PORTRAITS

After having to destroy her family pictures during the Cultural Revolution in China, artist Hung Liu treasures old photographs all the more. In fact, they’re foundational to her work. She has described her portraits like a memorial site for people forgotten to history-- comfort women, farm workers, refugees. As the Gallery launches a retrospective of her artwork, we trace Hung's life through some...

These last few weeks brought jolting discoveries at residential schools in Canada— unmarked grave sites thought to contain the remains of hundreds of Indigenous children who went missing. The news was a visceral reminder that systemic racism and discrimination can literally bury the past. So we decided to revisit an episode about a woman who— unlike so many Indigenous people of her time— was celeb...

Dr. Ellen Stofan is a planetary geologist who has spent a lot of time looking up at the stars and thinking about life outside our planet. But in this episode, she talks with Kim about the portraits of some of her favorite earth dwellers. Among the trailblazers she highlights: a judge who fought for women's rights and a marine biologist who challenged the way we see ourselves in relation to the nat...

The 1862 painting "Men of Progress" depicts a group of inventors credited with "altering the course of contemporary civilization.” Between them, they found more efficient ways to sew clothing, harvest crops and even send telegraph messages. In fact, the Smithsonian’s first secretary stands in the middle. But as cultural anthropologist Richard Kurin notes, many people have been left out of this tab...

Phillis Wheatley was a literary superstar around the time of the American Revolutionary War— a distinction she notched up while writing in bondage. But she never wrote an account of her own experiences, and there are gaps in her story. The Gallery’s Ashleigh Coren and writer Honorée Jeffers ask us to re-imagine her life, drawn in poetry. See Wheatley’s portrait here .

When the early photographer William Mumler developed his glass plates, he sometimes found a ghost had slipped into the picture. Was he a fraud? A medium? A grief counselor? Author and curator Peter Manseau explains how Mumler found himself at the crossroads of an emerging technology, and a wave of grief for those lost during the Civil War, and how his spirit photography eventually landed him in co...

Choreographer-in-Residence Dana Tai Soon Burgess traces his ‘hyphenated’ background— a journey that begins on a boat from Korea, disembarks at a Hawaiian pineapple plantation, meanders through Latino culture, and then arrives at a martial arts class in New Mexico… organized by Tibetan monks. Dana also discusses the hyphenated artists featured in two of his favorite portraits at the Gallery. Both w...

Author Rick Atkinson brings to life two men who played outsized roles during the founding of the United States— one a rich slave trader, the other a pamphleteer who died penniless. They both stood for liberty and equality, but their stories illustrate how the democratic ideals written into the Declaration of Independence often clash with historical reality. See the portraits we discuss: Thomas Pai...

We look at the portraits on our money— the little history lessons we carry around in our pockets. But with such a limited array of people featured, what do our banknotes say about us? First up, curator Ellen Feingold takes us on a tour of our money’s vibrant early designs, including images of children, beloved pets, and George Washington in a toga. Then former Treasurer Rosie Rios tells us how she...

As the National Portrait Gallery works on its latest commission -- an official portrait of former President Donald Trump -- we take a spin through the ‘America’s Presidents’ exhibition . This episode draws back the curtain on earlier commissions that have drawn controversy and acclaim: a portrait of Bill Clinton with a shadow of scandal painted into it, and the Obama portraits that transformed the...

Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, draws back the curtain on the artwork that tells the story of the United States— from a presidential portrait with a shadow of scandal hanging over it, to a $3 bill featuring George Washington in a toga. Tune in starting March 23 as Kim chats with historians, journalists and educators to reveal key American figures as the flawed, complex, and a...

Operatic soprano Renée Fleming has been called ‘the people’s diva,’ performing at key moments in our nation’s story, like when she sang at ground zero after 9/11. For this special episode, she talks with Kim about how music can help us mourn, heal, and celebrate as we send off a particularly tough 2020 and nestle into the holidays. She also describes a few portraits that hold special meaning for h...

Born just two years after the abolition of slavery, Madam C.J. Walker built a business empire by marketing her homemade haircare formula to the black community. Along the way, she became the United States’ first female self-made millionaire. Our guests, Janine Sherman Barrois and Elle Johnson, helped bring Walker’s story to millions of viewers in the Netflix limited series, “Self Made.” They discu...

We look at a black and white photograph that encapsulates a very American story— about the magic that can happen when you throw together people from different backgrounds and languages and… beats. The concoction that resulted is known as Latin Boogaloo. Eduardo Díaz, director of the Smithsonian Latino Center, explains how one of the genre’s pioneers, Joe Bataan, got his degree in ‘streetology’ and...

The sitter was rapper LL Cool J. The artist was Kehinde Wiley, who's made a name for himself by portraying African American men and women in regal poses taken from art history. In this episode, LL Cool J recounts what happened when they met, and why he turned to a 100-year-old masterpiece depicting the richest person in modern history-- John D. Rockefeller Sr.-- for his power pose. He also discuss...

As a portrait artist, Robert McCurdy has painted some of the most famous and visionary people of our time-- the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison. But first he tells them, "It's not about you." The goal, he says, is to create a photorealistic image with no expression and no implied past or future, so the viewer and the subject can simply encounter one another. The true subject, he says, is...

After 'walking away' from slavery, abolitionist Sojourner Truth chose her own name, told her own story at speaking engagements, and sued for her young son's freedom. (She won.) The Gallery’s senior historian, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, says there’s something else she took control of— her portrait. You can see the carte de visite we discuss here: https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.79.209

It commands attention among the more sober portraits in the Presidents’ gallery, interrupting a room of men in dark suits with an explosion of green and gold. Chief curator Brandon Fortune recounts the tragic backstory behind this standout portrait of President John F. Kennedy by one of the few women who gained a foothold in the abstract expressionist movement— Elaine de Kooning. You can see de Ko...

Ruben Salazar was one of the first Latinx journalists to rise through the ranks of a major U.S. newspaper. Initially, he was careful to avoid being pigeonholed as a reporter on minority issues, but eventually he became known for digging into stories about police brutality and racial profiling— subjects also championed by the Chicano Movement. Curator Taína Caragol takes us through his life, frame...

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and film director Kasi Lemmons love Harriet Tubman, but they weren't in love with her portrait as an older woman in a heavy dark dress. Then Hayden got a call. See the photographs we talk about here: https://npg.si.edu/podcasts/harriet-tubman

In the first of our ‘social distancing’ episodes, educator Briana Zavadil White takes us to stand in front of one of her favorite paintings at the National Portrait Gallery. It commemorates a brutal boxing match that was fought 100 years ago, but Briana brings it alive… from the sound of the bell, to the smell of popcorn, to the sweltering heat. See the portraits discussed on our website : https:/...

Long before Coronavirus upended our lives, Will Rogers saw the United States through another difficult and divisive time. The good-humored cowboy is perhaps best remembered for his movies, but he was also a prolific social commentator who managed to cross divides with his comedic wit… and also advocated for those hardest hit by the Great Depression. Check out the portraits we discussed on our webs...

Why was it so startling to find a photograph of Harriet Tubman as a young woman? Why did Elaine de Kooning stop painting after the assassination of John F. Kennedy? We offer a series of virtual visits to the National Portrait Gallery for all our listeners forced to hunker down during the coronavirus pandemic. Join museum director Kim Sajet as she chats with curators and educators about their favor...

Hugo Crosthwaite, winner of the 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, traces his artistic influences to his parents' curio shop in Tijuana, where statues of Aztec gods co-existed with Bart Simpson. Fast-forward to his winning entry, and he walks us through the first scene of his stunning stop-motion drawing animation about a woman who crosses the border from Mexico into the United States. Yo...

Ann Shumard, the Gallery's senior curator of photographs, narrates the stories of Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Belle Boyd-- Civil War spies whose images were circulated in a popular photographic format called a carte de visite . Check out the portraits we discussed in this episode on our website: https://npg.si.edu/podcasts/behind-enemy-lines