Pop Quiz trivia event — Curator’s Choice!

Ready for a blast from the (recent) past? We had to cancel our last Curator’s Choice Pop Quiz night due to illness, but we’ve rescheduled it for June 12. Here’s a refresher on the theme and the bonus question.

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 be featured 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?

Dorothy Moss, associate curator of painting and sculpture, selected a portrait of poet Sylvia Plath by Rollie McKenna for 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.

Prints and Drawings curator Wendy Wick Reaves chose a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt by Charles Dana Gibson, drawn in 1898 for Scribner’s magazine just after Colonel Roosevelt came home from Cuba. Photography curator 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 Kogod Courtyard on June 12.

Here’s a sneak peek at the 10-point bonus question for this week’s Pop Quiz.

Which of these facts about Theodore Roosevelt is NOT true?
1. He held a third-degree brown belt in judo.
2. He was blind in one eye.
3. He was a member of the Freemasons.
4. He once rode a moose across a river.