Two Smithsonian museums re-open this weekend after a 6-1/2-year renovation. They will now each be a part of the "Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture." The website is [here]. Celebration details for the re-opening are [here].
The New York Times coverage [here]. Washington Post coverage [here] and [here].
The National Portrait Gallery will feature the re-installation of "America's Presidents": "The nation’s only complete collection of presidential portraits outside the White House, this exhibition lies at the heart of the Portrait Gallery’s mission to tell the American story through the individuals who have shaped it. Visitors will see an enhanced and extended display of multiple images of 42 presidents of the United States, including Gilbert Stuart’s 'Lansdowne' portrait of George Washington, the famous 'cracked plate' photograph of Abraham Lincoln and whimsical sculptures of Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush by noted caricaturist Pat Oliphant. Presidents Washington, Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt will be given expanded attention because of their significant impact on the office."
The debates have begun about content, meaning, inclusion and exclusion in both museums. I'll watch as those debates play out. But I did like the comment by Elizabeth Broun, director of the American Art Museum, in the Times article: "Art is not always about pretty things. It's about who we are, what happened to us and how our lives are affected."
Photograph: Andrew Councill for The New York Times.
The National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum, home to Thomas Hart Benton's "Achelous and Hercules," reopen on Saturday in Washington.
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