In 1945 President Harry Truman remarked that millions of Americans had served the country well in that conflict, but it had been Marshall who "gave it victory." Recorded at NPG,November 13, 2008. Image info: George Catlett Marshall / Thomas Edgar Stephens, c 1949 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the National Gallery of Art; gift of Ailsa Mellon Bruce, 1951 | 11/18/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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"One Life: The Mask of Lincoln" exhibition - interview with David Ward, NPG historian | David Ward, historian at NPG, discusses "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln." Interview by Warren Perry. In the two-hundredth year since his birth, Abraham Lincoln remains as much a puzzle as he was to his contemporaries. "One Life: The Mask of Lincoln," a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, shows the changing face that Abraham Lincoln presented to the world as he led the fight for the Union. The exhibition runs until July 5, 2009. It is part of a yearlong Smithsonian-wide celebration of the bicentennial, exploring the life and times of the nation's most mythic and transformative president. Recorded at NPG, November 2008. See the online exhibiton at http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/lincoln . Image info: Abraham Lincoln/Alexander Gardner, 1865/Albumen silver print/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 11/4/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Joseph McCarthy portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David Ward, historian at NPG, discusses Joseph McCarthy. On February 9, 1950, a little known junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, proclaimed that he had a list of 205 Communist Party members who worked in the State Department with the full knowledge of the secretary of state. McCarthy's speech came shortly after the Communist takeover in China, the U.S.S.R's successful detonation of an atomic bomb, and suspected spy Alger Hiss's conviction for perjury. For many, McCarthy's charges explained why the West was experiencing setbacks, and made him a formidable political force. It marked the beginning of demagogic red baiting and made the term "McCarthyism" synonymous with hysterical anti-Communism. McCarthy had no evidence for his accusations and was censured by the Senate in 1954; "McCarthyism" would be remembered for its corrosive effect on America's ability to deal effectively with real Communists abroad and at home. You can see a 1954 portrait of McCarthy by photographer George Tames in the "Twentieth-Century Americans" exhibition on the museum's third floor. Recorded at NPG, October 30, 2008. Image info: Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn / George Tames, 1954 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Frances O. Tames / Copyright The New York Times/George Tames | 11/4/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Orson Welles portrait, gallery talk | Amy Henderson, historian at NPG, discusses Orson welles and the 70th anniversary of War of the Worlds. On Halloween night of 1938, Orson Welles brought to the airwaves the now-classic H. G. Wells's fantasy War of the Worlds (1898). Many tuned in late, missing the announcement that the program was fiction. As viewers listened to aliens taking over Manhattan, panic set in, and Welles had to interrupt the broadcast to assure listeners it was not real. You can see a portrait of Welles in the "Twentieth-Century Americans" exhibition on the museum's third floor. Recorded at NPG, October 31, 2008. Image info: Orson Welles/Unidentified artist, c.1938 / Gelatin silver print / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 10/31/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Dashiell Hammett portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David Ward, historian at NPG, discusses writer Dashiell Hammett. Inspired to try his hand at writing mysteries after his years with the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Dashiell Hammett met a warm reception when he published his first two detective novels in 1929. But it was the appearance of The Maltese Falcon a year later that secured him his reputation as one of America's most original mystery writers. The hard-bitten realism and crisp dialogue of that work led critics to compare its author's style to that of Ernest Hemingway. You can see the portrait of Hammett by artist Edward Biberman in the "Twentieth-Century Americans" exhibition on the museum's third floor. Recorded at NPG, October 16, 2008. Image info: Samuel Dashiell Hammett / Edward Biberman, 1937 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution /Copyright 1937 Edward Biberman | 10/27/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Henry Wallace portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Brandon Fortune, curator at NPG, discusses a sculpture of Henry Wallace by Jo Davidson. On becoming Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of agriculture in 1933, Wallace told reporters that if he could not help the nation's Depression-ridden farmers, he would "go back home and raise corn." Wallace developed the controversial policy of limiting production, paying farmers to destroy crops and slaughter livestock. He became Roosevelt's running mate in 1940 but was dropped from the ticket in 1944. NPG curator Brandon Fortune discussed this bronze bust of Henry Wallace, by Jo Davidson. You can see this portrait in the "Twentieth-Century Americans" exhibition on the museum's third floor. Recorded at NPG, October 9, 2008. Image info: Henry Agard Wallace / Jo Davidson,1942 / Bronze/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mrs. Jean Wallace Douglas, Robert Wallace, and Henry B. Wallace | 10/16/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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F. Scott Fitzgerald portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, researcher at NPG, discusses a portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald by David Silvette. David Silvette executed this painting, the only known life-sitting of Fitzgerald, in 1935. Although the writer had commissioned the portrait, he was unable to pay for it and never owned it. You can see this portrait in the "Twentieth-Century Americans" exhibition on the museum's third floor. Recorded at NPG, October, 2008. Image info: F. Scott Fitzgerald / David Silvette, 1935 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 10/9/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Robert Frost portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David Ward, historian at NPG, discusses a sculpture of Robert Frost. Robert Frost was one of the few modern American poets who combined critical with popular acclaim. His best poetry was written in the 1920s and 1930s, as America was discovering its national and regional histories.This sculpture, by Walker Kirtland Hancock, is on view in the exhibition "20th-Century Americans," on the museum's third floor. Recorded at NPG, September 2008. Image info: Robert Lee Frost / Walker Kirtland Hancock, 1969 cast after 1950 original / Bronze / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the artist | 9/29/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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135 |
Edwin Booth portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Maya Foo, researcher at NPG, discusses a photograph of actor Edwin Booth by Mathew Brady Studio. This 1864 photograph of Edwin Booth and his daughter Edwina was taken by the Mathew Brady Studio and produced as a carte de visite--a sort of trading card and celebrity collectable. The portrait is on view in NPG's "American Origins" exhibition, on the museum's first floor. Recorded at NPG, September 2008. Image info: Edwin Booth and daughter Edwina/Mathew Brady Studio, 1864/Modern albumen print from wet plate collodion negative/National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution | 9/23/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Ernie Pyle portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Jim Barber, historian at NPG, discussed this 1944 bronze bust of World War II journalist Ernie Pyle. This sculpture, by Jo Davidson, is on view in the exhibition "20th-Century Americans" on the museum's third floor. Recorded at NPG, September, 2008. Image info: Ernie Pyle / Jo Davidson, 1944 / National Portrait Gallery,Smithsonian Institution; gift of Dr. Maury Leibovitz | 9/16/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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137 |
Leopold Stokowski portrait, Face-to-Face talk | Warren Perry, researcher at NPG, discusses Leopold Stokowski's portrait by Edward Steichen. This 1928 portrait was taken during the second phase of conductor Leopold Stokowski's career, that is, after his divorce from Olga Samaroff and during a period of increasing fame. Recorded at NPG, July 2008. Image info: Leopold Antoni Stanislaw Boleslawowicz Stokowski / Edward Steichen, 1928 / National Portrait Gallery / Acquired in memory of Agnes and Eugene Meyer through the generosity of Katharine Graham and the New York Community Trust, The Island Fund | 7/18/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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138 |
Shinique Smith, artist interview | Born in Baltimore, Shinique Smith trained at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Today she lives in Brooklyn and works in a variety of artistic mediums, including painting, sculpture, collage, and video. The creative manner in which she incorporates materials--found, bought, and created--into bundled sculptures and three-dimensional installations is a hallmark of her art. While not a portrait in a traditional sense, each object resonates with personal significance or recalls something of the individual who owned it. Smith has found inspiration from a diverse range of sources. Japanese calligraphy and abstract expressionism have been important to her, although as a former member of a graffiti crew she has developed a body of work that owes much to the tradition of tagging public space. No Thief to Blame, Smith's installation for "RECOGNIZE!," was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery and represents Smith's creative response to Nikki Giovanni's poem, "It's Not a Just Situation." See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize . Interview recorded February, 2008. Image info: No Thief to Blame / Shinique Smith, 2007-08 / Mixed media installation (fabric, cardboard, carpet, paper, ink, spray paint, used clothing, found objects, and collage) | 3/12/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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139 |
Octavius V. Catto portrait, Face-to-Face talk | David Ward, historian at NPG,discusses Octavius V. Catto. Octavious Catto was an African American teacher, civil rights activist, and organizer of one of America's first baseball leagues. | 3/12/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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140 |
Kehinde Wiley, artist interview | For most of Kehinde Wiley's very successful career, he has created large, vibrant, highly patterned paintings of young African American men wearing the latest in hip hop street fashion. The theatrical poses and objects in the portraits are based on well-known images of powerful figures drawn from seventeenth- through nineteenth-century Western art. Pictorially, Wiley gives the authority of those historical sitters to his twenty-first-century subjects. In 2005, VH1 commissioned Wiley to paint portraits of the honorees for that year's Hip Hop Honors program. Turning his aesthetic on end, he used his trademark references to older portraits to add legitimacy to paintings of this generation's already powerful musical talents. In Wiley's hands, Ice T channels Napoleon, and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five take on a seventeenth-century Dutch civic guard company. See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize . Recorded at NPG, February, 2008. Image info: LL Cool J / Kehinde Wiley, 2005 / Oil on canvas / LL Cool J / Copyright Kehinde Wiley | 2/15/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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141 |
David Scheinbaum, artist interview | Since 2000 David Scheinbaum has photographed more than a hundred hip hop performers, both in concert and backstage. His black-and-white images present a nuanced and ultimately uplifting picture of this creative tradition. Scheinbaum has explained, "I am trying to give the viewers both a visual feel for the music and the musicians, a feel for the audience and crowd, and to give a face, an identity, to the many dedicated artists who perform this music and poetry." Scheinbaum has more than thirty years' experience as a photographer, a teacher, and an art dealer. While serving as an art professor at the College of Santa Fe, he has published five books of his photographs. Scheinbaum's portraits are a celebration of hip hop and serve to demonstrate that the negative stereotypes regarding hip hop represent only a small part of its larger significance. See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize . Recorded at NPG, February, 2008. Image info: Jean Grae, Indio, California / David Scheinbaum, 2005 / Gelatin silver print / Copyright David Scheinbaum | 2/13/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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142 |
Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, artist interview | Using the tags "CON" and "AREK," local graffiti artists Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp began writing together in 2000. Conlon brought a flair for figures to their collaborations, and Hupp excelled at quick, complex lettering. Since graffiti is performed without a public audience, a writer's pseudonym, or "tag," is the face he presents to the world -- his self-portrait. The sophisticated lettering style, color combinations, and patterning of these pieces reveal the expertise of Conlon and Hupp, who are members of the national "crews," Burning America (BA) and Never Show Faces (NSF). Graffiti became a recognizable form of urban expression in Philadelphia in the late 1960s before quickly spreading to the streets and subways of New York City. Now considered one of the four elements of hip hop expression-along with MC-ing, DJ-ing, and break-dancing-graffiti has moved beyond its original negative perception to become a legitimate and vibrant form of visual art around the world. See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize . Interview recorded January, 2008. Image info: CON/AREK / Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp, 2007 / Montana spray paint on Sintra panel / Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp | 2/1/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
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143 |
Jefferson Pinder, artist interview | Jefferson Pinder sees his art as a form of sampling, mixing, and remixing his own experience and that of others. Drawing on hip hop culture and his interest in African American identity, Pinder is emerging as a video and film artist of great talent. The videos exhibited in "RECOGNIZE!" are Car Wash Meditations, with its references to cleansing living and mechanical bodies; Mule, in which Pinder literally drags the weight of his own struggles; and Invisible Man, a reference to the protagonist in Ralph Ellison's great novel. Each features Pinder dressed in a suit (his "work clothes") and each may be read as a self-portrait. And yet in each work, Pinder also stands aside, allowing the self to project a larger meaning: "I tap into the well of the public subconscious, seeking to find poetry in the everyday-the mundane." See the online exhibition at: http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/recognize . Recorded at Jefferson Pinder's studio, January, 2008. Image info: Invisible Man / Jefferson Pinder, 2004 | 2/1/08 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 143 Episodes |
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