Time Covers the 1960s @The National Portrait Gallery

Welcome to this week's Monday Must-See, Must-Do post. On Mondays, we offer an entry about some current exhibit, event, or dining experience in DC you should take in. Sometimes, we will write the post. Sometimes, it will be taken from another publication. But no matter who is the writer, we believe Monday Must-See, Must-Do will showcase something you shouldn't miss. 

Week in and week out, Time magazine covered the 1960s using all manner of covers created by some of the foremost artists of the day. 

A new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery featuring original cover art from the museum’s Time collection explores a selection of the major newsmakers, trends, and happenings that defined the 1960s.

Chronologically, the 1960s began with the inauguration of John F. Kennedy and ended with “one giant leap for mankind,” as Apollo 11 ferried 3 astronauts people to the moon and back.

In the intervening years, Time covered the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the escalation of the Vietnam War, civil rights, the women’s movement and cultural phenomena such as the Beatles, hippies and the sexual revolution

In addition to the artwork above, here is some more of what you will see if you visit the exhibition. Can you name them?

And if you want to recall or learn more about the 1960s, the NPG gift shop is ready for you.

There's a Big New Face on the National Mall

Welcome to this week's Monday Must-See, Must-Do post. On Mondays, we offer an entry about some current exhibit, event, or dining experience in DC you should take in. Sometimes, we will write the post. Sometimes, it will be taken from another publication. But no matter who is the writer, we believe Monday Must-See, Must-Do will showcase something you shouldn't miss. 

Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada is a big artist with big ideas. Standing a wiry 6-foot-5, he is rethinking the concept of portraiture: Instead of capturing an individual on canvas, he portrays universal man in giant “face-scapes” tilled into the ground

Born in Cuba, raised in the United States and based in Barcelona, the 48-year-old earth artist has received international renown for monumental face-scapes he’s done in Belfast, Amsterdam and two sites in Spain. Now the National Portrait Gallery has commissioned his first such work in the United States, a face-scape that will appear on the National Mall for a month, beginning October 1.

To continue reading this post, which 1st appeared in Smithsonian.Com, click here.

It's Grant vs. Lee Redux @National Portrait Gallery

To showcase one of history's most memorable rivalries, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery tasked its senior historian David C. Ward with the challenge of featuring the Civil War's two most storied generals in its "One Life" gallery. 

The one-room salon is the site where the museum's scholars have previously exhibited the portraits, letters and personal artifacts of such cultural luminaries as Ronald Reagan, Katharine Hepburn, Abraham Lincoln and Sandra Day O'Connor.

Here, the rough and tumble Ulysses S. Grant from Ohio faces off with the southern patrician Robert E. Lee. The room itself seems too small for such large personalities. The photographs, drawings and paintings depicting the lives of these two men seem to pulse with a kind of tension that recalls the horrifying 19th-century era when the country was riven, yet united behind their respective generals—Grant in the North and Lee from the South.

To continue reading this post, which 1st appeared in Smithsonian.Com, click here.

Abstract Portraiture @The National Portrait Gallery

Welcome to this week's Monday Must-Do-and-See post. On Mondays, The Prices Do DC will offer an entry about some current exhibit, event, or dining experience in DC you should take in. Sometimes, we will write the post. Sometimes, it will be taken from another publication. But no matter who is the writer, we believe it will showcase an something you shouldn't miss. 

The National Portrait Gallery’s impressive new survey of American portraits from 1945 to 1975 is based on denying what it begins by affirming: that “in mid-twentieth century America, everyone seemed to agree that portraiture was finished as a progressive art form.”

Those are the words of Wendy Wick Reaves and Brandon Brame Fortune, who with David Ward are the curators of “Face Value: Portraiture in the Age of Abstraction.”Of course, they wouldn’t have a show if notable American artists hadn’t made portraits in the era during which the form was supposedly moribund.

The Age of Abstraction, if it truly happened, didn’t last long. As Reaves and Fortune note, Larry Rivers started painting figuratively in the early 1950s, less than a decade into the period the show covers. 

To continue reading this post, which 1st appeared in The Washington Post, click here.

Cool, American-Style

What do we mean when we say someone is cool? Who are the coolest of the cool? What does it mean when a generation decides a certain figure is cool? Is coolness a constant, or does it change over time?

These are just some of the questions explored in the exhibition American Cool now on display at the National Portrait Gallery.

Exhibit curators are quick to point out that their exhibit, which includes the 1940s to the present, should be viewed as a conversation starter, not the final word on the world of cool.

In order to be included in the exhibit, the cool personifiers had to demonstrate 4 characteristics: They were:

• an original artistic vision carried off with a signature style
• a sense of cultural rebellion
• instant visual recognition and iconic power
• a recognized cultural legacy.

Using those guidelines, you get athletes like Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan, screen stars like Steve McQueen and Mae West, jazz greats like Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, journalists like H.L. Menken and Hunter Thompson, and comedians like Lenny Bruce and Jon Stewart, all of whom are among those pictured. In addition to still photos, you can also view movie clips and music videos, as well as listen to music clips from featured artists such as Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.

Can you identify this smoking cool trio?

One of the more interesting items offered for examination is the Alt 100, a list of the 100 figures who didn't make the final showing, but received strong support from members of the curating team.

But perhaps the most telling message to be taken from the captivating look into coolness is the stark portrayal of the fact that while coolness may last, the time of the possessor of the cool is definitely finite. 

A picture of actress Lauren Bacall had been featured in the exhibit since it opened. However, yesterday the curators were required to post an addition next to Bacall's picture. Now, it reads In Memoriam as Bacall had died one day earlier at the age of 89. 

If you want to check out the cool display and see how the choices there fit in with your definition of cool, you have until Sept. 7, when the exhibition is scheduled to close.

Portraiture in the Time of TV's Mad Men

Welcome to this week's Monday Must-See post. On Mondays, The Prices Do DC will offer an entry about some current exhibit in DC you should see. Sometimes, we will write the post. Sometimes, it will be taken from another publication. But no matter who is the writer, we believe it will showcase an exhibit you shouldn't miss. 

Hugh Hefner born 1926

Marisol Escobar (born 1930) 
Polychromed wood, 1966–67

In the world of television’s much-loved drama series, “Mad Men,” we enter the age of abstract expressionism. The artwork on the walls in Pete Campbell’s office, hanging in Don Draper’s dining room and dramatically staged behind Roger Sterling’s sofa all drive home the long-held conceit that at the height of the mid-century era, figurative painting, representational art and realism in all of its varieties was in steep decline.

The drips and sprays of a Jackson Pollack are born in an era defined by the Cold War, the uniformity of Levittowns,  and the cropped militaristic hairstyles and gray flannel suits of the “Organization Man.” And every week as the opening credits roll beneath that ominous melody, "Mad Men" viewers are treated to that chill tension of those times as they watch their favorite degenerates, the advertising pitch men of Madison Avenue, toss back their mid-day bourbons.

In the light of the fascination that TV audiences now have for that period, curators David C. Ward, Brandon Brame Fortune and Wendy Wick Reaves of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery have assembled a collection of artworks, depicting the human form and dating from 1945 to 1975, when the New York art world had declared, amidst the ascendency of expressionism, the death of portraiture.

To continue reading this post, which 1st appeared in Smithsonian.Com, click here.

Maya Angelou Honored @National Portrait Gallery

A portrait of the great writer Maya Angelou, who died this week, has been installed in the National Portrait Gallery.

The portrait, painted by Bulgarian-born, Atlanta-based artist Ross Rossin, is an oil-on-canvas painting and was completed in 2013 in honor of Angelou’s 86th birthday.

The painting will be on view until June 12.

In collaboration with Smithsonian colleagues from the National Museum of African Art, the Portrait Gallery hosted an event on April 5, in which both museums paid tribute to Angelou, one of the most revered poets in the United States. 

Angelou, whose eighty-sixth birthday was April 4—the day before—commented on what she considered was one of her great achievements over eight decades—patience. “You can only have patience if you have courage,” she stated, adding that “Reverend [Martin Luther] King had great patience.”

During the event at the McEvoy Auditorium in the Donald W. Reynolds Center, a portrait of Angelou by Atlanta-based artist Ross Rossin was unveiled. Assisting Portrait Gallery director Kim Sajet and NMAfA director Johnnetta Cole in the unveiling was Angelou’s friend and protégé Oprah Winfrey. Guests in attendance included actress Cicely Tyson, activist Julian Bond, and former ambassador Andrew Young.

To continue reading Angelou's thoughts at the time of the ceremony about her life, which 1st appeared in the Face to Face blog of the Portrait Gallery, click here. 

American Cool @National Portrait Gallery

Welcome to our 1st Monday Must-See post. On Mondays, we will offer an entry about some current exhibit in DC you should see. Sometimes, we will write the post. Sometimes, it will be taken from another publication. But no matter who is the writer, we believe it will showcase an exhibit you shouldn't miss. 

Cultural concepts are always fuzzy, but that doesn’t make them useless. We may never know the exact beginning or end of Romanticism or the Gilded Age, or where lies the line between art and entertainment, or what distinguishes great talent from genius. But that doesn’t make those concepts hollow, just fluid and approximate.

A new entertaining and insightful exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery confronts one of the most dynamic and hard to define concepts in American cultural life — the cool. “American Cool” broaches its subject through photographs of people who helped define and embody the cool since before the idea had even taken definite form, to the current day when it is highly questionable if the “cool” is still meaningful. 

If you want to continue reading this article by Philip Kenicott which 1st appeared in The Washington Post, click here.

Face to Face with March Madness

DC's Smithsonian museums (there are 17 of them here in the city) are among America's most treasured and visited places. But the Smithsonian also publishes a series of some of the most interesting, fact-filled blogs appearing anywhere on the internet. Each Sunday, The Prices Do DC re-posts an entry that initially appeared in one of those highly-readable blogs. Hope you enjoy and maybe we'll see you soon at the Smithsonian.

It is difficult to find a part of the American experience not represented by portraiture. In most every athletic, cultural, and political discipline, there is a figure who has made some contribution to increase the span of that discipline’s endeavors.

College basketball is no different. When the National Collegiate Athletic Association puts forth its selection of tournament teams each March, work stops and conversation turns to “bracketology,” or—as some would say—the science of picking the final four teams out of the field of sixty-eight, and ultimately, picking the national champion.

The National Portrait Gallery has its own Final Four tribute in the form of four portraits of individuals who made significant contributions to college basketball: John Wooden, coach, UCLA; Michael Jordan, guard, North Carolina; Earvin “Magic” Johnson, point guard, Michigan State; Larry Bird, forward, Indiana State.

To continue reading this post, which first appeared in FaceToFace, a blog from the National Portrait Gallery, click here.

Smithsonian Sunday: Beyonce Bounced from Cool Category

DC's Smithsonian museums (there are 17 of them here in the city) are among America's most treasured and visited places. But the Smithsonian also publishes a series of some of the most interesting, fact-filled blogs appearing anywhere on the internet. Each Sunday, The Prices Do DC re-posts an entry that initially appeared in one of those highly-readable blogs. Hope you enjoy and maybe we'll see you soon at the Smithsonian.

Beyonce: Cool or not?

Everyone knows what "cool" looks like. It’s a pair of legs encased in worn jeans, slung over the sides of a Harley. A cigarette rimmed with red lipstick. The dark tint of a jazz musician’s sunglasses, which he wears onstage–at night–as his saxophone cuts through the din of a smoky club.

The term, which was first coined in the 1940s by Lester Young, the lead saxophonist in Count Basie's orchestra, has become ubiquitous in today’s slang. It’s also grown nebulous, conveying everything from a sign of explicit approval–“Cool!”–to an object’s cultural cache. But what makes a person... cool? 

Together, Frank Goodyear, a curator of photography and co-director of the Bowdoin Museum of Art, and Joel Dinerstein, a professor at Tulane University, have tried to answer that question. “American Cool,” an exhibition that the two co-curated at the National Portrait Gallery, is a collection of 100 photographs of men and women who’ve exemplified “cool” throughout history.

“When we use the word cool today, especially as an adjective, we’re tending to refer to something rather than someone,” says Goodyear. “What do we mean when we say someone is cool?’”

To continue reading this post, click here.

Looking Back at a March for Freedom and Its Leader

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Strength of Love" - 1961

Obviously, with the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech occurring next month, it stands to reason that there would be quite a focus in DC this summer on Dr. King and that historic August day.

But in light of recent events such as the Supreme's Court decision negating the Voting Act of 1965 and this past weekend's verdict in the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin, the spirit of those 250,000 Civil Rights marchers and Dr. King's words have taken on added poignancy and a renewed sense of urgency.

One way to experience the panoply of Dr. King's powerful messages is to visit the One Life: Martin Luther King exhibition now on display at the National Portrait Gallery.

The exhibit, which will run until June 1 of next year, features photos from all stages of Dr. King's life from his leadership of the 1955 Alabama bus boycott that began the American Civil Rights Movement to his tragic assassination in Memphis in 1968.

However, one of the most interesting displays is devoted to items from the Washington March, officially named the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In addition to the official button pictured here those items include: pictures of the day, a pledge card asking participants for "their complete and personal commitment to the struggle for Jobs and Freedom for all Americans", the day's official program with a schedule, objectives, and march map, and an advance pamphlet listing do's and don'ts for the day.

In the days and weeks to come, many will be questioning how far we have come toward realizing the dream of racial equality King magnificently outlined that day. But no matter what happens next, we would all be wise to remember this reminder from Dr. King: "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline . . . . Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
Although the pictorial focus is on Dr. King, visitors will also get to see some of the key figures of the Civil Rights era including:

• Rosa Parks
• Rev. Ralph Abernathy
• President Lyndon Johnson
• Andrew Young and
• Dr. Benjamin Spock

Mr. Time

They called him Mr. Time. For 3 decades, from 1942 to 1970, whenever the editors of Time magazine needed a cover picture in a hurry, they would turn to Russian-born artist Boris Chaliapin.

In a time before photographs were used for Time covers, Chaliapin could execute a creative lifelike portrait in 12 hours, which was essential for breaking news. For more routine stories, he could produce art in 3 days, where other artists required a week or more.

During his career, Chaliapin produced 413 covers. While given the gender politics of the era, most of Chaliapin's subjects were males, he especially excelled in female cover portraits. The painter said beauty went hand-in-hand with his concept of creating "impressions of his cover subjects rather than to portray them in minute detail."

TV Western Heroes - March 30, 1957

New York World's Fair - June 5, 1964

Currently, 26 of Chaliapin's renditions are on display at the National Portrait Gallery . The displayed pieces are part of that institution's collection of more than 2,000 works of original cover art.

While circumstances necessitated his working mostly from photographs, Chaliapin preferred live sittings. He became the most popular of all of Time's stable of artists. However, not all of his work made the cover. Here are 2 examples of paintings that didn't.

1947 - Stan Musial

1970 - Crime in the Streets

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
If you want to see the 26 art works by Chaliapin, the exhibition will continue until January 5th.