Maya Lin (b. 1959) was only 21 years old and an undergraduate student when her submission for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was chosen as the winning design from approximately 1,420 entries.
When the winner was announced, her design met considerable opposition and resistance. Former U.S. Senator James Webb of Virginia, himself a Vietnam veteran, called it "a nihilistic slab of stone"; President Ronald Reagan's secretary of the interior delayed issuing a building permit.
Since its dedication in 1982, the memorial has become "something of a shrine," according to the founder, Jan Scruggs.
The U.S. Department of Defense says more than five million people visit the memorial annually, making it the most popular monument on the National Mall ... and the first monument there to be designed by a woman.
On two pieces of black granite, the names of 58,320 persons (the number is debatable) who are missing in action or died as a result of the Vietnam War are carved in chronological order of their deaths.
Closing Sunday at the National Portrait Gallery is a short celebration of Ms. Lin's life in an excellent exhibition, One Life: Maya Lin.
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Her life's story is shown in chronological order with family photos, personal items, three dimensional models, designs and pictures of other buildings she has accomplished since the memorial thrust her into the world's limelight which has never waned.
Dorothy Moss, the museum’s curator of painting and sculpture, curated the show.
When Ms. Lin entered college, she wanted to be a zoologist. Part of her schooling took her to Denmark where she learned memorials could become community spaces.
As a child she spent hours playing with her brother in the woods behind the family home in Ohio, nature's surroundings which continue to play a criticial role in her life and work as an environmentalist and climate change soldier.
This is the museum’s first One Life exhibition dedicated to an Asian American.
For photos from the memorial on Memorial Day 2014, go here. For a visit Ms. Lin made to the former Corcoran Gallery in 2009, go here.
When: Closing April 16, 2023. The National Portrait Gallery is open daily from 11:30 a.m - 7 p.m.
Where: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, 8th and F streets, N. W., Washington, D.C. 20001
Admission: No fee
For more information: 202-633-8300 or visit the website
Closest Metro station: Gallery Place-Chinatown or walk 10 minutes from Metro Center
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