PORTRAITS

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, ther...

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 Nationa...

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 p...

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 a...

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 s...

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.W...

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 Po...

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 t...

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 ...

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 po...

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 n...

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 dir...

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 gue...

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...

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 came...

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 firs...

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 ...

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 assig...

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 ti...

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 tig...

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 u...

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. ...

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 phy...

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 ...

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 c...

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 ...

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 video...

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 ...

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 conservato...

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 nece...

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...

That glass of fine wine you’re enjoying so much.. What if you were told it came from a box? Would it taste different? According to art fraud investigator Colette Loll, yes, it would. Colette...

The blockbuster Oppenheimer movie focuses on two portrayals of J. Robert Oppenheimer. One is the famous physicist known as the architect of the atomic bomb, and the second is a more vulnerabl...

Museum director Kim Sajet takes listeners to stand in front of a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, the revered commander who led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War. But it’s actu...

Season five kicks off Oct. 24, as director Kim Sajet takes listeners into the National Portrait Gallery to stand in front of some of her favorite artwork. ...

When Gloria Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine, she wanted a cover image that would break completely with the norms of the day. There would be no high-end models and no teasers for makeup tips. ...

Dr. Dorothy Andersen solved a vexing medical mystery by identifying cystic fibrosis. But the mystery of her missing portrait remained unsolved. This week, we're featuring an episode from the...

Washington Post editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes says her profession serves as a canary in the coalmine for freedom of expression, a kind of oxygen monitor for democracy itself. When cartooni...

Indra Nooyi grew up in a conservative Brahmin household in India, but that didn’t stop her from playing cricket with her brother’s friends, or from joining an all-girl rock band. Years later,...

From our fellow Smithsonian podcast, Sidedoor, the story of Edmonia Lewis— the first sculptor of African American and Native American (Mississauga) descent to achieve international fame. Her ...

Before cable news and email and Twitter, it was the postal service that transmitted ideas and information across land, sea, and political divides. Kim speaks with National Postal Museum chief...

José Andrés is the Michelin-starred chef known for jumping into action to feed people affected by hurricanes, wildfires, and most recently the war in Ukraine. But he’s also a huge admirer of ...

The House committee investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has generated a lot of interest in one of the National Portrait Gallery’s latest commissions -- an official portrait of...

Atlantic editor Vann R. Newkirk II talks to Kim about the mutability of memory, as seen through two portraits of the abolitionist John Brown. He also explains how a photograph of his mom help...

Photography and the Civil War crashed into one another, making it affordable for soldiers to have their picture taken before going off to war. What Black soldiers communicated in these images...

George Takei went boldly where no man had gone before when he broke racial stereotypes to play Mr. Sulu on Star Trek. But he's also lent his celebrity (and his sharp-witted Twitter feed) to a...

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu was a towering figure in science whose parity experiment shattered our understanding of the physical world. She enjoyed rockstar status in China, met the pope, inspired an...

Grassroots organizer Dolores Huerta talks to Kim about her first encounter with the deep poverty of California farmworkers in the 1950s, and how she took on the status quo (in a wrinkled swea...

Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, examines the stories of people who say “No” to the status quo. Guests this season include Dolores Huerta, who fought chauvinism within th...

Since it was founded over a long lunch in Boston in 1857, The Atlantic has featured presidents and poets, abolitionists and suffragists— men and women set on advancing The American Idea. This...