PROFILESmithsonian National Portrait Gallery News Fall 2006 From the DIRECTOR I write this as the National Portrait Gallery, within the Donald W. Reyn- olds Center for American Art and Por- traiture, completes the first quarter of its reopening, indeed, its rebirth. The response has been everything and more than we had hoped. Over a quarter mil- lion people have experienced a building renewed, as well as two museums vibrant with expanded spaces, new installations, and renewed dedication to exploring the cultural possibili- ties of democracy. I think the best word to describe the response of both press and public has been exhilaration. In part, the building, each floor rising in grandeur, is responsible. But as I have wandered our galleries, listening and watch- ing, I’ve heard more and more the expressions of delight in the handsome and spacious ways the portraits have been hung, in the rich splash of historic and modern blues and reds and yellows on the walls, and in the sensitive lighting, which allows for the first time the appreciation of jewel- like daguerreotypes, the dazzling white of Walt Whitman’s painted beard, and the glorious red of Denyce Graves’s concert dress. To the intellectual pleasures of history, highlighted by selected quotations adorning the gal- leries, this Portrait Gallery adds the sensuousness of light and color. But before we returned to this building, the National Portrait Gal- lery had already begun its rebirth. This we did through exhibitions that crossed boundaries both intellectual (the reexamination of Gilbert Stuart, the exploration of Latin American portraiture) and geographical (presen- tations of our collections throughout the nation and the world, and the epic tour of the “Lansdowne” portrait of George Washington). This we also did by introducing new programs such as the Paul Peck Awards for Service to the Presidency and Portrayal of the Presidency, celebrating their fifth anniversary in the fall of 2006, and by laying the groundwork for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, the country’s first national portrait competition. But for many, it is this publication, Profile—conceived in 2000 to keep the museum in the public eye during our closure—that began to reveal the Portrait Gallery’s new thinking. Even after our reopening, however, it became unthinkable to discontinue Profile. But there are changes to announce. The editor, Carol Wyrick, has retired and handed the direction over to Dru Dowdy, whom you will meet in this issue. We salute Carol for her remarkable oversight and insight, as well as those, like Sid Hart and other members of the editorial committee, who will continue to lend their talents to this great expression of the spirit of our museum. If we are reborn, it is only because we also cling to our origins, to our conviction that it is the past that gives meaning to present and future. So we celebrate our twenty-first-century museum by commissioning a daguerreotype of our building suggestive of that first one taken by John Plumbe in 1846. And we look to nineteenth-century tradition by com- missioning a poem in honor of our rededication. Reading about these are some of the pleasures that await you in this issue. Truly we have gone back to the future. 2 PROFILE Contents Vol. 7, nos. 2–3. Fall 2006 Marc Pachter Director Carolyn Carr Deputy Director Editor 4 Dru Dowdy Office of Publications A New Daguerreotype Associate Editor Our Landmark Building Ann M. Shumard Department of Photographs 6 Editorial Committee Bethany Morookian Bentley NPG’s Opening Celebration Office of Development and External Affairs Lizanne Garrett Office of Photographic 8 Services A “Perfect” Ending to the Sidney Hart Department of History Ellen G. Miles Department of Painting First Outwin Boochever and Sculpture Portrait Competition Jewell Robinson Office of Education David Ward Department of History 10 Editorial Support Jennifer L. Bauman A Celebration Broadcast Department of History in Verse Design Leslie London, London Graphics 11 Commission Daniel Okrent Barbara Novak Book Review Chair R. Ted Steinbock Anthony C. Beilenson Mallory Walker Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Vice Chair Jack H. Watson Jr. Champion of Freedom by John Boochever John Wilmerding Sally G. Chubb Conrad Black Jeannine Smith Clark Ex Officio Members H. P. “Pete” Claussen Earl A. Powell III Joan Kent Dillon John G. Roberts Jr. 12 Ella Milbank Foshay Lawrence M. Small Michael Harreld Historian’s Choice Manuel L. Ibáñez Honorary Gloria Swanson Jill Krementz Commissioners Jon B. Lovelace Julie Harris Joan A. Mondale David Levering Lewis 13 Robert B. Morgan Bette Bao Lord Roger Mudd Fred W. Smith Editor’s Choice V. Thanh Nguyen Thomas Tudor Tucker 14 NPG at Home PROFILE National Portrait Gallery 15 Smithsonian Institution NPG in Demand 750 Ninth Street, NW P.O. Box 37012, MRC 973 Washington, DC 20013-7012 16 Phone: (202) 275-1738 Fax: (202) 275-1887 Portrait Puzzlers E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.npg.si.edu Readers’ comments are welcome. To receive Profile, please send your name, home address, and e-mail address to [email protected] or the post office box Cover: Daguerreotypist Jerry listed above. Spagnoli photographs the building Unless otherwise noted, all images are from on opening day the National Portrait Gallery collection. Photograph by Amy Baskette ©2006 Smithsonian Institution. All rights reserved. A New Daguerreotype: Our Landmark Building Jerry Spagnoli’s opening-day daguerreotype of the Reynolds Center. Because daguerreotypes present mirror images of their subjects, this entire scene (including the building’s signage) appears in reverse. Ann Shumard cate Plumbe’s vantage point as nearly as possible. Curator of Photographs The surrounding neighborhood has changed con- The earliest known photographic image of the siderably since 1846, but fortunately the build- historic Patent Office Building—now home to the ing from which Plumbe made his exposure still Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and stands. Designed as the General Post Office by Portraiture—is a remarkable daguerreotype made Patent Office Building architect Robert Mills, this by John Plumbe in 1846, just a few years after historic structure now houses the Hotel Monaco. photography’s introduction in 1839. Inspired by Its colonnaded second-floor terrace was the perfect Plumbe’s compelling daguerrean “portrait” of its camera location, and although this space is nor- landmark building, the National Portrait Gallery mally inaccessible to the public, the hotel’s staff celebrated its grand reopening on July 1, 2006, graciously agreed to provide special access for by inviting internationally known New York Spagnoli and his Portrait Gallery support team. daguerreotypist Jerry Spagnoli to document the With a vantage point secured, the next require- occasion by means of this now-antique photo- ment was to locate a well-ventilated, non–air- graphic process. conditioned workspace in the neighborhood where As soon as Spagnoli accepted the challenge of Spagnoli could prepare the daguerreotype plates daguerreotyping the building’s south facade on and later develop them. Longtime Washington arts opening day, the search was on to secure every- supporters Molly Ruppert and her son Paul vol- thing he would need for a successful daguerrean unteered a room in their Warehouse Gallery on “shoot.” The first order of business was to find a Seventh Street that proved ideal, and it was quickly location for Spagnoli’s camera that would repli- transformed into a temporary daguerrean dark- 4 A New Daguerreotype John Plumbe made his 1846 image of the building using a correcting apparatus, which results in a true rather than a laterally reversed image. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Amy Baskette Amy Baskette Jerry Spagnoli uses a stopwatch to time his exposure. The building’s image appears inverted on the ground glass of Spagnoli’s camera. room when Spagnoli arrived in Washington. ended and the crowd surged through the museum’s After making several sample daguerreotypes to now-open doors, Spagnoli returned the final plate gauge exposure times and plate sensitivity, Spag- to its holder. With the help of a small team of NPG noli was ready to document the opening-day cer- staff members, he gathered his equipment for the emony. Daguerreotype plates must be prepared short trip to the improvised darkroom. There, he only a short time before exposure, so early that developed each plate in turn by fuming it with mer- morning Spagnoli buffed each silver-clad copper cury vapor and “fixing” it in a bath of sodium thio- plate to achieve a brilliant, blemish-free surface sulfate to prevent further reaction to light. After before sensitizing it with fumes of iodine and bro- reporting that the daguerreotypes were successful, mine. The light-sensitive plates were then placed in Spagnoli loaded his gear into his rental car for the lightproof plate holders and carried to the Hotel return trip to New York where, later that day, he fin- Monaco’s terrace, where Spagnoli’s camera was ished work on the plates in his Manhattan studio. positioned. Three of Jerry Spagnoli’s daguerreotypes, includ- As an eager crowd began forming before the red- ing the one illustrated here (page 4), have now carpeted steps of the Reynolds Center to await the entered the collection of the National Portrait Gal- start of the festivities, Spagnoli focused his camera lery, where they will serve as durable mementos of and positioned the plate holders within easy reach. a grand occasion in the life of the Gallery and in When the ceremony began at 11:15, Spagnoli went the life of this nation. to work, swiftly inserting one daguerreotype plate at a time into the camera and exposing each plate for no more than four seconds. As the ceremony A New Daguerreotype 5 Portrait of an Opening E.