National Portrait Gallery Presents Exhibition of Major Gifts “Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection”

Exhibition of Iconic Commissions Installed in Two Parts

Part I: Sept. 18–Jan. 24, 2021

Part II: Dec. 4–Jan. 24, 2021

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery presents “Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection,” revealing the results of more than 25 years of inspired collecting by Ian and Annette Cumming. Installed in two parts, the first part of the exhibition will feature a corridor of hyper-realist paintings by artist Robert McCurdy and is open to the public starting Sept. 18. Included are likenesses of Muhammad Ali, Neil Armstrong, Warren Buffett and Toni Morrison and the premiere of a promised portrait of Jane Goodall. Part two, opening Dec. 4, will include additional portraits by American artists Jack Beal, Chuck Close and Nelson Shanks. This exhibition is curated by Chief Curator Emerita Brandon Brame Fortune and will be accompanied by a limited-edition publication. Parts one and two will be on view from their respective openings until Jan. 24, 2021. “Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection” is the Portrait Gallery’s first new exhibition to open since the museum’s temporary closure.

Beginning in 1995, the Cummings worked with their friend D. Dodge Thompson to commission or acquire more than two dozen portraits of national and global leaders. The collection includes likenesses of Warren Buffett, Al Gore, Denyce Graves, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison and E.O. Wilson, all of which were created by important American artists. Twenty-two of the portraits that will be on view are gifts or promised gifts to the Portrait Gallery, among them “The Four Justices” by Shanks, an iconic group portrait featuring the women of the Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

“There is a long history of commissioning portraits for public institutions,” Fortune said. “Commissioning portraits for a personal collection, however, has become very rare. We are fortunate to receive this substantial gift of works by leading American artists and thank the Cumming family for their support of artists and their generosity toward the museum.” 

 In America’s early years, a few patrons commissioned portraits from leading artists of the day. Thomas Jefferson, for example, chose to support representations of the great heroes of the American Revolution and leaders in government, science and the arts. Today, the Cummings’ vision and enlightened patronage have resulted in portraits of figures whose work has advanced the fields of art, science and business, as well as civil rights and activism. Portraits in the exhibition span the years 1984 to 2020.