Highlighting the depth of the National Portrait Gallery’s early photography collection, this exhibition will showcase fourteen daguerreotypes—two portraits each—of seven subjects: George Bancroft, Jenny Lind, Zachary Taylor, Frederick Douglass, Jefferson Davis, Daniel Webster, and John Quincy Adams.

This exhibition revealed Viola’s constant, yet previously unrecognized, thematic interest in portraiture. “Bill Viola and the Moving Portrait” offered a selection of Viola’s works that focused on the face and the body, using his signature metaphors of water, light and spirituality.

Image:  Three Women / Bill Viola / 2008, Color High-Definition video on plasma display mounted vertically on wall / 9:06 minutes / Bill Viola Studio / Performers: Anika, Cornelia, Helena Ballent / © Bill Viola