Episode notes
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 wolves and birds and stars. “Society is always trying to shrink people’s sense of self or…
Podcast
PORTRAITS
National Portrait Gallery · Arts & Books · English
Art, biography, history and identity collide in this podcast from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Join Director Kim Sajet as she chats with artists, historians, and thought leaders about the big and small ways that portraits shape our world.
More from PORTRAITS All episodes →
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S5 · E19 · 18 Jul 2024 · 21 min
From the Vault: Social Media And The Subway
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 screens. See the portraits we discussed: Kim Sajet, by Devon Rodriguez John Ahearn, by Devon…
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S5 · E18 · 4 Jul 2024 · 5 min
Blink: A Secret Language Of Flowers
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
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S5 · E17 · 20 Jun 2024 · 25 min
From The Vault: Lincoln Hiding In Plain Sight
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 the citizens of the Borough of Madison, New Jersey. See the portrait, by W.F.K. Travers, here .
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S5 · E16 · 6 Jun 2024 · 5 min
Blink: Small Doors, Big Art
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?
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S5 · E15 · 23 May 2024 · 33 min
Bonus: Face Value
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 government loans at the Smithsonian American Art Museum Tey Marianna Nunn, former director of the American…
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S5 · E13 · 26 Mar 2024 · 28 min
From The Vault: The Woman Who Knocked Science Sideways
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 the portraits we discuss: Dr. Wu in the lab Tsung-Dao Lee, Nobel Laureate Chen-Ning Yang , Nobel…
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S5 · E12 · 12 Mar 2024 · 27 min
Brilliant Exiles
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 Baker, and the bookshop owner Sylvia Beach, who took a chance on James Joyce. Also in the lineup:…
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S5 · E11 · 27 Feb 2024 · 25 min
Mall Art
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 who created the largest portrait ever to go on display there. It was a six-acre composite portrait…
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S5 · E10 · 13 Feb 2024 · 24 min
Lincoln Hiding In Plain Sight
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 portrait and he speaks with Kim about its place in history. Travers’ Lincoln is currently on display…
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S5 · E9 · 30 Jan 2024 · 21 min
Social Media And The Subway
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 screens. See the portraits we discussed: Kim Sajet, by Devon Rodriguez John Ahearn, by Devon…
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