DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection (Part 2) -- Preparing to open:
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- Description of Pictures: Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection (Part 2)
December 4, 2020 - January 24, 2021
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery presents “Visionary: The Cumming Family Collection,” revealing the results of more than 25 years of inspired collecting by Ian and Annette Cumming and installed in two parts. Part two, featured here, includes portraits by American artists Jack Beal, Chuck Close and Nelson Shanks. This exhibition is curated by Chief Curator Emerita Brandon Brame Fortune and will be accompanied by a limited-edition publication.
Beginning in 1995, the Cummings worked with their friend D. Dodge Thompson to commission or acquire more than two dozen portraits of national and global leaders. The collection includes likenesses of Warren Buffett, Al Gore, Denyce Graves, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison and E.O. Wilson, all of which were created by important American artists. Twenty-two of the portraits are gifts or promised gifts to the Portrait Gallery, among them “The Four Justices” by Shanks, an iconic group portrait featuring the women of the Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
“There is a long history of commissioning portraits for public institutions,” Fortune said. “Commissioning portraits for a personal collection, however, has become very rare. We are fortunate to receive this substantial gift of works by leading American artists and thank the Cumming family for their support of artists and their generosity toward the museum.”
In America’s early years, a few patrons commissioned portraits from leading artists of the day. Thomas Jefferson, for example, chose to support representations of the great heroes of the American Revolution and leaders in government, science and the arts. Today, the Cummings’ vision and enlightened patronage have resulted in portraits of figures whose work has advanced the fields of art, science and business, as well as civil rights and activism. Portraits in the exhibition span the years 1984 to 2020.
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- VISIO2_201120_02.JPG: James Dewey Watson born 1928
James Watson and his collaborator Francis Crick won the Nobel Prize in 1962 for their 1953 discovery of the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Understanding the configuration of DNA -- the carrier of genetic information for most living organisms -- paved the way for groundbreaking research on human diseases. Watson spent many years directing the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, teaching and writing influential books. He retired in 2007, however, after suggesting that the intelligence of those of African descent might not be the same as that of other people.
This was the very first portrait commissioned by the Cummings, working with D. Dodge Thompson, and the only one for which they did not select the artist. The figurative painter Jack Beal captured Watson in his Cold Spring Harbor office, which was filled with many objects and images related to his work and awards, including his Nobel Prize citation.
Jack Beal (1931–2013)
Oil on canvas, 1995
Gift of Ian M. and Annette P. Cumming
- VISIO2_201120_18.JPG: The Lecture (Edward O. Wilson)
Biologist Edward O. Wilson (born 1929), a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, has been a leading force in the biodiversity movement since the 1980s. Trained as an entomologist specializing in ants, Wilson's work has taken him from New Guinea and Sri Lanka to the Smithsonian Institution. His groundbreaking study, Sociobiology:The New Synthesis, was published by Harvard University Press in 1975, sparking controversy. In the book, Wilson examines the biological basis of social behavior in all kinds of organisms, including vertebrates, and links those behaviors to evolutionary biology. The scientist's later work bridges the gap between science and the culture at large, as in Consilience: The Unity of Life (1998). He continues to write for a general audience and recently published Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life (2016).
This portrait shows Wilson in his office at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. He is surrounded by his books, papers, and awards.
Nelson Shanks (1937–2015)
Oil on canvas, 2008–9
Gift of Ian M. and Annette P. Cumming
- VISIO2_201120_20.JPG: Obama 2012 (I)
Barack Obama born 1961
In 2008, Barack Obama made history as the first African American to be elected president, capping a meteoric rise in politics and concluding a campaign that encouraged progress and optimism. Even though he entered the White House as the United States was undergoing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Obama expeditiously enacted the Affordable Care Act, which extended health benefits to millions of previously uninsured Americans. During his tenure, the mission to kill al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was successful, but the president's pledge to close the Guantanamo prison went unrealized. When Obama left office, the feelings of solidarity that had been fostered in his campaign languished.
Chuck Close took two large-format Polaroid photographs of President Obama in 2012 (one smiling, one serious) and used them to create double portraits in a variety of media. In January 2013, Ian and Annette Cumming loaned this set of tapestries to the National Portrait Gallery, where they were placed on view for President Obama's second inauguration.
Chuck Close (born 1940)
Jacquard tapestry, 2012
The Cumming Collection
Obama 2012 (II)
Chuck Close (born 1940)
Jacquard tapestry, 2012
Gift of Ian M. and Annette P. Cumming
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