Advance Exhibition Calendar for 2020 (Updated) - Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery

Note to editors: Upon request, select high-resolution images are available for publicity. Additional information is available via the museum’s online press room. To ensure accuracy, contact the National Portrait Gallery’s press office before publishing the information provided in this schedule.

 

John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal

Feb. 28–May 31, 2020 

In 1907, at the height of his success as a portraitist, John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) astonished the transatlantic art world when he stopped painting portraits in oil. Afterwards, he switched to charcoal, producing several hundred portraits of individuals recognized for their accomplishments in fields such as art, music, literature and theater. “John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal” will be the first exhibition of Sargent’s portrait drawings in over fifty years. This once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of master drawings—many of them from private collections and rarely exhibited—features compelling depictions of an international network of trailblazing men and women who helped define twentieth-century Anglo-American culture.

This exhibition is organized by the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., and the Morgan Library & Museum, New York. The presentation of the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is made possible with lead funding from Ann S. and Samuel M. Mencoff. Additional support is provided by Dr. and Mrs. Paul Carter, Andrew Oliver Jr. and the American Portrait Gala Endowment. Richard Ormond is guest curator of the exhibition. The curator of the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is Robyn Asleson, Curator of Prints and Drawings. The curator of the exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum is Laurel O. Peterson, Moore Curatorial Fellow, Department of Drawings and Prints.

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue produced by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, and the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, in association with D Giles Limited.

 

Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection

April 24, 2020–Jan. 18, 2021

This exhibition reveals the results of over twenty-five years of inspired collecting by Ian and Annette Cumming.  Beginning in 1995, the Cummings worked with their friend D. Dodge Thompson to commission or acquire over two dozen portraits. Important American artists, such as Chuck Close, Robert McCurdy and Nelson Shanks, created these likenesses of national and global leaders. Sitters include Warren Buffett, Al Gore, Denyce Graves, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison and E. O. Wilson. Twenty-two of these portraits are gifts or promised gifts to the Portrait Gallery, including The Four Justices by Nelson Shanks, an iconic group portrait featuring the women of the Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. “Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection” celebrates this major acquisition of contemporary portraits.

 

“Warranted to Give Satisfaction”: Daguerreotypes by Jeremiah Gurney

June 12, 2020–June 6, 2021

In 1840, Jeremiah Gurney abandoned his career as a jeweler to establish one of New York City’s first daguerreotype studios. Despite vigorous competition from rivals such as Mathew Brady, Gurney soon developed his reputation as a leading camera artist whose works were “nearer to absolute perfection” than those of other daguerreotypists. Widely admired for the beautiful, hand-tinted images produced in his studio, Gurney continued to make daguerreotypes until the latter half of the 1850s, when he began transitioning to paper print photography. This exhibition will feature a selection of daguerreotype portraits by Gurney from the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, alongside works from several private collections. This exhibition is curated by Senior Curator of Photographs Ann Shumard.

 

One Life: Will Rogers

June 26, 2020–May 16, 2021      

Humorist Will Rogers was an American original whose insightful commentary and humor were surpassed only by his generosity of self and inestimable goodwill. Born in 1879 in Indian Territory in what became the state of Oklahoma, he was of Native American descent and always proud of his Cherokee ancestry. His career in vaudeville, Hollywood and journalism won him many hearts across the country. Although his talents evolved from unerring cowboy with a lasso to syndicated columnist to popular movie star, Rogers was always himself—plainspoken, honest and funny. His enduring legacy survives in a wide array of media, including painted portraits, engaging sculpture, a plethora of caricatures, movie paraphernalia, photographs and film. This exhibition is curated by Historian James Barber. Since 2006, the museum has held seventeen exhibitions in the series “One Life,” which is dedicated to the biography of a single figure.

 

Her Story: A Century of Women Writers

July 10, 2020–Jan. 10, 2021

Everyone loves a good story. “Her Story: A Century of Women Writers” will highlight over 20 noted women writers from the last one hundred years who are represented in the Portrait Gallery’s collection. The authors featured have collectively won every literary award there is, and many of their titles have become classics of American literature. Pulitzer Prize winners alone include Jhumpa Lahiri, Marilynne Robinson, Anne Tyler, Alice Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks. The latter was the first African American writer to win a Pulitzer and the first black woman elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Another winner, the late Toni Morrison, also received the Nobel Prize for Literature. This exhibition, curated by Portrait Gallery Historian James Barber, is part of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative, “Because of Her Story.”

 

Recent Acquisitions: Corcoran Gift Installation

Oct. 9, 2020–Oct. 24, 2021 

The Portrait Gallery will dedicate its upcoming exhibition of recent acquisitions to gifts from the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s collection. Following the Corcoran’s closure in 2014, the Portrait Gallery received 80 works from the country’s first private museum. This exhibition will present more than 25 gifted works, including portraits of cultural figures Louis Armstrong, Katharine Graham and Frida Kahlo; presidents James Madison and Zachary Taylor; and the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Henry.

 

Looking Ahead

 

Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands, 1968-2020

May 21, 2021–Jan. 9, 2022

The National Portrait Gallery will present the first major large-scale retrospective of work by Hung Liu, the internationally acclaimed Chinese-born American artist. “Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands, 1968-2020” will feature more than 50 artworks spanning Liu’s time in Maoist China in the 1960s, her immigration to California in the 1980s, and the height of her career today. Having lived through wars, political revolutions, exile and displacement, Liu presents a complex, multifaceted picture of an Asian Pacific American experience. Her portraits offer a personal yet universal look at themes of feminism, history and personal memory, migration and immigration, and the freedom of self-expression. This is the first time the museum will celebrate an Asian American woman with a solo exhibition. The exhibition’s opening coincides with Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2021.

 

Special Exhibitions Currently on View

On view through March 8, 2020         In Mid-Sentence

On view through May 17, 2020          One Life: Marian Anderson

On view through May 31, 2020          Women of Progress: Early Camera Portraits

On view through March 20, 2022       Storied Women of the Civil War Era

On view through Aug. 30, 2020         The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today

On view through Aug. 30, 2020         Recent Acquisitions

On view through Oct. 12, 2020          Portraits of the World: Denmark