Painting Nostalgia: Jewish Portraits at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Tuesday, Sept.. 20 | Online via Zoom

In the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston are three compelling portraits of Jewish sitters. Although painted by different artists and in different contexts, "The Talmudist" by Jacob Binder, "Hannah" by Isidor Kaufmann, and "Jewish Man Reading" by Edouard Brandon share an often-neglected common trait: they were all made by Jewish artists who found success in wider, secular society through other subjects and genres. What drew these cosmopolitan, secular artists to deeply traditional Jewish sitters and scenes? How did depictions of Jewish life fit into their broader production? What do these works tell us about the journey of Jewish artists working in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Discover the answers to these questions and more with our guest, Simona Di Nepi, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Curator of Judaica, MFA Boston, as she traces the stories of these portraits and the artists who created them.

This program was moderated by Kate Clarke Lemay, acting senior historian at the National Portrait Gallery

New Approaches to Representing Women in Science

March 22, 2022

A dialogue between historians of science Leila McNeill and Anna Reser, co-founders of the independent magazine “Lady Science” and co-authors of “Forces of Nature: The Women Who Changed Science,” and Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, a multidisciplinary artist known for portraiture projects, including “Beyond Curie.” Lacey Baradel, science historian at the National Portrait Gallery, moderated the conversation.

José María Mora, Napoleon Sarony, and the Migrant Surround in American Portrait Photography

Tuesday, Jan. 25, 5 p.m. ET

This presentation considers how the spaces of photographic portrait studios were constructed to facilitate the performance of diverse American identities during the late nineteenth century. José María Mora, a Cuban-born U.S. photographer, and his mentor Napoleon Sarony, a native French speaker born in Quebec, rose to prominence during the Gilded Age for staging lush portrait tableaus that deployed hand-painted backdrops and richly theatrical studio effects. Conventionally, the vivid artifice of their work has been connected to the commercial excesses of the period. Deeper consideration of both photographers’ immigrant status, however, helps illuminate how publicly circulated portraiture participated in the renegotiation of national types at an historical moment when more than 12 million new arrivals to the United States were reinventing and revitalizing what it meant to be American.

Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West with author Lauren Redniss

November 16
Presented by Lauren Redniss, artist, author, MacArthur fellow, and associate professor at the Parsons School of Design. Sharyl Pahe-Short, visitor services manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, will moderate the Q & A. 

In this presentation, Lauren Redniss will explore the ongoing Oak Flat controversy and examine its place in the history of Indigenous land expropriation in the United States.

Portraits of Promised Lands: In Conversation with Ying-chen Peng and Philip Tinari

Tuesday, Sept. 21
A dialogue between Philip Tinari, director and CEO of the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, and Ying-chen Peng, assistant professor in the department of art at American University. Dorothy Moss, curator of painting and sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery and coordinating curator for the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative moderated the conversation.

This conversation focused on Hung Liu's artistic journey, and explored her approach to portraiture in the context of Chinese historical and contemporary art.

Enduring Images: Enslaved People and Photography in the Antebellum South 

Tuesday, May 11
Presented by Matthew Fox-Amato, Assistant Professor of History, University of Idaho 

From the 1840s to the end of the Civil War, some enslaved people paid to have their photographs taken and then used these portraits to shape their identities and social ties. 

Native American Women and the Politics of Portraiture at the Turn of the 20th Century

March 2, 2021: Presented by Cathleen D. Cahill, Associate Professor of History, Penn State University, with a Q & A moderated by Cécile R. Ganteaume, curator, National Museum of the American Indian.

This presentation explores how two Native American activists, Marie Bottineau Baldwin (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) and Gertrude Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Ša (Yankton Dakota), strategically used self-presentation–especially clothing and portraiture–to change public opinion about Native communities in their fight for political rights.

IDENTIFY: Lee Mingwei and Birita Poulsen with Leslie Ureña  

On Tuesday September 1, 2020, Portrait Gallery curator Leslie Ureña interviewed artist Lee Mingwei and vocalist Birita Poulsen about the transnational aspect of Lee's work and the impact of the pandemic on performance art. Lee Mingwei’s Sonic Blossom (2013–present) was presented as part of the Portrait Gallery’s IDENTIFY performance art series in 2018. Birita Poulsen will performed Invitation for Dawn (2020), a sister project of Sonic Blossom developed by Lee that made it possible for one-to-one encounters between participants and performers online via Zoom.

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IDENTIFY: Jeffrey Gibson and María Magdalena Campos-Pons with Dorothy Moss 

On July 7, 2020, Portrait Gallery curator Dorothy Moss joined in conversation with artists María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Jeffrey Gibson to discuss issues of identity and strategies for reinserting BIPOC histories into museum spaces through live performance and object making.

Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence held on April 18, 2019

Keynote lecture by Lisa Tetrault, PhD, Carnegie Mellon University “Persistence, Resistance, & Framing the Nineteenth Amendment”