Pop Quiz Trivia Event—Curator’s Choice!

Sadly, we must cancel tonight's Pop Quiz trivia event, as our MC extraordinaire has taken ill.The next Pop Quiz will be Thu, Apr 10. The next Pop Quiz will be Thu, Apr 10.

For this month’s Pop Quiz, we turned the reins over to our curators and historians and asked them to pick some of their favorite portraits to feature at this week’s trivia event.

Historian Amy Henderson selected a portrait of Katharine Hepburn that Hepburn called her favorite. Did you know that the Portrait Gallery also has all four of Hepburn’s Academy Award statues in the collection as well?

Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture Dorothy Moss selected a portrait of poet Sylvia Plath by Rollie McKenna because of Plath's inscrutable expression. She also picked a portrait of writer Toni Morrison by Robert McCurdy because of the way the artist caught this powerful writer's larger-than-life presence. Chief Curator Brandon Fortune picked a portrait of Thomas Ash II by Thomas Sully. It was painted in New York City, where Ash's family were successful furniture-makers.

Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings Wendy Wick Reaves chose a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt by Charles Dana Gibson (below), drawn in 1898 for Scribner’s magazine just after Colonel Roosevelt came home from Cuba. Senior Curator of Photographs Ann Shumard picked a photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. with his wife, Coretta, and their daughter Yolanda Denise, which is on currently on view in our exhibition “One Life: Martin Luther King Jr.” Stop by the “One Life” gallery to see this photograph for yourself before heading to trivia night in the courtyard!

Pop Quiz is a trivia night based on the National Portrait Gallery’s expansive collection and the unique accomplishments of our sitters. Pop Quiz can be played individually or in teams of up to six people, and the person or team with the highest score at the end of the night will take home a prize. Trivia begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard on Thursday, March 13.

Here’s a sneak peek at the ten-point bonus question for this week’s Pop Quiz.

Which of these facts about Theodore Roosevelt is NOT true?

A. He held a third-degree brown belt in judo.
B. He was blind in one eye.
C. He was a member of the Freemasons.
D. He once rode a moose across a river