National Portrait Gallery

The last museum seminar for the SFF 2017 cohort saw the group at the National Portrait Gallery. As has been our good fortune for the last several years, the afternoon was in the able hands of Dr. David Ward, Senior Historian, NPG and Briana Zavadil White, Student and Teacher Programs Manager, NPG. The afternoon began with Dr. Ward guiding the group through the museum’s exhibits as he addressed aspects of social justice represented in and missing from the NPG collection. His ability to describe America’s struggle for justice through the people who shaped events and personified that struggle, combined with his knowledge of American history and art, provided a valuable overview of that struggle from the days of the founding fathers to the present. His guided lecture highlighted themes that have been common from our country’s beginnings and which continue to be relevant today.

Following a brief break, we returned to the Struggle for Justice exhibit to complete a short activity given to us by Briana Zavadil White. The group then moved to the exhibit, “Hindsight is 20/20” by R. Luke DuBois, based on State of the Union addresses of all U.S. Presidents from Washington to George W. Bush. Words from those speeches are represented in the form of an eye chart, with the most frequently occurring words commanding the upper lines and largest font of each chart. Applying our responses to the just-completed activity to this exhibit stimulated everyone’s thinking and led to a thoughtful discussion with which we closed the afternoon. It was a terrific way to end what has been a terrific series of museum seminars.