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Smithsonian Institution, P. O. Box 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013 7012
Martin E. Sullivan Director
The National Portrait Gallery tells the stories of America through the individuals who have built our national culture. The Portrait Gallery’s collection of more than 20,000 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 and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists who speak our history. It is where the arts keep us in the company of remarkable Americans.
Facilities
The National Portrait Gallery, which 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 best 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 enclosed Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard, with its distinctive glass canopy designed by the architectural firm of Foster + Partners, provides a light-filled, 28,000-square-foot space for the museums’ café, public programs and special events. The Portrait 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 and the Archives of American Art, are located in the Victor Building, one block north.
Since the museum’s grand reopening in 2006, our exhibitions are seen in refurbished spaces, including some that once held the museum’s offices. In addition to displays from its permanent collection, the Portrait Gallery mounts temporary exhibitions, including portraits and other works of art and historical documents that are borrowed from outside sources. Generally, these exhibitions take one of three forms: thematic exhibitions on a wide range of historical subjects, surveys of portraiture by American artists, including photographers, and iconographic studies dealing with the life portraits of a given individual. The Portrait Gallery also organizes smaller exhibitions that recognize anniversaries of important events or special contemporary interests. Symposia, lectures, and publications are important elements of the museum’s program.
Resources
As a national resource center for biography and portraiture, the Portrait 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 all media including painting, sculpture, drawing, prints, photographs and video. Objects not on view may be seen by appointment. Special collections include portraits of the presidents of the United States, the Frederick Hill Meserve collection of Civil War–era portrait negatives from Mathew Brady’s studio; the Time magazine cover art 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 introduce important Americans in the National Portrait Gallery collection – along with their significant contributions to American society – to visitors of all ages. The department works toward improving 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.
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, Latin American art.
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. Research specialties: Contemporary portraiture; Theory and practice of American and British portraiture, 1750-1820; American portraitists 1880-1900; American women artists 1880-1900; Portraiture and science.
GOODYEAR, Frank H., Associate 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, Associate 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; Marcel Duchamp; Dada.
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; American Revolution and the War of 1812; 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. Research specialties: Celebrity culture, history of Hollywood, Broadway, radio and television.
REAVES, Wendy Wick, Curator of Prints and Drawings. B.A. (1972) University of Pennsylvania; M.A. (1977) University of Delaware. 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; 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).
AFFILIATED RESEARCH STAFF MILES, Ellen G., Curator emeritus, 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.
SULLIVAN, Martin E., Director. B.A. (1965) Siena College; M.A. (1970), Ph.D. (1974) University of Notre Dame. Research specialties: Colonial North America in the Atlantic World; Native American history and culture; twentieth-century social and labor history; cultural and intellectual property claims.
Smithsonian Research Staff and Affiliated
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