Sylvia Plath's last day at the National Portrait Gallery is today

 Rollie McKenna, 1918-2003, Sylvia Plath, 1959, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Sylvia Plath's Girl Scout uniform, 1943-1948, on loan from Smith College. Ms. Plath earned 20 Girl Scout badges, at least five of them related to reading and writing. She turned in 30 book reports for one of her badges while working at the same time on stories, poems, and essays; collecting stamps; and taking viola, piano, and art lessons/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sylvia Plath, Self-Portrait in Semi-Abstract Style, 1946-1952, Estate of Robert Hittel

To write The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath used portions from her college journal, 1950-1953, on loan for the exhibition from Smith College, her alma mater where she graduated summa cum laude in 1955. (The white circles at the bottom of the photograph are reflections of ceiling lights on protective glass.)/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 On the wall at the National Portrait Gallery is Sylvia Plath's elm writing desk, loaned from Smith College for the exhibition/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sylvia Plath, Collage, which she crafted from pages in the New Yorker and other magazines in July, 1960 after attending an antiwar, anti-patriarchy rally in Trafalgar Square, London, on loan from Smith College.

 From Sylvia Plath's last set of poems for the New Yorker, on loan from Smith College.

The typewriter Sylvia Plath used at Smith College, on loan from the college/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Jenny Olivia Johnson, b.1978, Glass Heart (Bells for Sylvia Plath) with audio, 2013/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Today is the last day to see objects belonging to or made by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery which are on view together for the first time.

The materials come from the collections at Indiana University and Smith College which has loaned them for
One Life: Sylvia Plath found in the Guenther and Siewchin Yong Sommer Gallery.

The one room gallery showcases photographs and objects from Ms. Plath's life as a girl, college student, poet and writer, wife and mother, her roles cut short by her suicide in a gas oven when her children were one and three years old.  

When her son, Nicholas, was 47, he, too, committed suicide, suffering depression, as did his mother when she died at age 30.

Dorothy Moss from the Portrait Gallery and Karen Kukil from Smith College curated the show which provides glimpses of Ms. Plath's background, perspective, and presents some of the tools she used to write.


What: One Life: Sylvia Plath

When: Closing today, May 20, 2018.  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

How much: No charge

For more information: 202-633-8300 or visit the website

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

patricialesli@gmail.com

 

'Dolores Huerta' has left the Smithsonian

Dolores Huerta, 1999, by Barbara Carrasco

Who was Dolores Huerta and why should we care? 

I am certain her image, perhaps the one above, will be on the cover of a U.S. postage stamp some day.

She is a living legend, someone not well-known in today's culture, someone who will gain fame over time.  

This is what you missed at the almost year-long exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which closed yesterday:  A lady on a mission and brief history of a successful union workers' campaign 50 years ago.

At the exhibition I saw a label with her birth date which I knew had to be wrong for there was no way Dolores Huerta, who was present for the opening, could be 85.  How could the Portrait Gallery make such an error?

I was mistaken.  

There she was in a glamorous, dazzling teal suit wearing heels, a spry 85 last year (b. April 10, 1930), talking about her past, smiling, and answering questions about herself, the movement which became the United Farm Workers, and the 50th anniversary of the grape workers strike in California.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a strong UFW supporter, and Dolores Huerta at the end of Cesar Chavez' 25-day fast, March 10, 1967

 Dolores Huerta worked hard to improve working conditions and pay for field workers in California who were exposed to pesticides, had no toilets or cold drinking water, and lived in substandard housing. The average life span of a farm worker was 49 compared to 70, the U.S. national average life then.

Working alongside Cesar Chavez (1927-1993), Ms. Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association which became the United Farm Workers.  She led rallies, was arrested many times, was beaten by the police, hospitalized, and coined the phrase "Si se puede" ("Yes, we can!).

She led the fight for toilets and cold drinking water in the fields which became part of the first union contract in 1966, and then California state law by 1975, and federal law in 1982.

Had the effort occurred a little later, there is no doubt her name would be as well know now as Chavez' and it may reach that summit yet, among the pages of American history books, for she was and is a leader, a heroine, an iconic figure whose achievements President Barack Obama recognized in 2012 when he placed the Presidential Medal of Honor around her neck.
Ms. Huerta at a rally.

Dolores Huerta at the opening of the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery on June 30, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Dolores Huerta at the opening of the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, June 30, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie
Ms. Huerta stands beside a 1965 photograph of herself enlarged to introduce the exhibition.The Spanish word on the sign she held means "strike."/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 The United Farm Workers AFL-CIO flag emerged in 1966.  It was designed by Richard Chavez (1929-2011), the brother of Cesar Chavez, and a longtime companion of Ms. Huerta with whom he had four children/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Reflections of artifacts in the exhibition are seen in the case cover which protected the Presidential Medal of Honor bestowed on Ms. Huerta by President Barack Obama in 2012/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Dolores Huerta at the National Portrait Gallery June 30, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 Dolores Huerta, left, with her good friend and artist, Barbara Carrasco (b. 1955) who created the image above. For decades Ms. Carrasco was a volunteer artist for the UFW.  The exhibition label copy quoted her: "There are so many icons of men, and icons of women painted by men, that I wanted (as a woman) to create an iconic image of Huerta to recognize her as an equal of Cesar Chavez and, historically, the most important negotiator for the United Farm Workers." /Photo by Patricia Leslie

Dolores Huerta at the National Portrait Gallery June 30, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Dolores Huerta at the National Portrait Gallery June 30, 2015/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The mother of 11 children, Ms. Huerta still works tirelessly on issues she believes are important for a just society, those which require attention and warrant effort in today's world to improve conditions for all.  

And to keep up her regimen and good physical condition and appearance, she shared a few secrets:  Go veggie, young woman, go veggie. Eat fish, walk a lot, and dance, dance, dance! As long as you are able.  At least through your 90s.

patricialesli@gmail.com

National Portrait Gallery celebrates Elaine de Kooning

 

Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989), John F. Kennedy #21, 1963, Michael and Susan Luyckx

 

I've been twice in five days.

 

If you lived in a generation with the halcyon JFK administration and recall the verve, the energy, spontaneity, glamour, and intelligence the Kennedys brought to the White House, you will not want to miss the nine portraits and drawings which Elaine de Kooning

(1918-1989) drew of President Kennedy in 1963, some larger than life and now on display at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.

 

They are part of the major retrospective of Ms. de Kooning's portraits which went up last week, coinciding with Women's History Month and the artist's birthday on March 12.

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy sat for "Elaine" (the name the Portrait Gallery says she likely would have favored) at the "Winter White House" in Palm Beach, Florida in late 1962 and early 1963. 

At the National Portrait Gallery,  Senior Curator Brandon Brame Fortune discusses Elaine de Kooning's John F. Kennedy, 1963.  This work usually hangs at one of the National Gallery's entrances and is part of the museum's permanent collection, "America's Presidents."/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Ms. de Kooning called President Kennedy "bigger than life....I was determined to...communicate his warmth, sharp wit, appraising glance, and something of the outdoor figure I saw." In the year after his death in 1963, the artist barely lifted a paint brush, and throughout her life, she kept the JFK portrait #21 (at the top of this page) which still belongs to her family. 

 

How she came to be selected to paint the president's portrait makes fascinating reading in the de Kooning catalogue ($49.95), but, in a few words: If it were not for the Harry S. Truman Library, there might not be a JFK series by Elaine de Kooning. According to the library's executive director at the time,  David D. Lloyd, she "obviously belongs in the new frontier of art," and she got the commission.  (Later, Ms. de Kooning said it would take a while for President Truman to grow accustomed to her style since he was not a big fan of modern art.) 

 

Pretty amazing stuff when one realizes she was competing against male artists in 1962.  Not only was she a woman, but her style was unconventional and one might say extreme for a presidential library located in the Midwest.

 

Once it got wind of the library's interest in a Kennedy portrait, the White House went to work right away to accommodate Ms. de Kooning, and off to Palm Beach she went.

 

Of the portraits and drawings in the show, the Truman JFK is my least favorite.  And why is that?

 

The whole thing is stilted and artificial.  The background of bright yellows and oranges overshadows the subject who sits in the center with a puzzled expression as if to say: "Why am I here?" He appears uncomfortable, thinner, more timid than the person we have come to know, lacking his customary confidence and sex appeal but with a fire (the assassination?) about to engulf and shroud him, his expression and bearing make more sense.

 

Yellow is not a strong color.  It's a weak color, especially compared to the vibrant and energetic greens and blues Ms. de Kooning used for the National Gallery's official JFK portrait that is part of the Gallery's series of presidential portraits.  (She is one of two female artists represented in the series, the other, Greta Kempton, who, coincidentally, painted President Harry S. Truman!)

 

The year attached to the Truman painting is 1963. The catalogue has a photograph of President Truman with Ms. de Kooning  at the presentation ceremony in 1965. 

 

The color catalogue features the works in the show, naturally, and an entire section is devoted to JFK, and Ms. de Kooning's experience trying to paint a figure constantly in motion: "He was--well, he was just a great-looking man." And "incandescent, golden." (The yellows in the Truman JFK?)

  

Ms. de Kooning was an abstract expressionist, known for her stark, angular, and bright renditions  of contemporary figures, usually men, who dominate the show.

 

"Men always painted the opposite sex, and I wanted to paint men as sex objects," the catalogue quotes her. (Rock on, Elaine!) She drew several men (Fairfield Porter, Johnny Snow) sitting with their legs spread, and when JFK drooped his leg over a beach chair and asked her "Is this pose all right?" Yes, it was! (Rock on, Elaine!)

 

 

The exhibition is not entirely about JFK, but that's who (or what) engulfs me. Three free films run continuously in a loop.

National Portrait Gallery Senior Curator Brandon Brame Fortune with Elaine de Kooning's The Burghers of Amsterdam Avenue, 1963, private collection.  Loosely modeled after two Dutch paintings, both titled The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, one executed by Govert Flinck (1615-1660) in 1642 and the other by Bartholomeus van der Helst(1613-1670) in 1655, both on loan from the Netherlands to the National Gallery of Art where they may be seen at the Seventh Street, NW entrance to the ground level through March 11, 2017/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

Govert Flinck, Dutch (1615 – 1660)
The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, 1642, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on loan from the City of Amsterdam to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Bartholomeus van der Helst, Dutch (1613 – 1670) The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, 1655, Amsterdam Museum on loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

In the Kogod Courtyard at the National Portrait Gallery, there was "a party going on" to celebrate Elaine de Kooning's birthday March 12 and the opening of a major retrospective of her portraits/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, welcomed guests to the reception for "Elaine de Kooning: Portraits." In a statement Ms. Sajet said the artist "ensured that a person's likeness was linked to their innate vitality and spirit."  The Gallery holds the largest museum collection of Ms. de Kooning's portraits, and the new exhibition includes rarely seen works on loan from the artist's estate and from family members/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At Elaine de Kooning's birthday party March 12, 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At Elaine de Kooning's birthday party March 12, 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A man in black (subject for the artist?) at Elaine de Kooning's birthday party March 12, 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At Elaine de Kooning's birthday party March 12, 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Dolls, and Sean Lane and the Bay Jazz Project made music at the Elaine de Kooning party at the National Portrait Gallery, and this energetic gal with a bobbing head slashed her fiddle with a force to stun and silence the crowd/Photo by Patricia Leslie

William Wordsworth would have been proud of these golden daffodils at Elaine de Kooning's birthday party March 12, 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery. The colors match the yellows in Ms. de Kooning's JFK portrait on loan from the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri/Photo by Patricia Leslie

What: Elaine de Kooning:  Portraits

When: Now through January 10, 2016.  The National Portrait Gallery is open from daily from 11:30 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Saturday, March 21, 2015, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.:  Women's History Month Family Day, Kogod Courtyard

Friday, April 17, 2015, 12 p.m.: "In Her Own Light:  Liz Rideal on Elaine de Kooning."  Ms. Rideal from the National Portrait Gallery, London, is the author of How to Read Art (2015), and she will lead a tour of the de Kooning show.

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 trifle of women at the National Portrait Gallery

The exhibit, A Will of Their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of Achievement in the Early Republic at the National Portrait Gallery/Patricia Leslie.  That's Mrs. Murray centered on the wall, and Phillis Wheatley's book in a case in front of the Murray portrait.

In an alcove at the end of a hallway at the National Portrait Gallery is a tiny exhibit, A Will of Their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of Achievement in the Early Republic which features "eight [although a guard and I could only find seven] remarkable women from the early days of this nation."

As you enter the Portrait Gallery on F Street and turn right on the first floor, you'll spy in the distance, the portrait of Judith Sargent Murray surrounded on adjacent walls by the other women in the show. 

 

John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820), Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois. Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund.  Mrs. Murray wrote “On the Equality of the Sexes” in 1790, arguing that women were just as capable of intellectual accomplishment as men and that an education would liberate women from economic dependence. In 1798, Murray became the first woman in America to self-publish a book: The Gleaner.

Where was Margaret Todd Whetten (1739-1809) whom I discovered later on the website?  We could not find her.
Does it matter?

Margaret Todd Whetten whose home in New York City housed American spies during the American Revolution.  President George Washington sent her a "thank you" letter.

On the upcoming 100th anniversary of the suffragists' march down Pennsylvania Avenue which will be commemorated by another march March 3, 2013, one would think the Portrait Gallery could have done better.

Especially since one of its Smithsonian sisters, the National Museum of American History, is one of the presenters of the Suffrage Centennial Celebration.

The Portrait Gallery says its exhibit is about "the struggle for women’s rights," and these "portraits showcase the important achievements of women during this period. Together, they also demonstrate the early efforts to gain gender equality in America."

Prithee, how did Theodosia Burr Alston (1783-1813) "demonstrate the early efforts to gain gender equality in America"? 

She was well-educated and the daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr and wife of wealthy landowner Joseph Alston, and that qualifies her to be "a woman of achievement"?  Oh, and she was a "hostess" and lost at sea.  I guess I am missing something.  A struggle by the Portrait Gallery to come up with meaningful women of the era from its collection, perhaps.

John Vanderlyn (1776-1852), Theodosia Burr Alston, 1802, Yale Library/Wikimedia Commons. This portrait is not in the show.

Of the eight portraits listed, six belong to the Portrait Gallery which helps reduce costs for an exhibition.

In checking six websites* for notable American women in history, only four of the eight women in the show are found, and they are not listed at every site:  Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818) was listed on four; Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784), three; Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (1774-1821), two; and Patience Wright (1725-1786), one.

Anne Catharine Hoof Green (c.1720-1775) is also included in the exhibition.

Pages from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) by Phillis Wheatley. She came to the colonies as a slave from Africa and became the first African American to publish a book. (The white splashes in the picture are lights reflected in the glass.)
 

For women of that era, where are Molly Pitcher, Deborah Sampson, Sacajawea, and Hannah Adams?  Just asking.  Or why focus on “early women” only?

The Portrait Gallery's website says "the eight women who are highlighted here did not produce a collective movement for women’s rights, but they were important in sowing the seeds for future progress." 

 

In the meantime, I hope readers participate next month in Women's History Month and the events of March 1-3 and march in the centennial parade.  After the 1913 parade, it took eight more years before the 19th amendment was ratified, and women gained the right to vote. How long will it take to elect a woman, president?

The Terra Foundation for American Art sponsored the Portrait Gallery's exhibit and all the related publications and programs.

Whenever I visit the National Portrait Gallery, I usually stop by the second floor to see the reproduction of Augustus Saint-Gaedens's 1891 memorial to Clover Adams which her husband, Henry Adams, commissioned after her suicide in 1885. The original is at Mrs. Adams's gravesite in Washington's Rock Creek Cemetery.

What: A Will of Their Own: Judith Sargent Murray and Women of Achievement in the Early Republic

When: 11:30 a.m.- 7 p.m. every day now through September 2, 2013

Where: The National Portrait Gallery, Eighth and F Streets NW, Washington, D.C.  20001

How much:  No charge

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

For more information: 202-633-8300

*The six websites checked were:   Women in History,   Discovering American Women's History Online,  
75 Suffragists, the Hip Forums, Important and Famous Women in America,  and American Women in History


patricialesli@gmail.com

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Two Amelias star at the National Portrait Gallery

One of many occupations of women during the Civil War was that of spy.  Pictured is Belle Boyd of Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia) and Front Royal, Virginia who became a Confederate spy after a Union soldier denounced her mother. Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress

Was it coincidence that two "Amelias" opened at the National Portrait Gallery only days apart?

And “lost” persons are and were a central role in each?

There is One Life: Amelia Earhart now through May 27, 2013, and for one night only in the Gallery's Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium, there was Amelia: A Story of Abiding Love in the Civil War, a staged presentation about a woman in search of her husband, a Union soldier fighting somewhere between Pennsylvania and South Carolina in the 1860s.

According to the playwright, Alex Webb, who starred as the husband of Amelia, the play is based on the 400 to 500 women who impersonated soldiers during the war.

In commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the National Portrait Gallery seeks to examine the role of women during the period of which Amelia played a role.   

Shirleyann Kaladjian (Webb's real-time wife) was "Amelia" who wanders from Gettysburg to battlegrounds down South, in search of "Ethan" (Webb), ending her journey at Andersonville, Georgia, the site of the notorious Confederate prison.

Several themes run concurrently in the play:  The search for love, the audience education about women in the Civil War,  and the horrors of Andersonville, not unlike those at the Union prison in Elmira, New York, where about the same number of inmates died.   

It was the first fictitious production of the National Portrait Gallery's Cultures in Motion performing arts series, "designed to educate, entertain, and promote mutual understanding of [America's] diverse cultures" and undertaken for this production with the Washington Stage Guild.

Webb and Kaladjian delivered powerful performances over the 90-minute playing time, remarkable in content and effect, propelling some members of the audience to leap to their feet in eager applause at the end.

And the play may be entitled Amelia but the show was all about "Ethan," one of many characters Webb portrayed.

His metamorphosis on stage from person to person without costume or scene change was one for acting classes, nothing short of exceptional since every person he became was lifelike, due to Webb's uncanny ability to transform people, mannerisms, voices, and inflexions. 

From turning around in a bent position and suddenly becoming Amelia's frail mother or her limping dad in the same scene,  to a Confederate guard, a sashaying Northern belle in a "ball gown" with 15-foot circumference, to a doctor, an escaped slave, Rebel soldier, guard, and more, Webb effected the personalities with stunning skill.

The couple moved frequently around the stage against a minimal but strong set design (a fence post, a bench and chairs, by Carl F. Gudenius) and, in one scene, they walked along a path strewn through the audience, talking the whole time.

Flashing throughout the production as backdrop were actual
Civil War scenes of battlegrounds, soldiers, farm and social life.

Taped music from the era under the direction of Stowe Nelson added to the mood.

"Every woman has got to find a husband," Amelia's mother tells her daughter, a refrain I heard more than 100 years later from the lips of my own mother. 

I do declare, Miss Scarlett, times have changed. 

Andersonville today is a National Historic Site dedicated "to all American prisoners of war throughout the nation's history."

Bill Largess directed; Jewell Robinson produced; Michael Kramer served as technical director and stage manager; and Sigridur Johannesdottir was costume designer.

The National Portrait Gallery is located at Eighth and G, NW and is open from 11:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. daily, except Christmas Day.  The closest Metro station is Gallery Place/Chinatown, or one may walk from Metro Center, a few blocks away.  For more information, call 202-633-8300.

patricialesliexam@gmail.com

Mary Todd Lincoln at The National Portrait Gallery

By The Queen of Free

She was the subject of a portrait talk at the National Portrait Gallery Thursday evening.

Standing in front of this sketch by Pierre Morand which is part of the “One Life: The Mask of Lincoln” exhibit, Erin Carlson Mast, the curator of the Lincoln Cottage, presented a biographical sketch about Mrs. Lincoln whom Ms. Mast knows quite a lot about.

Mrs. Lincoln had 10 years of schooling; President Lincoln, one, Ms. Mast said. Mrs. Lincoln came from a wealthy family in Lexington, KY, and her Confederate roots were problematic. Like her husband, she loved the arts, literature and the theatre. She had her own “redeeming qualities,” Ms. Mask said.

She mentioned the military presence in the background of what looks like Lafayette Square in the 1864 sketch.

The crowd of about 40 packed the small gallery and strained to hear every word of the presentation. Mostly it was middle-aged women and a few men who attended.

How nice to be in surroundings where Mary Todd Lincoln was not castigated as a bad influence, and crazy, dazed, manipulative, extravagant, unfriendly, evil and what are some of the other adjectives used to describe her? Oh, yes, lest I forget, she may have had a hand in her husband’s assassination. He married her, didn’t he?

In May Catherine Clinton, the author of Mrs. Lincoln: A Life published this year, will speak about her book at Lincoln’s Cottage.

A Portrait Gallery representative told me the museum has received a lot of interest in its First Ladies portraits which the Portrait Gallery is trying to beef up.

Next up at these wonderful Thursday 6 p.m. “Face to Face” talks is Toni Morrison’s portrait, to be presented by Warren Perry April 2.

Lady Bird Johnson at The National Portrait Gallery

By The Queen of Free

At the National Portrait Gallery the only portrait of a First Lady to hang in a gallery with Presidents Lyndon Baines Johnson, Gerald Ford, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Harry Truman is one of Lady Bird Johnson.

Where is everybody else?

Curatorial Assistant Amy Baskette who gave a “portrait talk” about Lady Bird on Thursday evening said the Portrait Gallery began beefing up its First Ladies collection about four years ago, and an exhibit on them will open “soon.”

The comparatively small painting of Lady Bird by Boris Artzybasheff (cool first syllable) commissioned by Time magazine for a cover in 1964, is sandwiched between portraits of her husband, Lyndon, and President Ford. Hanging perpendicular to the Johnsons is John F. Kennedy who is captured brilliantly by Elaine de Kooning in a striking, contemporary, large vertical masterpiece with lots of green splashes.

Perhaps it is the dove behind Lady Bird, the colors, and style which suggest art deco and precisionism. Why the dove?

Ms. Baskette spoke in glowing terms about Lady Bird Johnson, her business acumen and other achievements. Her image and issues (beautification and the environment) are more esteemed every day. That Lady Bird even had issues she promoted gallantly, unlike the Bush First Ladies who wasted their pulpits, is laudatory, especially considering that Lady Bird’s era preceded the elevation and promotion of women as equal citizens (and no, we haven’t made it).

Lady Bird Johnson died in 2007.

The group of eight who listened intently to Ms. Baskette for her 20-minute talk ranged in age from 20-somethings to 60-somethings, mostly female (6), and 100% Caucasian.

On March 19 at 6 p.m. Martha Washington’s portrait will be featured in a talk by Sidney Hart, and on March 26 at 6 p.m., Erin Carlson Mast from Lincoln’s Cottage will talk about the poor, the sad, the much maligned Mary Todd Lincoln. All, free!

The National Portrait Gallery is open from 11:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. every day.

The National Portrait Gallery Unveils Laura Bush

By the Queen of Free

She is pretty, no doubt, but the painting makes her appear about 20 pounds slimmer than the photos of her I have seen over the years. My, what a slender neck you have!

Perhaps the artist, Aleksander Titovets, a native-born Russian who lives in Texas and paints Southwestern landscapes among other subjects, wanted to flatter his subject.

Which brings to mind: Why was a Russian-born artist selected for the commission anyway? Texas does not have American-born painters who do portraits? Just asking. Perhaps he is friends with fellow El Paso residents, the J. O. Stewarts, who donated the painting saving taxpayers $40,000, reported CNSNews.

Whatever. The painting is too busy: An arched window with panes opening to what is likely the Treasury building, a bowl of fully opened salmon colored roses, a color which is repeated throughout the painting with handsome effects, and two (that is two) chairs with conflicting patterns all compete to almost smother Mrs. Bush, who sits with open book in hand in one of the chairs smiling (almost with her husband’s smirk) at the viewer.

Please, I need to catch my breath!

Breaking up the cacophony is a long camel-colored drape hanging behind her which outlines (on one side) a blank wall in the upper left quarter of the painting. It is the only section without objects.

With its warm, pastel colors, the portrait is a nice, harmless impressionistic style much like Mrs. Bush herself, I would imagine. To brighten any room, it is one I am certain the First Family would welcome in their new Texas home.

Mrs. Bush hangs on the first floor to the left of the entrance on G Street, catercorner from the gift shop. Yes, worth a trip! Happily, the Portrait Gallery is open daily until 6:50 p.m., but it starts later than most museums: 11:30 a.m.

Grim Photography at the National Portrait Gallery

By the Queen of Free

Then there is the photography exhibit on the first floor ("Portraiture Now: Feature Photography"), many of the photographs which can be seen online.

If you are looking for a cheery spot over the holidays, if you need a bit of a psychological lift amidst all the Christmas cheer, this is not the exhibit to visit.

Is the National Portrait Gallery becoming the National Photography Gallery?

Anyway, if you want your daughter to grow up to be a body builder not, take her to this exhibit and take a gander at the two photographs of female muscle giants. Yeeks! My gender stereotypes shaped my impressions to put it mildly.

Photographer Alec Soth shows all grim women, heads tilted, meaning ? , their heads are not on straight? Jocelyn Lee's photographs are mostly women, some boys and an old man in environmental settings.

Up too close for comfort and way too personal are Martin Schoeller's Jack Nicholson (immediate words which spring to mind are “The Shining” and “The Old Cuss”), Barack Obama (“handsome dude”), John McCain (his bloodshot eyes and other age realities make him look far older than you've grown to know him), and Angelina Jolie (how many lip injections?).

It’s a sad, depressing world we occupy nowadays, and and these photographs bear testimony to the whole negative lot, especially Katy Grannam’s child in an adult prison in New York (is this still lawful?) and a few which show female veterans and the dreadful psychological effects of war.

The artists took many of the photos on assignments for the New Yorker, Esquire, and the New York Times magazine. This exhibit is not to be confused with the magnificent “Women of Our Time: 20th Century Photographs" show in another wing. More on that later.

Must See: Abraham Lincoln at The National Portrait Gallery

By the Queen of Free

The Kate Guenther and Siewchin Yong Sommer Gallery housing the new Abraham Lincoln exhibit of photographs, prints, and a wood engraving of the Emancipation Proclamation at the National Portrait Gallery has the ambience of a funeral parlor: The lighting is low, and the mood, somber and subdued among the many visitors who were young, old, of many nationalities and interests when I dropped by. (Several Capitols hockey fans identified by their big red jerseys stopped in on their way to a game.)

The gallery is not large, and the etchings and lithographs of Lincoln big and small are well worth a trip. That the artifacts are all owned by the Smithsonian Institution is astonishing.

Photography came of age during Lincoln’s tenure, and he willingly obliged many requests to be recorded on film, glory be.

In one of the last prints made before his assassination April 14, 1865, Lincoln is labeled a “messiah.” Tad, his son whom Lincoln spoiled especially after the death of his beloved son, Willie, is shown with his father in another “last one” dated February 5, 1865. One photo shows Lincoln with Frederick Douglass, the first African-American to visit the White House.

The exhibit continues the perpetuation of the negative depictions of Mary Todd Lincoln in photographs and words. (With all the many omnipresent evil descriptions of her, it is easy to compare her to Eve and taking another step, blame Lincoln’s downfall on her, but I imagine that's already been done. Is there anything positive about her? He married her.)

An accompanying description for another print says Lincoln was hesitant to speak much publicly, aware of the importance citizens placed on his words.

Why the name of the exhibit “One Life: The Mask of Lincoln”? Yes, there are two masks made of his face, one before the war (1860), and the other after (1865), which visitors may see close up, and which clearly demonstrate the effects of war on a president, but the title suggests a dark environment which Abraham Lincoln's legacy contradicts. Ask Barack Obama.

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball was held March 4, 1865 in the very same building of the "Mask" exhibit (oh, what a lovely hall for an upcoming ball) and another exhibit on the second floor about his inauguration make a fitting tribute to the president we hear more about daily as the momentum for the celebration of his bicentenary birth on February 12, 2009 builds.

Except for Christmas Day the National Portrait Gallery is open daily from 11:30 a.m. until 6:50 p.m. when the guards begin throwing visitors out quickly. It is located across from the Verizon Center at the corner of 8th and F streets, N.W.

While at the exhibit cell phone users may dial a number to receive more explanation including the reason behind Lincoln growing a beard. Many of the images and labels are available online at the Portrait Gallery's web site.