National Portrait Gallery Announces Upcoming Exhibitions Winter through Fall 2023

I Dream a World: Selections from Brian Lanker’s Portraits of Remarkable Black Women

Part II: Feb. 10–Sept. 10, 2023
Part I: On view through Jan. 29, 2023

Beginning Feb. 10, 2023, the museum will present a second group of portraits from Brian Lanker’s 1989 book project “I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America.” The Portrait Gallery recently acquired all 75 portraits from the Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer’s series and is celebrating the acquisition with a two-part exhibition. Like the first installation, the second features portraits of women who have made significant contributions to the arts, activism, literature, politics, and sports, among other disciplines. Subjects include portraits of Althea Gibson, Odetta, Cicely Tyson and Oprah Winfrey. “I Dream a World” is co-curated by Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs, and Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, former senior historian and director of history, research and scholarly programs. Part II will be on view from Feb. 10, 2023, through Sept. 10, 2023.

1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions

April 28, 2023–Feb. 25, 2024

On the 125th anniversary of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Philippine War, “1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions” is the first exhibition to examine this pivotal period through the lens of portraiture and visual culture. The year 1898 witnessed the United States become an empire with overseas territories, and by placing portraits of U.S. expansionists in dialogue with portraits of those who dissented. This exhibition revisits this important period of history through multifaceted viewpoints. With more than 90 artworks from collections in Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, Spain, and the United States, “1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions” illuminates the complications and consequences of the Spanish-American War (1898), the Congressional Joint Resolution to annex Hawai‘i (July 1898), and the Philippine-American War (1899–1913).

On view from April 28, 2023, through Feb. 25, 2024, “1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions” is curated by Taína Caragol, curator of painting and sculpture and Latino art and history, and Kate Clarke Lemay, historian, with Carolina Maestre, Latino curatorial assistant. The exhibition will be accompanied by a major multi-author catalogue entitled “1898: Visual Culture and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific,” co-published by Princeton University Press.

One Life: Frederick Douglass

June 16, 2023–April 21, 2024

“One Life: Frederick Douglass” illuminates the legacy of one of the 19th century’s most influential writers, speakers and intellectuals through prints, photographs and ephemera. After escaping slavery in 1838, Douglass published three autobiographies and a novella, delivered thousands of speeches, and edited the longest continually running Black newspaper of the 19th century. Always a radical activist, Douglass devoted his life to abolitionism and “all rights for all.”  A political insider and policy influencer during the Civil War, he befriended and advised President Lincoln. Crucially, Douglass changed traditional rules of representation by explaining how “true art” (as opposed to insidious caricatures) could be an engine of social change. “One Life: Frederick Douglass” is guest curated by John Stauffer, the Sumner R. and Marshall S. Kates Professor of English and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. “One Life: Frederick Douglass” will be on view from June 16, 2023, through April 21, 2024.

Duty, Honor, Country: Antebellum Portraits of West Pointers

June 23, 2023–June 9, 2024

In the years leading up to the Civil War, the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, emerged as a vital training ground for men who built the nation’s infrastructure, played decisive roles in its military campaigns and took part in its political life. Drawn exclusively from the Portrait Gallery’s collection of daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes, this exhibition features early camera portraits of individuals such as Ulysses S. Grant, George Armstrong Custer, John Pelham, “Stonewall” Jackson and Gouverneur Kemble Warren. The course of these men’s lives and careers was shaped by their education at West Point. “Duty, Honor, Country” is curated by Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs, and will be on view June 23, 2023, through June 9, 2024.

Forces of Nature: Voices that Shaped Environmentalism

Oct. 20, 2023–Sept. 2, 2024

“Forces of Nature: Voices that Shaped Environmentalism” presents some of the key people—scientists, politicians, activists, writers and artists—whose work has influenced attitudes toward the environment in the United States from the late 19th century until today. The exhibition traces a history of the movement from turn-of-the-20th-century conservationism to mid-20th-century environmentalism and its backlash to present-day action on environmental justice, biodiversity and climate. Drawing mainly from the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, “Forces of Nature: Voices that Shaped Environmentalism” features more than 25 portraits of people who made an enduring impact on public perceptions of the natural world, including well-known figures Rachel Carson, George Washington Carver, Maya Lin, Henry David Thoreau and Edward O. Wilson. The exhibition will bring together portraiture, visual biography and, when possible, the sitters’ own words to probe this important—and complicated—history. “Forces of Nature: Voices that Shaped Environmentalism” is guest curated by Lacey Baradel, science historian at the National Science Foundation, and will be on view Oct. 20, 2023, through Sept. 2, 2024.

Additional Spring and Summer Exhibitions

Kinship
On view through Jan. 7, 2024

Portrait of a Nation: 2022 Honorees
On view through Oct. 22, 2023

Out of Many: Portraits from 1600 to 1900
Ongoing

Powerful Partnerships: Civil War-Era Couples
On view through May 18, 2025

Family Ties: Daguerreotype Portraits

On view through June 11, 2023