National Portrait Gallery Presents “From Shadow to Substance: Grand-Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years”

On View June 20–June 7, 2026

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will present “From Shadow to Substance: Grand Scale Portraits During Photography’s Formative Years” June 20 through June 7, 2026. Drawing from the museum’s extensive early photography collection, this exhibition traces the evolution of the grand scale, whole-plate portrait format from the high-end daguerreotype and mid-range ambrotype to the more affordable tintype. The exhibition is curated by Senior Curator of Photographs Ann Shumard.

Photographers seeking customers during the medium’s early years, from 1840 to 1860, often urged the public to “Secure the shadow ere the substance fade.” Hinting at life’s fragility, this tagline underscored photography’s ability to capture a fleeting likeness and preserve it for posterity. Portraits in the impressive whole-plate format—measuring 8 1/2 by 6 1/2 inches—were among the premier offerings of the nation’s leading photographic studios.

“This exhibition marks the first time these whole-plate daguerreotype, ambrotype and tintype portraits will be shown together at the Portrait Gallery,” Shumard said. Examples of whole plates in each of these mediums illustrate how the format evolved as new photographic processes were introduced. Featured works include daguerreotypes representing U.S. Senators Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, an ambrotype portrait of American landscape artist John Frederick Kensett and a tintype likeness of an unidentified African American woman. Also included are original advertisements issued by photographers Albert Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes, and Mathew B. Brady to promote their respective businesses. The exhibition will be presented in the Early Photography Alcove on the museum’s first floor.

On May 23, the National Portrait Gallery will display “Meserve Collection Highlights: Modern Prints from Mathew Brady’s Portrait Negatives.” The museum’s vast collection of Civil War-era portrait negatives is represented in this exhibition through nine modern prints from Mathew Brady’s original photographic negatives. Portraits of Ulysses Grant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Abraham Lincoln and Emma, Queen of Hawai’i are featured, along with an original, glass-plate negative and one of Brady’s wooden storage boxes.

In 1981, the National Portrait Gallery acquired more than 5,400 Brady studio negatives. Originally assembled as part of a larger collection by amateur historian Frederick Hill Meserve, they offer an extraordinary pictorial index of the prominent figures of the Civil War era. The exhibition will be on view through May 14, 2028.