NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Marc Pachter, Director

The National Portrait Gallery is the place our country has set aside to keep generations of remarkable Americans in the company of their fellow citizens. The Gallery’s collection of more than 19,000 paintings, drawings, photographs, and works of sculpture is one of the finest in the world and features likenesses that are valued for both their subjects and the artists who created them. Through the visual arts, the performing arts, the literary arts, and the electronic arts, the Gallery provides a stage for these Americans to share with us who they were and what they mean to us.

The National Portrait Gallery, which first opened to the public in 1968, is housed in one of Washington’s oldest public buildings, a National Historic Landmark that was begun in 1836 for the U.S. Patent Office. One of the nation’s finest examples of Greek Revival architecture, the building has recently undergone an extensive renovation that showcases its most dramatic architectural features, including skylights, a curving double staircase, porticos, and vaulted galleries illuminated by natural light. The Gallery shares this building with the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the two museums and their associated facilities are collectively known as the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. Staff offices and research facilities, including the library, occupy the Victor Building, one block north.

Since the Gallery’s grand reopening in 2006, our current exhibition programs have been reestablished in refurbished and much more extensive spaces. In addition to displays from its permanent collection, the Gallery once again mounts temporary exhibitions, including portraits borrowed from outside sources. Generally, these exhibitions take one of three forms: thematic exhibitions on a wide range of historical subjects, surveys of portraits by notable American artists, and iconographic studies dealing with the life portraits of a given individual. The Gallery also organizes smaller exhibitions that mark anniversaries of important events or special contemporary interests. Symposia, lectures, and publications are important elements of the Gallery’s program.

As a national resource center for biography and portraiture, the Gallery offers a wide range of services to the researcher, in addition to the special expertise of its curatorial and research staff. The extensive permanent collection comprises portraits in various media. Objects not on view may be available for examination by appointment. Special collections include the Meserve collection of Civil War–era portrait negatives from Mathew Brady’s studio; the Time magazine cover collection; the Saint-Mémin collection of more than seven hundred portrait engravings; the Ruth Bowman and Harry Kahn Twentieth-Century American Self-Portrait collection; and a collection of Jo Davidson portrait sculptures of early twentieth-century Americans.

The Center for Electronic Research and Outreach Services (CEROS) administers reference and online programs for the National Portrait Gallery. Services to researchers include the NPG Collections Information System; the NPG Web site (www.npg.si.edu) which features collections, exhibitions, programs, and a portrait search menu; and the Catalog of American Portraits, a national portrait archive maintaining images and data for nearly 200,000 portraits in public and private collections. Extensive biographical files on prominent Americans are kept by the Office of the Historian. Eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century research materials, relating particularly to Maryland and Pennsylvania during the lifetime of Charles Willson Peale and his family, have been collected by the staff of the Peale Family Papers. The curatorial files are rich in materials pertinent to portraits in the permanent and study collections. The library contains 160,000 volumes, principally on American art, history, and biography, along with more than a thousand periodicals. It offers selected electronic resources, and houses an extensive collection of clippings and pamphlets pertaining to American art and art institutions.

The Education Department is engaged in developing innovative programs in museum education as part of its efforts to bring collection-based museum programs into classrooms, improve communication techniques used by volunteer docents and gallery educators, and provide teachers with effective object-based learning strategies and curriculum aids through specialized workshops.

RESEARCH STAFF

BARBER, James G., Historian. B.A. (1973) Saint Francis University, PA; M.A. (1977) Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Research specialties: Portraiture of the Jacksonian and Civil War eras; Original cover art in the TIME magazine cover art collection.

BRETOS, Miguel A., Senior Scholar. B.A. (1965) Saint Bernard College; M.A. (1968) University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Ph.D. (1976) Vanderbelt University. Research specialties: Colonial Mexican architecture; the Latino presence in American History; history of Australia.

CARR, Carolyn K., Deputy Director and Chief Curator. B.A. Smith College; M.A. Oberlin College; Ph.D. (1978) Case Western Reserve University. Research specialties: Late nineteenth and late twentieth century American art and photography.

CHRISTMAN, Margaret C.S., Research Historian. B.A. (1951) Smith College. Research specialties: American biography, particularly of the Federal period.

FORTUNE, Brandon Brame, Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture. B.A. (1976) Agnes Scott College; M.A. (1979), Ph.D. (1987) University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Research specialties: Theory and practice of American and British portraiture, 1750-1820; American portraitists 1880-1900; contemporary portraiture.

GOODYEAR, Frank H., Assistant Curator of Photographs. B.A. (1989) Princeton University; M.A. (1994), Ph.D. (1998) University of Texas, Austin. Research specialties: Nineteenth- and twentieth-century American photography.

GOODYEAR, Anne Collins, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings. B.A. (1991) Brown University; M.A. (1994), Ph.D. (2002) University of Texas, Austin. Research specialties: 20th-century and contemporary American Art; art of the 1960s; 20th century and contemporary American portraiture; art and technology; art and flight.

HART, Sidney, Senior Historian and Editor, Peale Family Papers. B.A. (1964) Long Island University; M.A. (1969), Ph.D. (1973) Clark University. Research specialties: American political history; the American presidency. Charles Willson Peale and American cultural and political history of the late 18th and early 19th century.

HENDERSON, Amy, Historian. B.A. (1969), M.A. (1971) University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Thomas Jefferson fellow (1971-1975) University of Virginia. Research specialties: History of Hollywood, radio and television, and Broadway.

MILES, Ellen G., Curator and Chair, Department of Painting and Sculpture. B.A. (1964) Bryn Mawr College; M. Phil. (1970), Ph.D. (1976) Yale University. Research specialties: American portraiture to 1865; portraits of George Washington; profile portraits and silhouettes; artists' techniques; theory and practice of portraiture.

REAVES, Wendy Wick, Curator of Prints and Drawings. B.A. (1972) University of Pennsylvania; M.A. (1977) University of Delaware, Winterthur Program. Research specialties: American graphic art, particularly portrait prints and drawings; self-portraiture; caricature, cartoon, and humor in art; posters, illustration and printed ephemera; American popular culture; the history of fame,.

SHUMARD, Ann, Curator of Photographs. B.A. (1976) Scripps College. Research specialties: History of American portrait photography, with an emphasis on nineteenth and early twentieth-century portraiture; African American history and portraiture during the antebellum period, particularly the work of daguerreotypist Augustus Washington.

WARD, David C., Historian and Deputy Editor, Peale Family Papers. B.A. (1974) University of Rochester; M.A. (1975) University of Warwick (England); M.A. (1976), M.Phil. (1979), Yale University. Research specialties: American nineteenth century social, cultural and art history; documentary editing; Charles Willson Peale and his times; also in modernism (both literary and artistic).

Introduction

Information for Applying to the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program, including the fields of research

Fellowship and Internship Opportunities

Research Assistance Programs

Smithsonian Research Staff and Affiliated Research Staff E-Mail Directory

Office of Research Training and Services Applications

• Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program
• Smithsonian Institution Latino Studies Fellowship Program
• Smithsonian Institution Molecular Evolution Fellowship Program
• Minority Internship Program
• James E. Webb Internship Program
• Native American Awards Program