Fact Sheet: One Life

Media only:  Concetta Duncan  (202) 633-9989, duncanc@si.edu 
                      Gabrielle Obusek (202) 633-8299, obusekge@si.edu

Summary

The National Portrait Gallery dedicates one full gallery to the biography of a single figure, offering deep scholarship and a chance to showcase different aspects of the person’s life through a wide range of paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, media art and performance. Since 2006, the museum’s series of “One Life” exhibitions have focused on the lives and influences of:

July 1, 2006    –    March 11, 2007     One Life: Walt Whitman, a kosmos

March 30, 2007  –  Oct. 8, 2007         Portraits of Sandra Day O’Connor

Nov. 2, 2007   –    Sept. 28, 2008       One Life: Katharine Hepburn

Nov. 7, 2008   –    July 5, 2009          One Life: The Mask of Lincoln

Aug. 7, 2009   –    Nov. 29, 2009       One Life: Thomas Paine, The Radical Founding Father

Jan. 8, 2010     –    Aug. 29, 2010       One Life: Echoes of Elvis

Oct. 1, 2010    –    May 30, 2011        One Life: Katharine Graham

July 1, 2011    –    May 28, 2012        One Life: Ronald Reagan

June 29, 2012  –    May 27, 2013        One Life: Amelia Earhart

June 28, 2013  –    June 1, 2014          One Life: Martin Luther King Jr.

July 4, 2014    –    May 5, 2015          One Life: Grant and Lee: “It is well that war is so terrible...”

July 3, 2015    –    May 15, 2016        One Life: Dolores Huerta

June 24, 2016  –    May 21, 2017        One Life: Babe Ruth

June 30, 2017  –    May 20, 2018        One Life: Sylvia Plath

June 29, 2018  –    May 19, 2019        One Year: 1968, An American Odyssey

June 28, 2019  –    May 17, 2020        One Life: Marian Anderson

Sep. 30, 2022  –    April 16, 2023       One Life: Maya Lin

June 16, 2023  –    April 21, 2024       One Life: Frederick Douglass

National Portrait Gallery

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the multifaceted story of the United States through the individuals who have shaped American culture. Spanning the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the nation’s story.                    

The National Portrait Gallery is located at Eighth and G streets N.W., Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Information: (202) 633-1000. Connect with the museum at npg.si.edu and on Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.  

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