PROFILESmithsonian National Portrait Gallery News Fall 2007 The Search for the National Portrait Gallery’s Next Director

The search is now well under way for a new Mallory Walker—commissioner of the National director of the National Portrait Gallery to succeed Portrait Gallery since 2004. He is chairman of Marc Pachter, who will retire at the end of this year. Walker & Dunlop, Inc. The search process was initiated in May, when In July, the executive search firm of Russell Smithsonian Acting Secretary Cristián Samper Reynolds Associates was selected to facilitate NPG’s asked Under Secretary for Art Ned Rifkin to form director search. Committee members worked with and chair a committee to assist in identifying the Russell Reynolds staff to prepare a comprehensive most qualified person to lead the Portrait Gallery. job description for the NPG director, which was On June 25, Rifkin announced that the following released on September 13, 2007 (see http://www. individuals had agreed to serve as Search Commit- sihr.si.edu/vac/EX-07-14.pdf). In addition to circu- tee members: lating this job description, Russell Reynolds has Sheila Burke—former deputy secretary and chief reached out to scores of potential candidates and operating officer of the Smithsonian. followed up on numerous leads provided by Search Wanda Corn—professor of art history at Stanford Committee members, NPG staff, and many others. University, where she has been on the faculty As the Portrait Gallery’s staff representative to since 1980. She has received fellowships from the Search Committee, it is my responsibility to the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts connect the NPG staff as fully as possible to the and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for search process. I have met with many staff members Scholars. to discuss the qualities they would most like to see in a new director and to talk about the kind of Ella Foshay—commissioner of the National Por- individual best suited to addressing the Portrait trait Gallery since 2002. She is an art historian Gallery’s new challenges and opportunities. As specializing in eighteenth- through twentieth-cen- might be expected from such an engaged and tury art and culture. dedicated group, the observations expressed in Brent Glass—director of the Smithsonian’s Na- these encounters have been enormously helpful tional Museum of American History. to me. The Search Committee conducted the first Michael Kammen—professor of history at Cor- round of candidate interviews in late October, with nell University, where he has been on the faculty additional interviews slated for late November and since 1965. He is the author of the Pulitzer Prize– early December. At the conclusion of the inter- winning People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concern- view process, the names of no fewer than two ing the Origins of American Civilization. outstanding candidates will be forwarded by Ned Dan Okrent—chair of the National Portrait Gal- Rifkin to Acting Secretary Cristián Samper, who lery commission since 2003. He has spent more will make the final selection in December. The than thirty-five years in magazine and book pub- starting date for the new director will be subject to lishing, and he served as the first public editor of negotiation, but it is anticipated that the successful the New York Times (2003–5). candidate will be able to join the Portrait Gallery’s staff in the early part of 2008. Ann Shumard—curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, where she has been on staff since 1979. Ann Shumard Curator of Photographs and Search Committee Member

 PROFILE Contents Vol. 8, no. 3. Fall 2007 Marc Pachter Director Carolyn Carr Deputy Director

Editor 4 12 Dru Dowdy Office of Publications Robert and Arlene Kogod Book Review Associate Editor Courtyard Opens The Worlds of Ann M. Shumard Office of Photographs Lincoln Kirstein by Editorial Committee Bethany Morookian Office of 6 Martin Duberman Bentley Development Legacy: Spain and the and External Affairs in the 12 Lizanne Garrett Office of One Life: Photographic Services Age of Independence, Ellen G. Miles Department of 1763–1848 KATE— Painting and Sculpture A Centennial Jewell Robinson Office of Education 7 Celebration David C. Ward Department of History Editorial Support The National Portrait Amy Baskette Curatorial Assistant 13 Gallery’s Photography George Parlier Program Assistant Online at NPG Design Collection Tells Naylor Design, Inc. American Stories 14 Commission NPG Exhibitions Daniel Okrent W. Dean Smith 8 Chair R. Ted Steinbock Historian’s Choice Anthony C. Beilenson Mallory Walker 15 Vice Chair Jack H. Watson Jr. Louis Kaufman NPG on the Road John Boochever John Wilmerding Sally G. Chubb 9 Jeannine Smith Clark Ex Officio Members 16 H. P. “Pete” Claussen Earl A. Powell III Curator’s Choice Portrait Puzzlers Joan Kent Dillon John G. Roberts Jr. George Grosz Ella Milbank Foshay Cristián Samper Michael Harreld Jill Krementz Honorary 10 Jon B. Lovelace Commissioners Joan A. Mondale Julie Harris Herein Hangs Robert B. Morgan David Levering Lewis In the Roger Mudd Bette Bao Lord a Tale V. Thanh Nguyen Fred W. Smith The Bache next issue Barbara Novak Silhouette Book Go behind the scenes with NPG’s hip-hop exhibition! PROFILE National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institution 750 Ninth Street, NW P.O. Box 37012, MRC 973 Washington, DC 20013-7012 Phone: (202) 633-8300 E-mail: [email protected] Cover: Sarah Vaughan (detail) by Josef Website: www.npg.si.edu Breitenbach, 1950. © The Josef and Yaye Breitenbach Charitable Foundation Readers’ comments are welcome. To receive Profile, please send your name, Vaughan’s photograph is one of one home address, and e-mail address to hundred images from the National [email protected] or the post office box Portait Gallery’s collection featured in listed above. “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African Unless otherwise noted, all images are from the American Portraits,” which opened on National Portrait Gallery collection. October 19 (see page 7). © 2007 Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved.

Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard Opens

The Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard, a sig- landscape designer Kathryn Gustafson of the Seattle- nature element of the Donald W. Reynolds Center based firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd. in the cre- for American Art and Portraiture, opened to the ation of the courtyard’s interior design, which public on Sunday, November 18. includes plantings as well as a unique water feature. A curving glass canopy appears to float above Norman Foster, winner of the prestigious Pritz- the enclosed courtyard. Designed by world-renowned ker Architecture Prize, worked with the Smithsonian architects Foster + Partners, the canopy provides a to create an innovative enclosure for the 28,000- distinctive, contemporary accent to the Greek Revival square-foot courtyard that is sensitive to the building shared by the National Portrait Gallery and National Historic Landmark building. The Kogod the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Foster + Courtyard, which features a café, will provide a year- Partners was assisted by internationally acclaimed round public gathering space for the museums. Ken Rahaim, Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Rahaim, Ken The roof appears to float above the building, lending a twenty-first-century feature to the nineteenth-century structure. The roof is supported by eight aluminum-clad columns located around the perimeter of the courtyard so that its weight does not affect the National Historic Landmark building.

4 Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard Opens Ken Rahaim, Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Rahaim, Ken Ken Rahaim, Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Rahaim, Ken Two workers guide a 13,000-pound ficus tree through Several varieties of trees and plants are in place, and the glass canopy roof. lighting was tested in the weeks leading up to the public opening. Ken Rahaim, Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Rahaim, Ken The steel canopy comprises 862 1.6-inch thick double-glazed glass panels. No two are shaped the same. The space includes a variety of plants, two sixteen-foot-tall ficus trees, and sixteen black olive trees.

Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard Opens  Legacy: Spain and the United States in the Age of Independence, 1763–1848 September 27, 2007–February 10, 2008

“Legacy: Spain and the United States in the Age of Independence, 1763–1848,” brings together stunning portraits, maps, and compelling documents to explore Spain’s key role in the American Revolution and the development of the United States. In the exhibition, meet those who shaped these influential years—George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, as well as King Carlos III and the Count of Aranda, who was befriended by Franklin and advocated for the colonies—and see portraits by Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, Fran- cisco de Goya, and Spanish court painter Anton Raphael Mengs. Legacy was a collaborative effort, organized by the National Portrait Gallery, Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior de España (SEACEX), Smithsonian Latino Center, and the Fundacion Con- sejo España-Estados Unidos. Fernando Alvira Fernando

Above: Ferdinand VII by Francisco de Goya, 1814. Museo de Bellas Artes de Santander, Cantabria, España Left: Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Count of Aranda, by Ramón Bayeu y Subías, 1769. Museo de Huesca, Spain

Map of the Frontier by José Urrutia and Nicolás de Lafora. , Washington, D.C.

 Legacy The National Portrait Gallery’s Photography Collection Tells American Stories

Bethany Morookian Bentley Public Affairs Specialist “Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits,” which opened at the National Portrait Gallery on October 19, 2007, fea- tures images of African Americans who have resisted negative stereo- types through their remarkable achievements. Serving to inaugu- rate the National Museum of Afri- can American History and Culture, this exhibition is drawn from the National Portrait Gallery’s exten-

sive photography collection. Focus- McCartney Linda of © Estate ing on the idea that resistance takes Jimi Hendrix by Linda Frederick Douglass by an unidentified many forms, it derives its title from McCartney, 1967 (printed artist, 1856. Purchased with funds the words of the abolitionist and later), gift of Linda McCartney from an anonymous donor clergyman Henry Highland Garnet, who in 1843 urged African Americans to “Strike for your lives and liberties. . . . Let your motto be Resistance! Resistance! RESISTANCE!” The exhi- bition opened at New York’s International Center of Photography in May 2007. The Portrait Gallery has been acquiring pho- tographic portraits for its permanent collection since 1976, a very short amount of time consid- ering that the British National Portrait Gallery has been building its collection for more than 150 years. Yet “Let Your Motto Be Resistance” reveals

the breadth of NPG’s photography collection in Weiner © Sandra yielding these one hundred striking photographs Martin Luther King, Jr., wife Coretta Scott King, celebrating African American accomplishments. and their daughter Yolanda by Dan Weiner, 1956 Curator of Photographs Ann Shumard is a key contributor to the collection’s strength. African Shumard’s research on Washington uncovered a American history and portrayal during the antebel- heretofore unknown artist who also happened to lum and Civil War eras, as well as in contempo- have a fascinating life story. (To read more about rary portraiture, are particular areas of interest for Augustus Washington and see an online version of her. She notes, “The Portrait Gallery’s collection the exhibition, go to www.npg.si.edu/exh/awash/ will always be a work in progress. As we continue awhart.htm.) to build it, we look to acquire images that reflect Shumard, along with Assistant Curator of Pho- the diversity of those whose individual stories are tographs Frank Goodyear, worked with exhibition critical in constructing the larger narrative of our curator Deborah Willis in selecting images that collective history as Americans.” reflect the diversity of people who have made sig- Shumard’s research about daguerreotypist nificant contributions to American history and cul- Augustus Washington led to a 1999 exhibition of ture. This collaboration with the National Museum thirty-two images by that pioneering black photog- of African American History and Culture is one rapher. Her interest in Washington began in 1996, more way for people to learn more about the fasci- with NPG’s acquisition of his c. 1846–47 daguerre- nating individuals included in the Portrait Gallery’s otype of radical abolitionist John Brown. The son collection. of an ex-slave and a South Asian mother, Wash- “Let Your Motto Be Resistance” appears at ington was one of the first African Americans to the National Portrait Gallery through March 2, work in the then-new medium of daguerreotypes. 2008.

NPG’s Photography Collection  HISTORIAN’S CHOICE Louis Kaufman Oil on canvas by Lawrence Lebduska (1896–1966), 1932, gift of the Louis and Annette Kaufman Trust Amy Henderson . He made the first recording of Historian the then-forgotten concertos known as The Four Louis (1905–1994) and Annette Kaufman led a Seasons, and played them on CBS radio in the late whirlwind life: they met on a blind date in 1932, 1940s, thereby catalyzing a Vivaldi craze that re- courted for three days, and then embarked on a mains vibrant today. sixty-two-year marriage that swirled around the Gregarious and enthusiastic people, the world and encompassed friendships with musicians, Kaufmans had a wide circle of friends. Among the artists, and Hollywood stars. Louis, who had ap- closest were the artist Milton Avery and his wife peared in vaudeville as a child, became what the Sally, whom Louis had first met in 1927 when Av- Library of Congress has called “the most heard vio- ery was an impoverished young painter. Kaufman linist in the world.” In a sev- described himself as “irre- en-decade career, he made sistibly drawn to the sober, more than 175 recordings rich poetry” of Avery’s work, and was the concertmaster and he became a lifelong ad- in more than 500 movie vocate—and collector—of soundtracks, including Show his works. In his memoirs, Boat (1936), Modern Times Kaufman recounts introduc- (1936), Gone with the Wind ing Mark Rothko and other (1939), Casablanca (1943), artists to the Avery studio, Laura (1944), Sunset Boule- and watching as Avery’s in- vard (1950), The Quiet Man fluence took hold in Ameri- (1952), and Ben Hur (1959). can art. He worked with every major The Kaufmans amassed movie composer, including a major art collection that, Max Steiner, Alfred New- in addition to modern man, Franz Waxman, Ber- American art, included nard Herrmann, Erich Wolf- works by African, Asian, gang Korngold, and Aaron pre-Columbian, Latin Copland. And all along the American, and European way, he was joined by his artists. One of the artists wife and muse Annette, who, they befriended, Lawrence herself a noted classical pia- Lebduska, was earning a nist, also accompanied him in recital. living by decorating a speakeasy with wall mu- Louis Kaufman’s memoir, written with his rals in the early 1930s when he asked if he might wife, captures their remarkable life both as musi- paint Louis’s portrait. The resulting image in- cians and as art collectors. A Fiddler’s Tale: How cluded a background with some Lebduska paint- Hollywood and Vivaldi Discovered Me (2003) re- ings and a Chaim Gross sculpture that Kaufman counts his legendary studio career, beginning in also owned. Louis then commissioned him to 1934 when hired him for The Merry paint Annette’s portrait, which he did by paint- Widow, followed by engagements to play for Fred ing her head as a framed, colored photograph Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcee placed on a desk; through the open window is and Shall We Dance. He became the most sought- a depiction of King Ludwig’s Bavarian castle in after violinist in Hollywood: it is his violin that a fanciful landscape. renders the familiar notes of “Tara’s Theme” in Although Louis Kaufman died in 1994, Annette Gone with the Wind, as well as tracks for Disney’s has continued on with her own joie de vivre and Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, and tireless endeavors in travel, music, and the arts. She Pinocchio—where Pinocchio slides down into the graciously donated the Lebduska portraits of Louis whale to Louis’s E-string glissando—and for Holi- and of herself to the National Portrait Gallery in day Inn, where he played while Bing Crosby sang 2007. “White Christmas.” For further reading: Louis Kaufman with Annette Kaufman, Louis Kaufman is also credited with rediscov- A Fiddler’s Tale: How Hollywood and Vivaldi Discovered ering the work of seventeenth-century composer Me (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003).

 Historian’s Choice CURATOR’S CHOICE George Grosz Charcoal and graphite on paper, self-portrait, 1916, the Ruth Bowman and Harry Kahn Twentieth-Century American Self-Portrait Collection

Wendy Wick Reaves his ferocity rather than contradicted it. Grosz had Curator of Prints and Drawings “an excessively sensitive nature,” Kessler noted, Some of the most intriguing self-portraits are those “which turns outrageously brutal by reason of its that are at odds with our mental image of an artist. sensibility, and he has the talent for delineating This delicate, introspective drawing by Berlin-born this brutality creatively.” artist George Grosz (1893–1959) hardly fits with That bitterness engendered apocalyptic imag- the angry Dada satirist we have come to admire. ery. Hideously maimed soldiers, hardened prosti- Grosz made the drawing in 1916, during a time of tutes, bloated profiteers, grotesque generals, and intense psychic turmoil that would change him pro- debauched officials populated his memorable foundly, affecting his art for years to come. After paintings and drawings. Kessler pointed out that sporadic art studies in Dres- “a kind of demon” in Grosz den, Paris, and Berlin, Grosz reflected urban depravity: “it had enlisted in the German is art like flash photography army in November 1914. exuding the perfume of vice Although his service was brief, and perversion like every big by the time he was discharged city street at night.” Grosz in March 1915, he bore the used his art as a weapon to psychological scars of his attack the venality he saw experience. War, he con- around him. That aggres- cluded, “meant horror, muti- sive engagement with the lation, annihilation.” Grosz breakdown of contemporary channeled his cynicism and culture was characteristic of anger into explosive politi- the emerging Dada move- cal satire, adapting sketches ment, and Grosz, along with of wounded soldiers and cor- the brothers Wieland and rupt German officials from Helmut Herzfelde (known his wartime sketchbooks. as John Heartfield), became His reputation grew as his leading figures of the Berlin trenchant drawings were Dadaists. The bitter irony so published in portfolios and typical of Grosz’s work per- noticed by other artists and such patrons as Theo- meated that branch of the Dada movement, which dore Däubler and Count Harry Kessler. In January Grosz described as the “organized use of madness” 1917, Grosz was recalled into the army, but was to express “our disdain for a bankrupt world.” hospitalized shortly afterward, possibly suffering Grosz eventually moved to the United States from a nervous breakdown. In his autobiography, in 1933 and became a citizen in 1938. He taught Grosz said that he was supposed to be executed for at the Art Students League, and opened his own desertion but that Kessler intervened. school. Although Grosz never felt appreciated by The description of Grosz by his friend the art establishment, he actually received admir- Wieland Herzfelde, who wrote that his “eyes were ing attention in America, garnering honors, prizes, those of a marksman taking aim, and his mouth two Guggenheim fellowships, commissions, and had a bitterness about it,” fits this self-portrait. exhibitions. Grosz’s work continues to inspire Nonetheless, it embodies a gentle quality quite interest; his unflinching diatribes against war and different in tone from Grosz’s merciless satires. corruption mark him as a visionary witness to his The delicate charcoal suggests Grosz’s sensitivity era. In this early, moving self-portrait we see him more than the searing fury fueling most his art. at a painful, transformative moment that forged Downcast eyes and soft charcoal shading, manip- the artist he would become. ulated almost like a watercolor wash, convey an introspective expression. Circular highlights on For further reading: George Grosz, George Grosz: An his forehead echo the shape of his eyeglasses and Autobiography, trans. Nora Hodges (1946; New York: further emphasize the psychological aspects of MacMillan, 1983); Frank Whitford, The Berlin of George Grosz: Drawings, Watercolours and Prints, 1912–1930 the portrait. Since Grosz aimed his art most fre- (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997); Leah Dicker- quently toward polemical ends, it is fascinating man, Dada (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, to peer behind that stance. The drawing reveals 2006); and M. Kay Flavell, George Grosz: A Biography a painful vulnerability that Kessler felt explained (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).

Curator’s Choice  Herein Hangs a Tale: The Bache Silhouette Book

Margaret C. S. Christman New Orleans, General Wilkinson Historian hoped that, in the interest of prevent- In the 1920s, Alice Van Leer Carrick, ing “trouble, perplexity and further the pioneering authority on American injury to the service,” Butler would silhouettes, came upon an album kept “leave his tail behind him.” by William Bache (1771–1845) as a Butler arrived in New Orleans on record of his work and expressed her October 4, 1804, his pigtail intact. delight in “turning the pages of this He was arrested and in February for- century-old treasure-trove of nearly Thomas Butler by mally charged with “willful, obstinate two thousand shadow portraits.” William Bache, c. and continual disobedience.” An There she found images of Chancellor 1803–12, partial gift indignant Butler continued to insist George Wythe, President Thomas Jef- of Sarah Bache Bloise that he considered the order to crop ferson, and Secretary of State Edmund his hair “an arbitrary infraction of Randolph, as well as “hundreds of other profiles of my natural rights.” everyday people, less well-known, but equally well A military tribunal was convened on July 1, cut; all of them vivid and interesting.” This duplicate 1805, and from St. Louis, Wilkinson instructed the book of 1,846 images, which had long remained in commanding general at New Orleans to make those the hands of Bache descendants, came to the atten- who would sit in judgment of Butler aware “that tion of the National Portrait Gallery’s Curator of the President of the United States, without any Prints and Drawings Wendy Wick Reaves and was public expression, has thought proper to adopt our acquired in 2001. Research on Bache—first heard fashion of the hair cropping.” (Bache shows Jef- from with his patented physiognotrace (a profile- ferson in 1804 with a dangling queue.) tracing apparatus) at Baltimore in 1803 and who On September 7, while awaiting the final out- subsequently traveled to Virginia, New Orleans, come of his trial, Butler died at his nephew’s planta- Cuba, and New England—is ongoing. Research on tion a few miles above New Orleans. He told his the scores of men, women, and children who seized friends he wanted his queue displayed at his funeral. the opportunity to have their shadows cut is also “Bore a hole through the bottom of my coffin right under way, and many of them have stories evocative under my head,” he directed, “and let my queue hang of the era in which they lived. through it,—that the d---d old rascal [Wilkinson] Bache identifies number 361 in the album as may see that, even when dead, I refuse to obey his “Col Butler”: Thomas Butler, a Revolutionary War orders.” There was no evidence that this was done, soldier and Indian fighter, and an officer in the U.S. but thanks to William Bache, Butler’s pigtail has Army. He was—when he gave up a few minutes of remained in full view down through the ages. his time and one dollar to secure “four correct likenesses” of himself from Bache— in trouble because he refused to cut his hair and give up his queue. On April 30, 1801, the commanding general of the army, James Wilkinson (Bache number 216), had issued an order requiring all military men to crop their hair, and Butler was among the many conservative officers who chose to ignore a decree that not only infringed on per- sonal preference but also carried with it an association with the radicals of the French Revolution. Butler, a law student before he became a professional soldier, pronounced the order “impertinent, arbi- trary and illegal.” He was court-martialed in 1803, found guilty, and reprimanded. James Wilkinson by William Bache, c. 1803–12, When he was subsequently transferred to partial gift of Sarah Bache Bloise

10 Herein Hangs a Tale Book Review The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein by Martin Duberman (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), 736 pp.

David C. Ward ence that originally Historian found the New York Lincoln Kirstein (1907–1996) is one of the most City Ballet’s style jar- central and essential figures in the cultural history ringly at odds with the of twentieth-century America. Although a talented preferred taste for the and productive writer, editor, scholar, and librettist, opulence of established his own work was overshadowed by his prodigious European companies. career as the founder and impresario of some of Kirstein inherited and America’s leading cultural institutions, most notably built upon the mod- the Ballet. As Martin Duberman’s ernist commitment to authorized biography makes abundantly clear, “make it new,” and he Kirstein was compulsively active in the cultural was intent on creating arena, working energetically on multiple projects a distinctively American art. In 1938 he wrote and constantly generating new ideas, well before about American dance: “Instead of setting a stereo- the term “multi-tasking” came into vogue. His type of remoteness, spectral grandeur and visionary social life was staggeringly full and his friendships brilliance, the Americans are violent, intimate, frank.” legion: he seemingly knew everyone, and if he didn’t It was a necessity for Kirstein (and Balanchine) that he soon would. He was both intrinsically interested a school of American dance would be founded in in other people and a master at creating networks tandem with the ballet company. Interestingly, Kir- of supporters for his multiplicity of projects. His stein disparaged much modern dance as practiced private life was complicated. He had a powerful by Martha Graham or Agnes de Mille, preferring sex drive that led him to have multiple lovers, both to use Balanchine as the instrument through which male and female, casual and serious, as well as a classical ballet would be modernized. He found long, devoted marriage to Fidelma Cadmus. Duber- much of the modern movement in dance and art to man, an historian of the gay movement as well as a be too soppy and self-indulgent, paying insufficient prize-winning biographer, expertly charts the mul- attention to technique. Kirstein was wary of much tiple layers of Kirstein’s activities, and is especially modern art, thinking, for instance, that abstract adept at showing how Kirstein navigated between painting could be too decorative or insufficiently his public role as cultural impresario and the attrac- grounded in technique to be convincing; Kirstein tions of the homosexual demimonde. didn’t like Jackson Pollock, for instance. The hidden hero of Duberman’s narrative is Louis Duberman does a masterful job organizing and Kirstein, Lincoln’s father. A prosperous Boston mer- presenting a narrative of Kirstein’s life, from his chant, an unobservant but passionate Jew, and an days as a precocious undergraduate founding Horn ardent believer in public service, Louis continuously and Hart, an important literary magazine, through supported his son’s work, loaning or giving him large his role in creating Lincoln Center. Along the way, sums of money throughout his life. This fatherly gen- Duberman adds fascinating details about Kirst- erosity was essential since, as Duber- ein’s own writings and his role man makes clear, it was incredibly in recovering looted art from difficult to found, let alone main- the Nazis, as well as continual tain, cultural institutions in an era insights into his passionate char- before government subsidies and acter and tempestuous personal corporate philanthropy. Moreover, affairs. The judgment of one of Kirstein was a modernist, wanting Kirstein’s eulogists that he “was to push the envelope of American in two distinct places at once— taste in ways that did not always because he wanted to be” and find either financial backers or a “was a promulgator of order who ready audience. As the impresario was fascinated and energized by of the ballet, Kirstein is notable for the ubiquity of disorder” is fully championing George Balanchine confirmed by Duberman’s sprawl- and creating a distinctive Ameri- ingly coherent biography.

can style of dance. But in their early © Jamie Wyeth years, Kirstein and Balanchine had Lincoln Kirstein by Jamie Wyeth, to cultivate and educate an audi- 1965, bequest of Lincoln Kirstein

Book Review 11 One Life: KATE—A Centennial Celebration

Amy Henderson Historian The National Portrait Gallery’s “One Life” gallery spotlights an iconic figure in American history, with one of NPG’s staff members selecting a figure of special interest to him or her. When we reopened in the summer of 2006, historian David Ward curated a “One Life” exhibition on Walt Whitman. Now, from November 2, 2007, to June 1, 2008, Katha- rine Hepburn (1907–2003) will be showcased in “Kate: A Centennial Celebration.” The exhibition features nearly forty photo- graphs, posters, and artifacts selected from, among others, the National Portrait Gallery, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and Bryn Mawr Library. Katharine Hepburn’s estate has lent one of her signature red sweaters, and—as dazzling evidence of Hepburn’s star quality—the four Best Actress Oscars (still a record) that she won over the course of her career. For the first time, and most appropriately for Hepburn, the “One Life” gallery will contain a video kiosk: visitors can choose from a menu of clips from nine Hepburn movies—Little Women, Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, Hepburn in an Adrian gown Woman of the Year, The African Queen, Guess in The Philadelphia Story, Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter, Love 1940. Academy of Motion Among the Ruins, and On Golden Pond. Picture Arts and Sciences, The images and artifacts portray Hepburn’s MGM Stills Collection, determination to invent and reinvent herself over Beverly Hills, California time. From her earliest days in Hollywood—during the heyday of the studio system—Hepburn was able Bringing Up Baby movie poster, 1938. Academy to create a new female presence on screen. Inde- of Motion Picture Arts pendent and strong, she was the embodiment of and Sciences, RKO Stills the “modern woman.” And it would be Hepburn Collection, Beverly Hills, herself who carefully constructed and maintained California her own myth and image through nearly seventy years on stage, screen, and television: “Show me an actress who isn’t a personality,” she once said, “and Each time we met, I found her “as advertised”— you’ll show me a woman who isn’t a star.” feisty, outspoken, and accustomed to having things There was a personal incentive for me to orga- her own way. A bit shorter than in her prime and nize this exhibition for the centennial of her birth. slightly pudgier (“butter pecan ice cream is to In the late 1980s, writer-director Garson Kanin blame”), she still had penetrating blue eyes and a gave me Hepburn’s New York address so that I quick, sometimes boisterous wit. At her house in could contact her about donating her portrait to the Turtle Bay, she always provided coffee, cookies, National Portrait Gallery. She wrote back with her and conversation—not to mention a spirit of one- telephone number and instructions to “call between upmanship. Once she noticed we were both reading 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.” When I did, she answered the the same best-selling biography, and she demanded phone herself—much to my surprise!—and agreed to know what page I was on. I said something like to meet with me. As it turned out, our conversa- “page 157,” and she roared, “HA! I’m on 396!” tion about her portraits continued for several years; Over her long and legendary life, Hepburn res- eventually, the 1982 portrait by Everett Raymond onated beyond the screen and across generations. Kinstler that serves as the centerpiece for her “One Why Hepburn as a “One Life” subject? For me, her Life” exhibition (see page 14) was the one she pro- appeal centered on her determination and indepen- nounced her “favorite.” dence. She never quit.

12 One Life: KATE Online at NPG

Deborah Sisum Webmaster The public use of the Internet and its later technological spin-offs, such as e-mail, instant messaging, YouTube, and Weblogs, has only been around for about fifteen years, yet it’s hard to remember a time before the Web became an essential part of life and work. For museums like the National Portrait Gallery, assimilating the Internet into the traditional museum culture has given us the opportunity to enhance and expand our programming in new directions. While it’s almost impossible to predict future evolutions in the cyber world, keeping pace with an ever-changing menu of Web develop- ments will continue to affect the Portrait Gallery community in the years to come. NPG’s initial online presence began in 1994, with the publication of a small site with images and text on America Online (AOL). Rudimentary as this seems now, it was one of the first museum uses of the Internet and was followed with a stand-alone NPG Web site, which was developed by a contrac- tor in 1996. Even at this early stage, the Portrait Gallery was well aware of the Web’s potential to both present its programs in innovative ways and widen its audience, as Internet use expanded among the general public. When NPG put up Web versions of “Rebels: Painters and Poets of the 1950s” and “1846: Portrait of the Nation,” we were among the first museums to expand beyond simple informa- tional guidelines in order to provide a virtual rep- ments contribute to the site, and there is no shortage resentation of the actual museum exhibitions. Sud- of ideas on how it can be supplemented and denly, exhibitions were not limited by their physi- improved. At the moment we are exploring the cre- cality and locale; instead, their digital representa- ation of audio and video podcasts, as well as live tions were able to be accessed anywhere, and at any webcasts of Portrait Gallery events. Symposia, lec- time. The Portrait Gallery’s Web presence was fur- tures, Face-to-Face gallery talks, educational pro- ther enhanced by the decision to integrate a data- grams, and even exhibition openings will soon be base of the permanent collection, along with the available for download to MP3 players—thus bring- archives of the Catalog of American Portraits ing the museum to wider, and younger, audiences. (CAP), into the Portrait Gallery’s initial Web site. The Internet is currently experiencing a para- This permitted a virtual catalog of NPG’s research digm shift, and Web sites can no longer be a collec- resources to be available to both scholars and the tion of passive images and text. Audiences are general public. increasingly Web-savvy, demanding not only NPG’s Web site currently attracts more than five dynamic and sophisticated features, but also inter- million visits annually, a number that has increased activity and involvement. The Internet has empow- every year since the site’s inception. The volume of ered an “on demand” world, and it can sometimes content has also grown substantially. In addition to appear to operate according to a cyber version of daily information and programmatic updates, the Gresham’s Law—with bad content overwhelming site currently boasts forty-eight virtual exhibitions, the good. The webmaster’s challenge is to serve as a collections search database with nearly 100,000 the gatekeeper to the museum in a way that assists records, a Google site-search mechanism, and even the public without sacrificing scholarly and aes- an online archive of Profile magazine. Many depart- thetic standards of excellence.

Online NPG 13 NPG Exhibitions

Opening Soon

RECOGNIZE! Hip-Hop and Contemporary Portraiture First floor Since its inception in the 1970s, hip-hop music and its surrounding culture has become hugely influential. Although negative connota- tions sometimes continue, the movement is solidly grounded in Af- rican American communities and serves as a positive force for the empowerment of youth. In “RECOGNIZE!” David Scheinbaum’s performance photographs, Jefferson Pinder’s video self-portraits, and Kehinde Wiley’s paintings of celebrities will create a timely de- bate about race, politics, celebrity, and American popular culture. In addition, poet Nikki Giovanni has written and recorded a work for the exhibition, which Brooklyn-based artist Shinique Smith will interpret visually. D.C.–based graffiti artists Tim Conlon and Dave Hupp have also created four “portrait” murals. February 8 through October 26, 2008. Wiley © Kehinde LL Cool J by Kehinde Wiley, 2005. LL Cool J

Currently on View

One Life—Kate: of subjects ranging from Louis A Centennial Armstrong to Jefferson Airplane. Celebration First floor Through March 16, 2008. The newest installation in a series Legacy: Spain and the of “One Life” presentations hon- United States in the Age ors Katharine Hepburn (1907– of Independence, 2003) on the one-hundreth anni- 1763–1848 Second floor versary of her birth. A twentieth- Through portraits and authen- century icon, Hepburn carefully tic documents, “Legacy” dem- constructed and maintained her onstrates Spain’s key role in the own myth, from her earliest days Revolutionary War and the found- in the Hollywood studio system © 1982 Everett Raymond Kinstler Kinstler Raymond Everett © 1982 ing of the new nation. Figures rep- through more than fifty years on Katharine Hepburn by Everett resented include Carlos III, the stage, screen, and television. The Raymond Kinstler, 1982, gift of Count of Floridablanca, George exhibition includes her four Oscar Everett Raymond Kinstler Washington, Benjamin Franklin, statuettes—the most won by any- and even Davy Crockett. Organ- one for best actress—images from her life and ca- ized by the National Portrait Gallery, Sociedad Estatal reer, and a video kiosk showing highlights from para la Acción Cultural Exterior de España (SEACEX), nine of her performances. Through June 1, 2008. Smithsonian Latino Center, and the Fundación Con- Portraiture Now: Framing Memory First floor sejo España-Estados Unidos. This exhibition has “Framing Memory” highlights five artists—Alfredo been made possible by a generous grant from The Arreguín, Brett Cook, Kerry James Marshall, Tina Walt Disney Company. Additional support has been Mion, and Faith Ringgold—who created remem- provided by BBVA, Grupo Barceló, Iberdrola, and bered likenesses of significant personalities to make Iberia. Through February 10, 2008. broader explorations of identity. Through January 6, 2008. The Presidency and the Cold War Second floor Beginning with Yalta and ending with the collapse New Arrivals First floor of the Berlin Wall, this exhibition explores how Highlighting twenty-eight works that have been U.S. presidents dealt with the global struggle between acquired through gift or purchase over the last seven the United States and the Soviet Union. Extended years, this exhibition includes paintings, draw- through February 24, 2008. ings, sculptures, posters, prints, and photographs continued

14 NPG Exhibitions NPG On the Road Currently on View, continued NPG continues its domestic and international loans with the following highlights:

In support of and in collaboration with portrait galleries from Britain, Scotland, and Australia, NPG is pleased to participate in “Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913–2008,” with the loan of the 1935 photograph of Louis Armstrong by Anton Bruehl. The exhibition opens in London on February 14, 2008, and travels to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, and the Australian National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Ken Rahaim Ken First Lady Laura Bush, NPG Director Marc Pachter, National Museum of African American History and Culture Director Lonnie Bunch, and California Congresswoman Doris Matsui view the exhibition “Let Your Motto Be Resistance” on October 18.

Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits Second floor The featured photographs in this exhibition illuminate the variety of ways in which African Americans resisted and redefined an America that needed but rarely accepted its black citizens. Subjects range from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to W.E.B. Du Bois, Lorraine Hansberry, and Wynton Marsalis. Among the photographers represented are James VanDer- Zee, Carl Van Vechten, Gordon Parks, and Irving Penn. “Let Your Motto Be Resistance” was selected

from the photographic collections of the National Bruehl Anton of © Estate Portrait Gallery and organized by the National Louis Armstrong by Anton Bruehl, 1935 Museum of African American History and Cul- ture in collaboration with the Portrait Gallery. Miguel Covarrubias’s c. 1925 ink and watercolor The exhibition, national tour, and catalogue drawing of Carl Van Vechten will travel in February were made possible by a generous grant from 2008 to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary the lead sponsor, MetLife Foundation. Addi- Art in Roverto, Italy, for “Jazz Century.” The tional support was provided by the Council of exhibition explores the connections between the National Museum of African American His- modern art and jazz music in the twentieth tory and Culture. Through March 2, 2008. century.

See other exhibition-related web features at www.npg.si.edu

NPG On the Road 15 Portrait Puz z lers Nicknames 1. 2. 3. 4. © Richard Avedon © Richard The former deputy Nicknamed “Major” While touring the One of the greatest director of the FBI for his blue coat with United States with boxers in history, the during Richard brass buttons, this P. T. Barnum, the “Brown Bomber” is Nixon’s presidency cycling champion “Swedish Nightingale” known for his first- will be forever known battled not only other was celebrated for round knockout as “Deep Throat” competitors but dis- her beautiful singing of Germany’s Max for his part in the crimination. Welcomed voice as well as for her Schmeling during Watergate scandal. in Europe, he won charitable works. a rematch held at forty-two races in Yankee Stadium.

sixteen different cities.

gift of the Harmon Foundation. All images are details. are images All Foundation. Harmon the of gift

(1914–1981), “The Brown Bomber,” by Betsy Graves Reyneau, oil on canvas, 1946, 1946, canvas, on oil Reyneau, Graves Betsy by Bomber,” Brown “The (1914–1981), Louis Joe 4. Clinton Rodham Hillary

ish Nightingale,” by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, oil on canvas, 1852, gift of Eleanor Morein Foster in honor of First Lady Lady First of honor in Foster Morein Eleanor of gift 1852, canvas, on oil Carpenter, Bicknell Francis by Nightingale,” ish

- “Swed the (1821–1887), Lind Jenny 3. 1902 printing, relief with poster lithographic color Galice, Louis by (1878–1932)

aylor aylor T “Major” Marshall 2. Society Smithson James the and Austin W. Jeane from contributions generous by possible

(born 1913), “Deep Throat,” by Richard Avedon, gelatin silver print, 1976, acquisition made made acquisition 1976, print, silver gelatin Avedon, Richard by Throat,” “Deep 1913), (born Felt Mark W. 1. Answers:

Let your motto be…Membership! Support the National Portrait Gallery and its exhibitions by becoming a member. Join online at www.reynoldscenter.org! Contact Sherri Weil, Director of Development and External Affairs at [email protected]

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