See Smithsonian's '1898' before it closes Sunday!

Queen Lili‘uokalani of Hawai'i (1838-1917) by William F. Cogswell, 1892. Loaned by Hawai'i State Archives.

It’s the 125th anniversary of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Philippine War and to celebrate the anniversary, the National Portrait Gallery has up a fantastic show, U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions, of maps, periodicals, photographs, portraits (!), and more. 

The conflict is commonly referred to as the War of 1898 or the Spanish-American War.

Taina Caragol, one of the exhibition's curators, stands at the entrance to the "1898" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, in front of the 1898 oil by Francisco Oller y Cestero (1833–1917) of President William McKinley (1843-1901). The map the president grasps is one of Puerto Rico (see below), one of the nations the U.S. seized from Spain. (From the collection of Dr. Eduardo Pérez and family.)By Patricia Leslie

In a detail of the portrait of President McKinley, the president holds a map of Puerto Rico, dated July 25, 1898, the day the U.S invaded the Spanish colony and became an “overseas empire,” according to the National Portrait Gallery/By Patricia Leslie

Curator Kate Clarke Lemay stands at the 1892 oil portrait by William F. Cogswell  of Queen Lili‘uokalani of Hawai'i (1838-1917), loaned by Hawai'i State Archives.The queen bought this portrait in 1892 and hung it at the ‘Iolani Palace.By Patricia Leslie

Queen Lili‘uokalani is pictured in 1908 in Washington, D.C. where she appeared before a U.S. House Committee requesting that her annual reparations from the U.S. for the taking of Hawai'i lands be increased to $200,000 (from $50,000). Request, denied.  This was taken at Harris & Ewing Studio. National Portrait Gallery, gift of Aileen Conkey.

Unidentified artist, 1901, from the collection of U.S. House of Representatives. Harper's Weekly honored the second inauguration of President William McKinley on March 4, 1901 with this special publication which featured on its four corners the lands involved in the conflicts of 1898: the Philippines, Cuba, “Porto Rico,” and “Hawaii,” (with the omission of Guam). 

Six months later, President McKinley became the third U.S. president to be assassinated.  (Can you name the other presidents who were assassinated?) 

 

Harriet Bradford Tiffany Stewart (1798-1830) with her husband Charles were missionaries who led the conversion in Hawai'i to Christianity. Their long influences in Hawai'i eventually led to the overthrow of the Hawai'i monarchy in 1893. This 1830 portrait is by an unidentified artist, owned by the National Portrait Gallery, given in honor of Stewart W. Bowers.

What looks like a frieze is actually a wooden metal fan with U.S. and Cuban flags and lithographs of U.S. military leaders like Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley who were engaged in the Cuban campaign.  The fan is made of paper leaves in the shape of pansies which are lined with fabric and attached to wooden sticks. (The description says the word "pansy" in 1899 meant "a remarkable or outstanding person," an opposite meaning from its use today.)

Detail from the Conquerors of the Panama Canal (1913) by Jonas Lie (1880–1940) which depicts crews from the West Indies and other nations carving out rock and soil to build the Panama Canal. More than 5,600 died during construction (1904-1914). Until 1979 the United States treated the Panama Canal Zone as an unincorporated territory. On loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The ending of the Civil War (1861-1865) found the U.S. Navy with an inventory of only 72 ships. Between 1897 and 1898, the Navy quickly added 88 and then was ready to seize opportunities to conquer sea and land. Away the nation flew to Guam, Hawaiʻi, Puerto Rico and the Philippines plus ...

One of its new ships was the USS Maine which exploded and sank in the Havana Harbor on Feb. 15, 1898, killing about 260 U.S. sailors, and providing enough reason for the U.S. to go to war against Spanish-held Cuba and seize other Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Phillipines.

That the explosion was likely caused by furnaces did not fit with the U.S.'s expansion plans which needed cause to attack.

The mast of the USS Maine, transported by the U.S. Navy to Arlington National Cemetery in March, 1912.  It lies on a granite base with the inscribed names of the sailors who died in the sinking. President Woodrow Wilson dedicated the memorial in a public ceremony on May 30, 1915/Arlington National Cemetery 

“Remember the Maine!” became a battle cry, hurled at the war's dissenters.

The Portrait Gallery's exhibition is large, filling several galleries with history about several nations and for certain, to tell you something you don't know. It's displayed in simple format and is available online in different languages.

 A hardcover catalogue is available. 272 pages, $49.95.  Free domestic shipping from the Smithsonian.

Major exhibition sponsors are the Mellon Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art and the Miranda Family Fund.

What: 1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions

When: Now through February 25, 2024.  The National Portrait Gallery is open from daily from 11:30 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Where: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, 8th and F streets, N. W., Washington, D.C. 20004

How much: No charge

For more information: 202-633-1000 or visit the web site

Metro station: Gallery Place-Chinatown or walk 10 minutes from Metro Center

patricialesli@gmail.com

 

 

 

A sellout crowd rhapsodizes over Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's Gershwin

Wayne Marshall leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Strathmore, Feb. 3, 2024/By Patricia Leslie

It was the first time I had seen a conductor play an instrument during a performance, but that’s what he did.

When the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra paused during Rhapsody in Blue, conductor/pianist Wayne Marshall played two solo arrangements which were not altogether pleasing to the entire sold out crowd who came to hear the uninterrupted perennial favorite by George Gershwin (1898-1937).

This is the centennial of the composition which debuted on February 12, 1924 in New York City.

It was a New York kind of a night at Strathmore, beginning with Music for the Theatre by Aaron Copland (1900-1990), then Rhapsody and after intermission, Three Dance Episodes from On the Town by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) and Harlem by Duke Ellington (1899-1974).

Wayne Marshall talks to the audience at the performance of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Strathmore, Feb. 3, 2024/By Patricia Leslie

Before the show at coat check, the fellow gleamed when he repeated what had come in an earlier email from the BSO to ticket holders, that it was a sellout night with all 50 "emergency" seats (which are usually held for special circumstances), sold, and all the choral seats which are above the orchestra, sold, too.

It was a grand night, and the orchestra did not disappoint in the least. 

The stage could barely hold all the musicians, and Conductor Marshall played the piano "face out," meaning the grand piano backed up to the orchestra so that all in the audience could see his hands moving up and down the keyboard, which was not hidden from view by the instrument which is the usual case for those seated orchestra left .

The familiar Copland strains rang out, and it's understandable why Music for the Theatre is not as popular as his Appalachian Spring or Fanfare for the Common Man, Billy the Kid or Rodeo, but orchestra lovers cannot hear the familiar all the time or that's all we'd hear! (Which may not be a bad thing.)

It's unfortunate that the writer from the Smithsonian could not include BSO's Gershwin production in the listing of other Rhapsody orchestral performances celebrated throughout the U.S., which he described in today's half page spread in the Wall Street Journal. I guess Baltimore was too close to home.  

Wikipedia quotes a 2005 article in the Guardian which found that by using "'estimates of earnings accrued in a composer's lifetime,' George Gershwin was the wealthiest composer of all time."  

Et tu, Tay Tay? 

George Gershwin by Carl Van Vechten, Mar. 28, 1937, Library of Congress

patricialesli@gmail.com