PRESIDENTS, SPORTS HEROES and Much Much More at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC

Abraham Lincoln, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC

My visit to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, was on February 12^th, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, so, of course, my first stop was in the gallery of American Presidents. Lincoln is depicted life size, standing in his office at the White House. The guide at the Visitors' Desk in the lobby told me that when Mary Todd Lincoln first saw the painting she thought he looked so real that he was still alive.

The National Portrait Gallery shares a building with the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). (See my post of June 10, 2024.) Each of the four floors of the museum has galleries for both museums. During my visit I zigzagged between them before returning to the courtyard on the first level.

Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Sandra Day O'Conner, Ruth Bader Ginsberg 

A visit to the Portrait Gallery is a walk through American history, beginning on the first floor with portraits from 1600 to 1900. In the American Presidents gallery on the second floor George Washington greets visitors at the entrance, looking very much the Father of our Country.

American Presidents Gallery. George Washington at entrance.

Paintings of other Presidents vary considerably in size and style—each President choosing his own portraitist. Some of the paintings are in a traditional portrait style...

Bill Clinton, painting by Chuck Close

...while others, like those of John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, are depicted larger than life and in a more contemporary style.

John Kennedy, painting by Elaine de Kooning

Barack Obama, painting by Kehinde Wiley

Adjacent to the President's Gallery is a gallery dedicated to The Struggle for Justice, beginning with a large painting of Congressman John Lewis. 

Congressman John Lewis, painting by Michael Shane Neal

Other figures in the gallery include singer Marian Anderson, activist and journalist Charlayne Hunter Gault, Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt Administration, and Minaru Yasui, civil rights attorney who fought for Japanese American rights during and after World War II. Each portrait is accompanied with a panel briefly citing the person’s role in history.

Michelle Obama, painting by Amy Sherald

I then climbed the elegant stairway to the third floor in search of Michelle Obama’s portrait in the gallery of Twentieth-Century Americans. The painting by Amy Sherald, of Michelle Obama in a flowing white dress, dominates the room.

I then climbed more stairs to reach the third-floor mezzanine where paintings of American sports heroes line the wall. 

Gallery of Champions, Arthur Ashe

There I found baseball players, football stars, tennis champions—men and women athletes whose names have become part of history. At the other end of the mezzanine are portraits of people from the entertainment world—actors, singers, dancers.

Third floor mezzanine.

The paintings on exhibit are just the tip of the iceberg, a selected few of the thousands of portraits in the Smithsonian collection. You can find more by searching the National Portrait Gallery's website. You may be surprised at what you will discover!