Teaching Packet

Faces of America: Portraits

Part of Uncovering America

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Subject

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On this Page:

  1. Overview
  2. Selected Works
  3. Quotes
  4. Activity: Reading Visual Cues in Portraits
  5. Activity: Respond and Related
  6. Activity: We Are Family
  7. Activity: Explore Portable Portraits
  8. Activity: Alternative Portraits
  9. Activity: Showing Yourself
  10. Additional Resources
A man with pale white skin sits and a man with light brown skin stands in front of a cave-like, rocky outcropping in this vertical portrait painting. The light-skinned man closer to us has dark brown hair, and the light falls more strongly on him. He sits propped on or against a rock with his body angled to our left, and he looks off into the distance in that direction. He wears a scarlet-red overcoat, a white waistcoat, and moccasins. What appears to be an animal skin painted on the underside with red, tan, and black geometric patterns is tied around his chest and falls over his left arm, on our right. With that hand, he holds a musket like a walking stick. He also holds a black cap ornamented with beads and feathers on his other knee. The man with brown skin stands in shadow behind the other man, to our left. His body faces us, and he looks at the seated man. A dark cloak encircles his shoulders and is gathered around his waist. A strap crosses his bare chest and the strap, bracelets, and a feathered headdress seem to be beaded. Large gold rings curve from his earlobes up over his ears. A puff of smoke emerges from the top of the long, painted stick he holds, suggesting it is a pipe. He holds his left hand, on our right, at his chest, and points subtly to our left, perhaps to the landscape seen through a break in the rocky outcropping. There, in front of a waterfall in the distance, a small group of people with light brown skin gather around a camp fire in front of a tent-like structure.
Benjamin West, Colonel Guy Johnson and Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), 1776, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1940.1.10

Overview

What is a portrait? What truths and questions does a portrait communicate?

What might a portrait express about the person portrayed? How does it reflect the sitter’s community, setting, family, or friends? What does the portrait reveal about the artist?

The basic fascination with capturing and studying images of ourselves and of others—for what they say about us, as individuals and as a people—is what makes portraiture so compelling.

For centuries, portraits have formed an important record of America’s people. When you think of the nation’s first president, the image that comes to mind is likely one created by portraitist Gilbert Stuart, George Washington (Vaughan portrait), 1795. Gilbert captures a broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced, and serious president who eyes us directly, full of character and probity. We know America’s early colonists, leaders, politicians, merchants, and philosophers through their portraits. Very consciously, these individuals constructed, with artists, public memorials of how they wished to be remembered by future generations. They projected their personal qualities, such as prudence, leadership, and strength; their accomplishments, whether military, professional, or intellectual; and their social role or position, such as matriarch, landowner, or politician.

Access to portraits in colonial America and during the republic’s early years was limited. Portraits were available to very few, largely European colonists or immigrant Americans—those who could afford this costly luxury (and a home to place it in). Gradually, as the economy grew, an entrepreneurial class of often self-trained portraitists began to serve a growing middle class who wished to preserve their likenesses for personal, rather than public, reasons, such as to record their family lineage for posterity. Joshua Johnson, among the few African American artists practicing in the area of portraiture during the early 19th century, painted many such family documents, including Grace Allison McCurdy (Mrs. Hugh McCurdy) and Her Daughters, Mary Jane and Letitia Grace, circa 1806. Its domestic setting (the subjects sit on a high-back sofa) and the intimacy and tenderness conveyed by mother and daughters distinguish it from Gilbert Stuart’s public portraiture.

From the 19th century onward, new technology, the expansion of the country, and vast social and political change spurred artists to embrace modern media, like photography, as well as novel approaches predicated on changes in the relationship between the artist and subject. This shifting dynamic is seen in two of George Catlin’s portraits of American Indians, The Female Eagle—Shawano, 1830, and Boy Chief—Ojibbeway, 1843. Catlin portrayed these individuals because of his personal interest in what he saw as the disappearance of Native culture and his drive to document it, rather than commercial motives. Meanwhile, the advent of photography introduced inexpensive prints that were traded and collected in the first photo albums. These included images of people of different social classes and portrayals of individuals who embodied certain ideals, such as a portrait of abolitionist and activist Sojourner Truth, 1864. She included a caption for her portrait, “I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance,” indicating that she marketed her image in order to promote her beliefs.

Artists of the 20th century continued to extend the purposes of portraiture. James Van Der Zee opened a photography studio in Harlem and extensively documented the lives of African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance, yielding an important chronicle of the period, including Sisters of 1926. Other images, such as Georgia O’Keeffe, 1924, a photograph of the painter captured by her partner Alfred Stieglitz, reflect the American ethos of individualism. In Little Girl in White (Queenie Burnett), 1907, painter George Bellows brought attention to the lives of marginalized street children in an era before child labor laws protected them. Compare Bellows’s work with that of John Singer Sargent’s Miss Beatrice Townsend, 1882, of a generation earlier; the two girls embody great contrasts in American society. Other artists chose to explore the properties of portraiture and perhaps the limitations of representation, such as Lee Miller in her Portrait of Space, near Siwa, Egypt, 1937.

The trajectory of experimentation continues as the boundaries of the genre of portraiture extend yet further. Contemporary portraits depict not only the visible signs of a person’s identity and appearance, but also reveal other ways in which we define ourselves: fitting in or being at odds, connections to place/home/community, and identification with work/civic/personal life. In his Working People series (1972–1987), photographer Milton Rogovin documents working-class people employed in trades and factories in rural America. Barkley Leonnard Hendricks and Andy Warhol explore fashion and self-presentation (George Jules Taylor, 1972, and two Warhol self-portraits of the 1980s) and the myriad ways in which identity and appearance may shift.

How we picture and understand ourselves through portraiture continues to evolve as artists and their sitters explore new forms and approaches to representation and identity.

Selected Works

  • A man with pale white skin sits and a man with light brown skin stands in front of a cave-like, rocky outcropping in this vertical portrait painting. The light-skinned man closer to us has dark brown hair, and the light falls more strongly on him. He sits propped on or against a rock with his body angled to our left, and he looks off into the distance in that direction. He wears a scarlet-red overcoat, a white waistcoat, and moccasins. What appears to be an animal skin painted on the underside with red, tan, and black geometric patterns is tied around his chest and falls over his left arm, on our right. With that hand, he holds a musket like a walking stick. He also holds a black cap ornamented with beads and feathers on his other knee. The man with brown skin stands in shadow behind the other man, to our left. His body faces us, and he looks at the seated man. A dark cloak encircles his shoulders and is gathered around his waist. A strap crosses his bare chest and the strap, bracelets, and a feathered headdress seem to be beaded. Large gold rings curve from his earlobes up over his ears. A puff of smoke emerges from the top of the long, painted stick he holds, suggesting it is a pipe. He holds his left hand, on our right, at his chest, and points subtly to our left, perhaps to the landscape seen through a break in the rocky outcropping. There, in front of a waterfall in the distance, a small group of people with light brown skin gather around a camp fire in front of a tent-like structure.
  • Shown from the chest up, an older man with pale, peachy skin, wearing a high-collared black coat and a cream-white, ruffled collar, is shown against a deep wine-red background in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our right and he turns his face to look at us with gray eyes under pale gray eyebrows. He has a hooked nose and jowls along his chin line. His cheeks are flushed and his lips are set in a line. His white hair flares out along the sides of his head and is tied at the nape of his neck with a ribbon loosely painted and outlined with black. His ink-black coat has silvery gray highlights along the high collar and his right shoulder, to our left. The background is painted with light brushstrokes, deepening from scarlet red around his face to black at the upper corners.
  • Shown from the lap up, a woman with pale skin wearing a white satin dress and tall white bonnet sits sewing with her body facing our left in this vertical portrait painting. She turns her head to look directly at us from under slightly raised eyebrows with heavy-lidded, almond-shaped, dark brown eyes. She has a long, sharp nose and her high cheekbones are lightly flushed. Her thin lips are pressed together with the corners pulled back, and her mouth is framed by vertical wrinkles along her chin. A bonnet of sheer white fabric is secured around her head by a white silk ribbon tied into a four-loop bow above her forehead. The bonnet is pleated to create ruffles that frame her face. The woman pinches threaded sewing needle between her right thumb and index finger, farther from us, while holding the thread taunt with her outstretched pinky. Light catches a pearl-like object near her thumb, but on closer inspection it might be a thimble she wears on her middle finger. The remainder of the thread is secured by her left index finger and thumb, which also holds the fabric she stitches. A gold ring glistens on the third finger of her left hand. The crisp fabric of her dress looks white in the light and the shadows are a silvery, pale gray. The long sleeves fit closely along her arms and more fabric, perhaps of the skirt, billows up beside her over the arm of the chair. A piece of gauzy white cloth drapes over the woman's neck and over her shoulders, and may be tied around her torso. She sits in a dusky rose-pink upholstered chair lined with brass nail heads. The background behind her is taupe near her torso and it darkens to nearly black in the upper corners.
  • Shown from the knees up, a light-skinned man and woman are seated side-by-side on grassy rise in a landscape in this horizontal portrait painting. To our left, the man leans heavily toward the woman to our right, propped on one elbow near her hip. She sits upright, resting one hand over his forearm and wrist. The clean-shaven man looks at her with blue eyes under gray, arched brows. He has a straight nose, round cheeks, a hint of a double chin, and his pale pink lips are closed in a slight smile. He wears a forest-green coat, a white waistcoat embroidered with golden yellow, a white shirt and ruffled tie, and buff-colored breaches. His right hand, to our left, is propped loosely against his hip. Next to that hand, a green parrot stands with its wings lifted as it turns its head back over its body. The man’s other hand, near the woman, holds a long, wooden telescope. The woman looks off into the distance to our left with gray eyes. She has smooth cheeks, a delicate nose, and her pink lips also curl in a faint smile. A strand of pearls weaves through the brown hair loosely piled on her head and through the thick curls that fall over her shoulders. Her white dress is loosely draped around her body. An ocean-blue sash with gold stripes and fringe wraps around her waist, and a sprig of pink flowers is tucked into a fold at her neckline. She holds at least three peaches and a stem of leaves in her lap, and a spray of purple clover blossoms in her other hand, which rests lightly over the man’s forearm. A swath of white fabric, perhaps from her skirt, wraps up and over the man’s thigh, closer to her. Behind the woman, a tree grows on a low hill along the right edge of the canvas and off the top. The landscape opens into an expansive vista to our left with spindly trees growing in a low meadow that leads back to a body of water in the deep distance. Minuscule in scale, tiny boats and buildings line the water’s edge near the horizon. A few thin, silvery gray and petal-pink clouds skim across the pale blue sky.
  • A woman and two children wear nearly matching white dresses in this vertical portrait. All three have pale skin, and they look out at us. Their floor length, short-sleeved, scoop-necked dresses are made with what looks like light, tulle-like fabric gathered just below the bust. The woman sits to our left on a dark sofa. The back of the couch curves up over her shoulders and down to our right, and off the painting. The top edge of the sofa has nail-head trim, and the wall behind it is elephant gray. The woman’s curling brown hair is pulled back behind a white headband. She has gray eyes, and her pink lips are closed. She holds a sprig of strawberries with her right hand, which rests in her lap. Her left arm, on our right, wraps around the younger child, who stands on the sofa at the center of the composition. The child has blond hair and light brown eyes, and wears a delicate, coral bead necklace. To our right, the older child stands in front of the couch. Her black hair is brushed back from her face except for bangs sweeping across her forehead. She has dark brown eyes and wears a gold-colored necklace. The older girl holds a basket of strawberries with her left hand, and rests her other hand on the pointed end of a parasol, which is tucked behind her body to our left.
  • A pale-skinned woman wearing a shimmering, pearl-white dress stands next to a harp, which is taller than she is, in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body faces us, but she angles her head slightly to our right. She looks up and off into the distance with gray-blue eyes under dark, curved brows. She has an oval face with a narrow chin. Her cheeks are flushed, and her full pink lips are closed. Her hair is pulled up, and chin-length curls frame her face. A ruffle, perhaps of lace, lines the low neckline of her dress, which has a sheen suggesting satin or silk. The gown has short, cap sleeves and falls in a narrow A-line to her pointed white shoes. One foot rests on a pedal at the base of the harp, and behind her is a low stool with a round, dark orange upholstered seat and a wood pedestal base. A topaz-blue brocade-patterned scarf with fringed narrow ends falls over one of the woman’s shoulders, down her back, across the stool, and then puddles on the floor. The woman’s right arm, on our left, rests over the upward curving neck of the harp. She holds a T-shaped tuning key in that hand. Her other hand reaches across her body to touch the strings. The crown of the harp is ornately carved with leaves, and the instruments rests on low, clawed feet. The carpet or floor is patterned with concentric circles and patterned rings in peach, moss green, soft yellow, and pink. A gray stone column rises to our right behind the woman, and a ledge spans the rest of the space behind her. The landscape beyond has hills and trees leading back to the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition. Parchment-brown clouds swirl against a muted blue sky above. The artist signed the work as if his initials and date were written on the base of the harp. The intwined letters T and S are followed by the date, 1818.
  • Shown from the waist up, a Shawano woman with medium-brown skin sits angled to the right and looking off in that direction in this vertical portrait painting. She has broad, flushed cheeks, light brown eyes, a cleft chin, and her lips are closed. Her black hair is parted down the middle and tied at the base of her head. A ponytail falls over one shoulder, and her part is painted red. She wears an earring made up of a cluster of long, conical silver tubes in the ear we can see. At least nine strands of delicate, blue-toned beads encircle her neck, some falling to the hollow of her throat and some reaching down her chest. Her shoulders are bare as a lace-edged chemise, carnation-pink fabric striped with blue, green, and white, and a thick white fur or fleece wrap are gathered around her arms, which appear to be crossed in front of her belly. The background is mottled with muted mauve pink and smoky turquoise blue.
  • The head, shoulders, and chest of a young man with brown skin, dressed in Ojibbeway tribal attire, faces and looks at us in this vertical portrait painting. The right side of his face, on our left, is painted crimson red, and horizonal stripes of red and white line his other cheek. He looks at us with dark brown eyes under black eyebrows. A silvery white ring hangs from his nose between his nostrils. His upper lip is darker than his skin-colored lower lip, and his mouth is closed. His brown fur headdress has a cardinal-red patch at the front center. Pearl-white feathers with red tips hang along both sides of his face and down to his shoulders. The sleeves of his tan coat are streaked with sky blue, tomato red, and lemon-lime green, and fringe of the same colors hangs along the arms. Fur lining at the neck follows the curve of a string of curving, white claws and a glinting string of silvery-gray beads. He also wears a high, beaded collar with white and dark brown geometric pattern. A strap crosses his chest. The background behind him is mottled with sage green, tan, and cream white.
  • Shown from the hips up, a pale-skinned young girl wearing an ink-black garment with a cream-white collar and a coral-red sash and necklaces holds a terrier dog as she looks at us in this vertical portrait painting. The artist used brushstrokes throughout, especially in the hair, clothing, dog, and background. The girl’s body is slightly angled to our left but she turns her oval face to us. She slightly cocks one faint brow as she gazes out with large, pale blue eyes. She has smooth cheeks, and her full, red lips are closed. Her chestnut-brown hair curtains her forehead in thick bangs and falls down past her shoulders. Her black dress has long, tightly-fitting sleeves and is cinched with a wide, oversized red sash, presumably tied at the back. A multi-stranded, coral-red necklace lies over her layered, cream-white lace collar, which extends just past her shoulders. A long, white cuff falls over her left wrist, down by her side. With her other hand, to our left, she supports the terrier against her right hip. The long fur around the dog’s dark eyes is shimmering, flax brown. Caramel-brown ears poke up on its shaggy head. The girl holds the dog's tail in that hand. The background behind the pair lightens from fawn brown across the top to golden brown along the bottom edge. The artist inscribed and signed the painting in slanting, cursive letters at the top right corner: “to my friend Mrs Townsend John S. Sargent.”
  • A young, pale-skinned girl wearing a white dress stands against a darkened background in this vertical portrait painting. Her body faces our left in profile, and she clasps her hands in front of her pelvis. Her face turns a bit to us, her chin pulled back so she looks at us with large, black eyes from under her brows. She has a delicate nose, pink lips, and a pointed chin. Her cinnamon-brown hair is pulled halfway up, away from her forehead, and falls down over her shoulders. Her dress has a high collar, a loose bodice, and long sleeves. It is cinched at the waist and falls like a bell to just below her knees. She wears black stockings and shoes. The room in which she stands has a brown floor, and the wall behind her is forest green. The portrait is loosely painted so brushstrokes are visible, especially in the girl’s face and dress.
  • Shown from the knees up, a woman with brown, wrinkled skin, wearing a white blouse, apron, and black skirt is shown in front of a pale gray background in this vertical portrait painting. Straight-backed, she faces and looks at us with her hands resting in her lap. Her wavy, iron-gray hair is parted in the center and pulled back from her face. Her eyebrows are slightly raised, and her face is deeply lined down her cheeks and around her mouth. She wears a heart-shaped brooch with a red stone at its center at her neck and a gold band on her left ring finger. The light coming from our left casts a shadow against the wall to our right. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner: “A.J. MOTLEY. JR. 1922.”
  • A young man shown from the waist up behind a tabletop takes up the left half of this vertical portrait, and a geranium in a terracotta pot takes up the right half of the painting. The man has pale, peachy skin and dark brown hair. He wears a pair of glasses with small oval lenses, a white neckcloth, and a brown coat. He looks down and to our left. He holds a second pair of silver-rimmed glasses in his right hand on the table, and his left hand, on our right, rests on the edge of the terracotta pot. The tall, leggy geranium nearly reaches the upper edge of the canvas and has two clusters of small red flowers near its top. The young man and plant are shown against a fawn-brown background. The artist signed and dated the painting in white letters in the lower right corner: “Rem Peale 1801.”
  • A man’s face printed in hot pink and banana yellow against a black background is repeated four times in this square silkscreen painting. The portraits are arranged in a grid of two by two. The man has a mop of spiky, unruly hair, heavy black brows, and a wide nose. His lips are set in a line over a rounded chin. Each one shows the man with a slightly different expression, some with his chin pulled back and others are straight on, but all look steadily at us with black eyes. The pink and yellow faces overlap but are out of alignment in each portrait. Pink and yellow edges surround each black square.

Quotes

“A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind.” —William James, 1890

“From long experience, I know that resemblance in a portrait is essential; but no fault will be found with the artist (at least by the sitter), if he improves the general appearance.” —Thomas Sully, Hints to Young Painters, 1873

“It will soon be. . .difficult to find a man who has not his likeness done by the sun. . . . the immortality of this generation is as sure, at least, as the duration of a metallic plate.” —Brother Jonathan (a 19th-century periodical based in New York) on the popularity of daguerreotype portraits, which were produced on metallic plates, 1843

“A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.” —Richard Avedon, 1985

“Ultimately, having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it.” —Susan Sontag, On Photography, 1977

 

Activity: Reading Visual Cues in Portraits

Barkley L. Hendricks, George Jules Taylor, 1972, oil on canvas, William C. Whitney Foundation, 1973.19.2

Portraits can embody a surprising number of qualities that range from the impersonal and public (status, profession, or group identity) to very individual characteristics (appearance, expression, or gender). Artists and their sitters use portraits to convey a particular impression, such as turning your “good side” to the camera, trying to appear serious, or focusing attention on a particular social issue.

Choose several portraits from the image set or Pinterest board. Discuss what you think the people pictured are trying to say about themselves and who they are through their portraits.

Research and select several contemporary images of public figures. These could be celebrities, politicians, or activists, to name a few examples. What do you think each person is trying to communicate through his or her self-presentation? Can you find another likeness of that same person that either supports your image or contradicts it?

Activity: Respond and Related

Examine the image set. Try to place the works in chronological order. Discuss the ways in which you can see the art of portraying people changing over time. Think about who is pictured and how they are represented.

 

Activity: We Are Family

Walker Evans, Subway Portrait, 1938-1941, gelatin silver print, Gift of Kent and Marcia Minichiello, 1988.56.44

Find images of families (however you define “family”) in the image set. Explore what the portraits tell you about the relationships among the sitters and who they are. Examine the qualities of the individuals, but also how people are grouped together (posed or unposed); the setting in which they are placed (inside or outside, home or work); and the objects, if any, in the pictures. Why are the artist’s choices important?

You can perform this exercise with different groupings of sitters: women, men, children, and people of color, for instance.

Activity: Explore Portable Portraits

James Peale, Marcia Burns, 1797, watercolor on ivory, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Mrs. Philip Hinkle), 2015.19.2478
James Peale, A. T. Kerr, Esquire, 1798, watercolor on ivory, Corcoran Collection (Bequest of Sarah A. Hagner), 2015.19.2480
American 19th Century, Sojourner Truth, 1864, albumen print (carte-de-visite), Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund, 2014.19.1
Augustus Washington, Portrait of a Woman, c. 1849, daguerreotype with applied color, Robert B. Menschel and the Vital Projects Fund, 2015.97.1

Smartphones allow us to keep images of ourselves, friends, and family within reach of us so that we can look at them or show them to others anytime. This is not a new idea. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, artists painted portable miniature portraits that the owner (or wearer) could keep close in a similar way. These small likenesses were considered fine art—they were commissioned just like large portraits, and therefore were only available to people who could afford the expense. You can see images of a woman wearing portrait miniatures and an artist painting one on the associated Pinterest board.

Another form of portable portrait was the carte-de-visite, which means “calling card” in French. It was invented in France in the 1850s and found its way to the United States quickly. Bearing your portrait, as well as your name and address, cartes-de-visite were the first inexpensive, mainstream form of photography. They supplanted the popular, but more expensive, daguerreotypes (see Augustus Washington’s Portrait of a Woman in this set), which were also sometimes carried as personal mementos. A craze in calling cards consumed Americans in the early 1860s: people traded them, compiled albums, and even collected images of celebrities and notable personages, like Sojourner Truth, who sold cartes-de-visite to raise money.

Consider the functions of these two kinds of portable portraits alongside the ones on your phone now. Respond and discuss:

  • What is each kind of picture for—miniatures, calling cards, and pictures on your phone?
  • What is its value (personal, commercial, monetary) and why?
     

Activity: Alternative Portraits

Ilse Bing, Self-Portrait, 1953, gelatin silver print, Gift of Richard and Judith Smooke, 2003.68.1
Alice Neel, Loneliness, 1970, oil on canvas, Gift of Arthur M. Bullowa, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.143.1
560 panels, each painted a unique, flat color, are hung in a grid to create an abstract work of art. The grid has ten horizontal rows of fifty-six panels. The surface of each panel is covered from edge to edge with a single color. The colors range from mahogany to peach, almond white to dark brown. Some panels are smoothly painted while brushwork is visible on others.
Byron Kim, Synecdoche, 1991-present, oil and wax on lauan plywood, birch plywood, and plywood, Richard S. Zeisler Fund, 2009.39.1.1-560

These pictures may be different from what you would normally think of as a portrait. How and why are they different? In what ways can they still be defined as portraits?

Activity: Showing Yourself

Pictures capture the dimensions that each person expresses in different combinations and in distinct ways. This activity is designed to explore the ways you present yourself in various situations.

Collect five pictures of yourself in scenarios from daily life—think about the different settings, occasions, and people with whom these moments are recorded. Print out the images or create a slideshow on your phone or computer. Do you think that one picture is closer to who you are than the others? Did any of the images show you something unexpected about yourself?

Additional Resources

Picturing America educator resource, National Endowment for the Humanities

George Catlin, Catlin’s Indian cartoons. Synopsis of the Author’s roamings in gathering the paintings enumerated in his Catalogue, [1972]
 

Richard H. Saunders, American Faces: A Cultural History of Portraiture and Identity (Lebanon, NH, 2016)

John Walker, Portraits: 5,000 Years (New York, 1983)

Shearer West, Portraiture (Oxford, 2004)
 

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