Geologist Walter Alvarez was working away on some limestone samples in Gubbio, Italy, when he became intrigued by an odd layer of rock. He was looking at the K-T boundary. Underneath it, there are dinosaur fossils. Above it, there are none. And Walter was about to stumble on the reason why. In this final episode of our science series, we pair a rock sample from the K-T boundary with a unique portrait by Carmen Lomas Garza to tell the story of the dinosaur extinction -- how it happened, why it ha...
May 06, 2025•26 min•Season 6Ep. 13
We have portraits of people in our galleries. But what if you’re a natural science museum? How do you portray a dinosaur? We talk with Kirk Johnson , Sant Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, about the ways our portrayals of dinosaurs have evolved, from sluggish and lizard-like to warm-blooded, colorful and spry. Then Matthew Carrano , curator of dinosauria, explains how the museum put T. rex into a striking new pose. The trick, he says, is to convey how cool dinosau...
Apr 15, 2025•25 min•Season 6Ep. 12
This mini 'Blink' episode celebrates the cherry blossoms that are blooming all over Washington D.C. at the moment by taking a closer look at portraits that feature flowers. Kim visits three paintings in the National Portrait Gallery that use specific blooms to convey coded information about the sitter, including the experiences that shaped them and the roles they took on. Sarah Weston Seaton with her Children, by Charles Bird King Barack Obama , by Kehinde Wiley George Washington Carver , by Bet...
Apr 01, 2025•8 min•Season 6Ep. 11
When William Temple Hornaday's exhibition of stuffed bison went on display at the Smithsonian Institution in 1888, it caused a sensation. Most visitors had never seen this majestic, hulking animal up close. And most probably thought it would be their only chance, since the bison had all but vanished from the wild. Some 140 years later, Kirk Johnson , director of the National Museum of Natural History, realized that the iconic display itself had vanished from the museum's collection. So he went o...
Mar 04, 2025•31 min•Season 6Ep. 10
From the Smithsonian's Sidedoor podcast: sorting fact from fiction to find the real Sojourner Truth. As a prominent woman's rights activist and abolitionist, Sojourner Truth gave hundreds of speeches and sold countless images of herself. And yet the words that define her in our popular imagination - "Ain't I a woman?" - were actually made up. Host Lizzie Peabody went looking for the real Sojourner Truth and she found a woman with a much more complicated and fascinating life than any slogan can c...
Feb 04, 2025•35 min•Season 6Ep. 9
We follow a paper trail back in time to learn about the laborers -- some of them enslaved -- who put their backs into the graceful old building that now houses the National Portrait Gallery. When construction began on the building in the 1830s, Washington D.C. was in the midst of a mini building boom as a seat of freedom and democracy. Yet the city also had an active slave trade. By sifting through reams of microfilm and estate records, historian Michael Hussey was able to establish that at leas...
Jan 21, 2025•24 min•Season 6Ep. 8
We remember former President Jimmy Carter through a slightly different lens-- through the eyes of a longtime friend and through the portraits of Carter that are housed here at the National Portrait Gallery. Political aide Jack Watson met Carter 10 years before he became president. He found a farmer in work clothes driving a Chevy and quoting philosophy. Over their long friendship and while serving as chief of staff, Jack came to appreciate Carter as a man who was willing to take "bitter medicine...
Jan 09, 2025•21 min•Season 6Ep. 7
In this mini 'Blink' episode, Kim asks political aide Jack Watson for his thoughts on a couple of Time magazine covers featuring his old boss, former President Jimmy Carter. One depicts the transition team that helped Carter sift through potential political appointees -- a team that Jack led. The other depicts Carter with his characteristic broad smile, which, Jack says, doesn't tell the whole story. See the artwork we discussed: The Great Talent Hunt , by Jack Davis Jimmy Carter , by Alan Reing...
Dec 17, 2024•7 min•Season 6Ep. 6
Paris in the early 1900s was a magnet for convention-defying American women. It offered a delicious taste of freedom, which they used to explode the gender norms of their day, and to explore new kinds of art, literature, dance and design. In the process, they became arbiters of modernism. In this episode we revisit our interview with curator Robyn Asleson about the National Portrait Gallery’s “Brilliant Exiles” exhibition, which opened in April. It features 60 trailblazing women, including the d...
Dec 03, 2024•27 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Every time a president leaves office they're asked to do something that might not come naturally-- sit still, be quiet and surrender to someone else's work. In other words, they have their portrait painted. The National Portrait Gallery and the White House Historical Association both commission portraits of the outgoing president and first lady. Several of the paintings have become iconic images, stamped on history. Others have been known to stop viewers in their tracks. Some have been unloved. ...
Nov 19, 2024•24 min•Season 6Ep. 4
In 1872, decades before women were legally allowed to vote, Victoria Woodhull made an audacious run for the White House. The press ridiculed her stance on 'free love' and she spent election night in jail. But she had put the first small crack in one of the thickest glass ceilings around. Twelve years later Belva Lockwood, the first woman to argue before the Supreme Court, took another swing at it. We celebrate Election Day with a look back at some of the first women who dared to run for the high...
Nov 05, 2024•27 min•Season 6Ep. 3
With Election Day just around the corner, we go back in time to figure out how early presidential candidates got their message, and their image, in front of voters. It wasn't easy. Asking directly for people's vote was seen as undignified, so candidates mostly stayed home in the early 1800s. As a result, most Americans didn't know for sure what their candidates looked like, or sounded like. Kim speaks with curator Claire Jerry, from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, about th...
Oct 22, 2024•25 min•Season 6Ep. 2
We're back! Season six of PORTRAITS hits your feed Oct. 22 with a new slate of shows that use artwork to decode our world. Kim Sajet , director of the National Portrait Gallery, talks with guests about presidential campaigns, scientific discoveries and some of the currents running through today’s cultural landscape.
Oct 15, 2024•2 min•Season 6Ep. 1
As AI art gets more and more sophisticated, how do we tell the difference between a portrait that’s created by a human being – with a soul – and art that’s created by a complex algorithm? And if we can’t tell the difference, will artists be out of a job? Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explains how AI art works, and why he thinks code can actually help artists to expand their creative universe. But there’s one big question that remains: What does AI art tell us about the inner world of AI ...
Aug 22, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 22
In this mini episode from our 'Blink' series, Rick Chapman shares stories from photographing elite athletes who have competed in the Olympic Games. The first step, he says, is to put the camera down. The second is not to talk about sports too much. Rick's ESPY Collection, for ESPN, features 40 celebrity athletes, including boxers, tennis stars and basketball royalty. You can find it here . See the portraits we discussed: Venus Williams, black and white Venus Williams, color Shaun White, black an...
Aug 08, 2024•7 min•Season 5Ep. 21
Dolley Madison was eight years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and 40 when her husband James became president. In her late 70s she sat for a photograph, becoming the first (former) first lady to do so. Then, this summer, the National Portrait Gallery acquired it. In this mini 'Blink' episode, Kim speaks with Ann Shumard, senior curator of photographs, to hear how this rare daguerreotype came to light and how the Gallery was able to buy it. See the photograph here ....
Aug 01, 2024•7 min•Season 5Ep. 20
There are not many portrait artists who get recognized on the street, but it happens to Devon Rodriguez all the time. After quietly honing his skill for a decade, Devon started posting videos of his live drawings of New York City subway commuters to social media. The videos took off, earning him some 50 million followers and placing portraiture in front of a huge new audience. Kim speaks with Devon about the mentors who had his back, and this new model for showing art— not in museums, but on scr...
Jul 18, 2024•21 min•Season 5Ep. 19
Next in our 'Blink' summer series, Kim speaks with Robyn Asleson, curator of the 'Brilliant Exiles' exhibition, about a dreamy painting that holds a secret code. Edward Steichen's mural assigns a flower to several female friends who planted themselves in Paris's modernist milieu. But where some see jewel-toned beauty, Robyn sees a minefield. In Exaltation of Flowers , by Edward Steichen
Jul 04, 2024•5 min•Season 5Ep. 18
A globe turned to Haiti. A glove on the ground. This life-size portrait of President Abraham Lincoln contains intriguing details that can be read as a freeze-frame of race relations at the time of his assassination. The oil painting was ‘hidden in plain sight’ for decades at a municipal building in New Jersey, until our guest Ted Widmer helped to re-discover it. Travers’ Lincoln is currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery, on loan from the Hartley Dodge Foundation, and courtesy of t...
Jun 20, 2024•25 min•Season 5Ep. 17
In our 'Blink' summer series, Kim takes listeners behind the scenes for a quick glimpse at some of the goings-on at the National Portrait Gallery. This first mini-episode finds staff in a tight spot. How do they fit a large, priceless work of art into a very old, very historic building with small doors?
Jun 06, 2024•5 min•Season 5Ep. 16
From the Smithsonian's Sidedoor podcast, we bring you a special episode about the tiny new portraits appearing in our pockets and purses. The faces on our coins tell our national story. But until recently women were mostly absent. Host Lizzie Peabody follows the money to find out who gets to be 'heads' in a big new batch of women-only quarters. Guests: Jennifer Schneider , former program manager at Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum , current assistant registrar of outgoing and governme...
May 23, 2024•33 min•Season 5Ep. 15
Kiki Smith says she didn’t really start making drawings of people until she was 40. Once she had aged a little, she looked in the mirror and saw lines— something “to hang onto” as an artist. At 70, she says it’s the hags and witches who attract her most. In this episode, Kim speaks with Kiki about portraying older women’s bodies and how aging has influenced her work. Kiki’s female subjects sometimes evoke biblical figures or characters from fairy tales, and they’re often connected to nature— to ...
Apr 09, 2024•22 min•Season 5Ep. 14
We didn’t want to let Women’s History Month pass without a tip of the hat to one of the towering figures we’ve featured here on PORTRAITS. Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu was a rockstar experimental physicist who worked with Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project. She also met the pope, and inspired a Chinese opera. But here in the United States, she didn’t always get the recognition she deserved. At least not until her granddaughter, Jada Yuan, took up her story. This episode originally aired in 2022. See th...
Mar 26, 2024•28 min•Season 5Ep. 13
Paris in the early 1900s was a magnet for convention-defying American women. It offered a delicious taste of freedom, which they used to explode the gender norms of their day, and to explore new kinds of art, literature, dance and design. In the process, they became arbiters of modernism. This episode, we raise the curtain on the National Portrait Gallery’s “Brilliant Exiles” exhibition with curator Robyn Asleson . It features 60 trailblazing women, including the dancer, singer and spy Josephine...
Mar 12, 2024•27 min•Season 5Ep. 12
The National Mall is a great canvas, in part because of all the history embedded there. It’s been a place of protest, celebration and mourning. It also hosts some spectacular monuments. But critic Salamishah Tillet says there is a lot of history missing from the Mall as a commemorative space, like desegregation and the displacement of Indigenous people. Kim speaks with Salamishah about the ‘Beyond Granite’ exhibition she co-curated on the Mall, and also with Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada , the artist w...
Feb 27, 2024•25 min•Season 5Ep. 11
A globe turned to Haiti. A glove on the ground. A life-size portrait of President Abraham Lincoln contains intriguing details that can be read as a freeze-frame of race relations at the time of his assassination. It also may be the most lifelike depiction of the 16th president— standing to his full height and in full color. The oil painting by W.F.K. Travers was ‘hidden in plain sight’ for decades at a municipal building in New Jersey. Biographer Ted Widmer played a role in re-discovering the po...
Feb 13, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 10
There are not many portrait artists who get recognized on the street, but it happens to Devon Rodriguez all the time. After quietly honing his skill for a decade, Devon started posting videos of his live drawings of New York City subway commuters to social media. The videos took off, earning him some 50 million followers and placing portraiture in front of a huge new audience. Kim speaks with Devon about the mentors who had his back, and this new model for showing art— not in museums, but on scr...
Jan 30, 2024•21 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Copyright law is complicated, especially when it comes to visual art. So there was a lot of fanfare around the Supreme Court’s May ruling involving a celebrity portrait photographer, the pop artist Andy Warhol, and an orange silk screen of the late musician Prince. Would the decision give us some clarity around what’s ‘infringing’ in the world of appropriation art? Lauryn Guttenplan, former deputy general counsel for the Smithsonian, walks us through some high-profile copyright cases from the pa...
Jan 16, 2024•26 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Silhouettes were a hugely popular and democratic form of portraiture in the 19th century. So an old ledger book full of cut paper profiles at the National Portrait Gallery caught a conservator’s eye. It promised a rare glimpse at people from all different backgrounds who lived in early America. It also held a surprise: It was laced with poison. Lizzie Peabody, host of the Smithsonian’s Sidedoor podcast , brings us the story of the book, the man who created it, and the web of overlapping stories ...
Jan 02, 2024•33 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Digital artist Amalia Soto, also known by the username Molly Soda , wants to show us how we portray ourselves, or perform ourselves, online. She says the images and videos we upload don’t necessarily lie, but they do pose questions about the ways we curate our lives for unseen others. She also believes there is a lot we don’t actually control when we hit the ‘post’ button. With Glenn Kaino . See the artwork we discussed: Who’s Sorry Now? (2017) Inbox Full (2012) My Apology (2022)...
Dec 19, 2023•21 min•Season 5Ep. 6
