National Portrait Gallery (United States)
Encyclopedia
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...

 in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, administered by the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.

Building

It resides in the National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

ed Old Patent Office Building
Old Patent Office Building
The historic Old Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C. covers an entire city block defined by F and G Streets and 7th and 9th Streets NW in Chinatown. After undergoing extensive renovations, the building reopened on July 1, 2006 and was renamed The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art...

 (now renamed the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture), located just south of Chinatown
Chinatown, Washington, D.C.
Chinatown in Washington, D.C., is a small, historic neighborhood east of downtown consisting of about 20 ethnic Chinese and other Asian restaurants and small businesses along H and I Streets between 5th and 8th Streets, Northwest. It is known for its annual Chinese New Year festival and parade and...

 in the Penn Quarter
Penn Quarter, Washington, D.C.
Penn Quarter is a neighborhood in the East End of Downtown Washington, D.C. north of Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. Its boundaries are not well established, but they appear to extend to 5th and 10th streets NW on the east and west, and approximately H Street on the north where Penn Quarter abuts or...

 district of downtown Washington. The third oldest federal building in the city, constructed between 1836 and 1867, the marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

 and granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

 has portico
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...

es modeled after the Parthenon
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although...

 in Athens, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

.

The building was used as a hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

 during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...

 worked there and used his experiences as a basis for The Wound Dresser. The Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...

 moved into the building after the war ended. Whitman worked as a clerk for the bureau until 1867, when he was fired after a manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 of Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman . Though the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death...

was found in his desk.

It was spared from demolition by President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Dwight Eisenhower in 1958, and given to the Smithsonian, which renovated the structure and opened the National Museum of American Art (later renamed the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...

) and National Portrait Gallery there in 1968.

It is the namesake
Namesake
Namesake is a term used to characterize a person, place, thing, quality, action, state, or idea that has the same, or a similar, name to another....

 for the Gallery Place Washington Metro
Washington Metro
The Washington Metro, commonly called Metro, and unofficially Metrorail, is the rapid transit system in Washington, D.C., United States, and its surrounding suburbs. It is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority , which also operates Metrobus service under the Metro name...

 station, located across the intersection of F and 8th Streets, Northwest.

Collection

Hallmarks of the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection include the famous "Lansdowne" portrait
Lansdowne portrait
The Lansdowne portrait is an iconic oil-on-canvas portrait of George Washington, the first President of the United States. The portrait was commissioned in April 1796 by Senator William Bingham of Pennsylvania—one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. at the time—and his wife, Anne...

 of George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

; the Hall of Presidents; and its extensive selection of portraits of remarkable Americans from all walks of life. Since its reopening on July 1, 2006, the Portrait Gallery has also focused on contemporary portraiture in its "Portraiture Now" series, and in its triennial contemporary portrait competition, the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.

Renovation

The National Portrait Gallery was closed for extensive renovations and expansion in January 2000; it reopened on July 1, 2006. The renovated museum includes a new, glass-enclosed courtyard designed by Foster + Partners, the architecture firm of renowned architect Norman Foster.

Hide/Seek controversy

After complaints, and consultation with Gallery director Martin Sullivan and co-curator David C. Ward but not with co-curator Jonathan David Katz, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough
G. Wayne Clough
Gerald Wayne Clough is President Emeritus of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, a position he has held since July 2008...

 pulled down a video artwork "A Fire in My Belly", by artist David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s.-Biography:...

, part of an exhibit "Hide/Seek". The video contains a scene with a crucifix covered in ants. William Donohue of the Catholic League
Catholic League (U.S.)
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, often shortened to the Catholic League, is an American Catholic anti-defamation and civil rights organization...

 claimed the work was "hate speech", against Catholics. The curator David C. Ward said: "It is not anti-religion or sacrilegious. It is a powerful use of imagery".
Gay historian Jonathan Ned Katz
Jonathan Ned Katz
Jonathan Ned Katz is an American historian of human sexuality who has focused on same-sex attraction and changes in the social organization of sexuality over time...

 wrote:
In 1989 Senator Jesse Helms
Jesse Helms
Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001...

 demonized Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...

's sexuality, and by extension, his art, and with little effort pulled a cowering art world to its knees. His weapon was threatening to disrupt the already pitiful federal support for the arts. and once again, that same weapon is being brandished, and once again we cower.


On December 2, 2010, protesters against the censorship marched from the Transformer Gallery, to the National Portrait Gallery. The art work was projected on the building.
On December 5, Michael Blasenstein and Michael Dax Iacovone were detained and barred from the gallery for holding leaflets.
On December 9, National Portrait Gallery Commissioner James T. Bartlett resigned in protest. The Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

 Foundation, who supported the exhibit, plans to cease funding future Smithsonian exhibits. The artist A. A. Bronson sought to withdraw his art from the exhibit, with support from the lending institution, the National Gallery of Canada
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...

, unsuccessfully as of December 20.
The curators appeared at a forum at the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...

. A protest was held from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.
On December 15, a panel discussion was held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
On December 20, a panel discussion was held at the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center
Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center
The Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center is a Jewish Community Center located in the historic district of Dupont Circle. It serves the Washington, D.C...

.
On January 20, 2011, the Center of Study of Political Graphics held a protest at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
Secretary Clough issued a statement standing by the decision, spoke at a Town Hall Los Angeles
Town Hall Los Angeles
Town Hall Los Angeles is a non-profit speaker's forum based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1937. It has hosted over 3500 unpaid speakers, including* John F Kennedy* Robert F Kennedy* Ronald Reagan* Condoleezza Rice* General Anthony Zinni...

meeting, and appeared at a public forum in April 26–27, 2011. Several curators within the Smithsonian criticized the decision, as did critics, with Newsweek arts critic Blake Gopnik going so far as to call the complaints "gay bashing" and not a legitimate public controversy.

External links

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