Smithsonian "American Pictures" Series Concludes with Author James McBride on James Brown

CHESTERTOWN, MD— On Saturday, May 12, memoirist, novelist, and musician James McBride will conclude the 2012 “American Pictures” series with a riff on a dynamic 1969 photograph of soul music legend James Brown performing at the Shrine Auditorium.

A joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the “American Pictures” series offers a highly original approach to art, pairing great works with leading figures of contemporary American culture. Each talk features an eminent writer, artist, critic or historian who chooses a single favorite image to explore, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields.

This spring’s all-star line-up has featured four of America’s most celebrated and multi-talented writers: McBride; renowned illustrator and writer Maira Kalman (who opened the series on March 24); journalist, travel writer and historian Tony Horwitz (who spoke on April 7); and biographer Edmund Morris (who appeared on April 21). The series director is historian Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

James McBride is an acclaimed author, screenwriter and musician; his memoir, The Color of Water (1996), was a New York Times bestseller and has sold millions of copies worldwide. His first novel, Miracle at St. Anna, was adapted in 2008 into a major motion picture written by McBride and directed by Spike Lee. McBride’s second novel, Song Yet Sung (2008), was selected by the Maryland Humanities Council the following year for the “One Maryland, One Book” program.

McBride has written for the Washington Post, People, the Boston Globe, Essence, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times. A saxophonist who studied composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he tours with his own band. McBride received the Stephen Sondheim Award and the Richard Rodgers Foundation Horizon Award for his musical “Bo-Bos,” co-written with playwright Ed Shockley. He is currently at work on a new book about James Brown.

The photograph that McBride has chosen to speak about, “Singer James Brown During a Performance at the Shrine” (1969) memorializes the legendary performer at the height of his career, bringing funk music to an audience eager to embrace the new sound. Photographer Julian Wasser began his career in the 1950s as a copy boy in the Washington, D.C. bureau of the Associated Press. As a Hollywood-based contract photographer for Time, People, and Life, his powerful, often startling portraits – including shots of essayist Joan Didion, comedian Lenny Bruce and avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp – captured a seminal period in the Los Angeles arts scene.

All “American Pictures” events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8^th and G Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C.  McBride’s talk will begin at 2:00 p.m. in the museums’ Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. Free tickets are available beginning at 1:30 p.m. at the G Street lobby information desk on a first-come, first-served basis. No reservations are necessary for the general public.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Washington College may reserve tickets to American Pictures events on a first-come, first-served basis. The Starr Center will also run free buses from Chestertown to Washington for each talk. Buses will depart at 10:30 am and leave D.C. for the return trip at 7:30 pm. For details or to make a reservation, please call 410-810-7165 or e-mail lkitz2@washcoll.edu. For more information, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

About the Sponsors

            Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures series is a project of the college’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

            The National Portrait Gallery tells the history of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.

            The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.

Pulitzer-Winning Biographer Explores Video Image of Reagans for Next "American Pictures" Event

CHESTERTOWN, MD— Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Edmund Morris, acclaimed for his bestselling books on Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, will take the stage on Saturday, April 21 in the next installment of the 2012 “American Pictures” series at the Smithsonian. Morris will offer a provocative take on Reagan through a close look at a short video sequence of the president’s visit to a German concentration camp. The footage helped inspire his 1999 biography Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan.

A joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the “American Pictures” series offers a highly original approach to art, pairing great works with leading figures of contemporary American culture. Each talk features an eminent writer, artist, critic or historian who chooses a single favorite image to explore, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields.

One of America’s most celebrated biographers, Edmund Morris spent 14 years working on a one-volume life of Reagan, with extensive cooperation from the president during and after his time in the White House. The resulting book, an innovative and controversial blend of research and fiction, has been compared to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

Reagan’s visit to Bergen-Belsen took place during a controversial 1985 trip to Germany, in the course of which he also laid a wreath at a military cemetery where members of Hitler’s Waffen-SS were buried. In the brief video clip that Morris will examine, taken from an NBC News report, the president and his wife, Nancy, tour a museum at the former concentration camp and come face-to-face with historic images of the Holocaust.

Morris won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1980 for The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, the first installment in what has become the definitive three-volume biography of the 26th President. The second volume of the trilogy, Theodore Rex, followed in 2001 and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography. The third, the New York Times bestseller Colonel Roosevelt, was published in 2010. Morris’s next book, The Bumstitch and Other Essays, 1972-2012, will be published by Random House in 2012.

All “American Pictures” events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8th and G Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. Morris’s talk will begin at 2 p.m. in the museums’ Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. Free tickets are available beginning at 1:30 p.m. at the G Street lobby information desk on a first-come, first-served basis. No reservations are necessary for the general public.

This spring's all-star line-up features four of America’s most celebrated and multi-talented writers: Morris; renowned illustrator and writer Maira Kalman (who appeared on March 24); journalist, travel writer and historian Tony Horwitz (who spoke on April 7); and memoirist, novelist, and musician James McBride, who will conclude the series on May 12. The series director is historian Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Washington College may reserve tickets to American Pictures events on a first-come, first-served basis. The Starr Center will also run free buses from Chestertown to Washington for each talk. Buses will depart at 10:30 a.m. and leave D.C. for the return trip at 7:30 pm. For details or to make a reservation, please call 410-810-7165 or e-mail lkitz2@washcoll.edu. For more information, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

About the Sponsors

Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures series is a project of the college’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the history of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.

Next in "American Pictures" Series: Pulitzer Prize Winner Tony Horwitz on John Brown, April 7

CHESTERTOWN, MD—The 2012 “American Pictures” series at the Smithsonian continues Saturday afternoon, April 7, when Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, travel writer, and historian Tony Horwitz explores a gripping 1872 portrait of John Brown. The white abolitionist is the subject of Horwitz’s most recent book, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War (2011).

The image of Brown that Horwitz will discuss, a painting by Ole Peter Hansen Balling, is in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection and on display onsite; so visitors will have an opportunity to view the original after the talk.

A joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the “American Pictures” series offers a highly original approach to art, pairing great works with leading figures of contemporary American culture. Each talk features an eminent writer, artist, critic or historian who chooses a single favorite image to explore, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields.

This spring’s all-star line-up features four of America’s most celebrated and multi-talented writers: Horwitz; renowned illustrator and writer Maira Kalman (who appeared on March 24); biographer Edmund Morris, who will speak on April 21; and memoirist, novelist, and musician James McBride, who will conclude the series on May 12. The series director is historian Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Tony Horwitz has garnered a national following for his signature writing style, which blends travel writing and history, inviting readers into the adventure of exploring the past. A graduate of Columbia University School of Journalism, Horwitz spent a decade overseas as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. After returning to the United States, he worked as a staff writer for the New Yorker before becoming a full-time author.

His books include four New York Times bestsellers: Confederates in the Attic (1998), A Voyage Long and Strange (2008), Blue Latitudes (2002), and Baghdad Without a Map (1991). Horwitz has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and a visiting scholar at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

Ole Peter Hansen Balling’s portrait of Brown in captivity after his abortive 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry is striking for what it reveals – as well as what it hides – about the famed abolitionist, who remains a lightning rod for controversy more than 150 years after his death. Born in Norway, Balling emigrated to the United States in 1856. After serving briefly in the Union Army, he spent five weeks encamped with General Ulysses S. Grant, sketching Union commanders in the field. After Lee’s surrender, he turned to painting Northern “war heroes” – ranging from William Tecumseh Sherman to John Brown.

All “American Pictures” events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8th and G Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. Horwitz’s talk will begin at 2 p.m. in the museums’ Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. Free tickets are available beginning at 1:30 p.m. at the G Street lobby information desk on a first-come, first-served basis. No reservations are necessary for the general public.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Washington College may reserve from a special block of American Pictures tickets on a first-come, first-served basis. The Starr Center will also run free buses from Chestertown to Washington for each talk. Buses will depart at 10:30 a.m. and leave D.C. for the return trip at 7:30 pm. For details or to make a reservation, please call 410-810-7165 or e-mail lkitz2@washcoll.edu. For more information, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

About the Sponsors

Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures series is a project of the college’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the history of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.

College Offers Free Transportation to the Smithsonian for "American Pictures" Series

Illustrator Maira Kalman Kicks Off Series Saturday

Afternoon, March 24, with a Diane Arbus Photograph

CHESTERTOWN, MD— Interested in a Saturday of art, history, and cultural exploration in Washington, D.C.? Thanks to a special program offered by Washington College, area residents can join faculty and students for free, daylong excursions to the nation’s capital to attend the acclaimed “American Pictures” series at the Smithsonian. The dates of this year’s events are March 24, April 7, April 21, and May 12. Tickets, including bus transportation from Chestertown to Washington, are free and available to the general public on a first-come, first-served basis.

The “American Pictures” series is a joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Each talk features an eminent writer, artist, critic or historian who chooses a single favorite image to explore, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields. The series director is historian Adam Goodheart of Washington College. Events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. All talks will begin at 2:00 p.m. (a change in time from previous years).

Buses will leave Chestertown at 11:00 a.m., and depart DC for the return trip at 7:30 p.m. Faculty and staff from the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and the Department of Art and Art History are arranging special gallery tours for Washington College’s guests following each talk. For more information, or to make a reservation, please contact Lois Kitz at the Starr Center by calling 410-810-7165 or emailing lkitz2@washcoll.edu.

The series opens Saturday, March 24, with illustrator and writer Maira Kalman, who will explore a haunting photo by Diane Arbus. Kalman has written and illustrated more than a dozen books for children, including Looking at Lincoln (2012), Ooh-la-la-Max in Love (2001), What Pete Ate (2001), and 13 WORDS (2010), a collaboration with Lemony Snicket. Kalman’s books for adults include And the Pursuit of Happiness (2010), and an illustrated version of Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style (2005).

She is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, and is well known for her collaboration with Rick Meyerowitz on the popular 2001 “New Yorkistan” cover. Beloved for her whimsical-neurotic take on modern life, Kalman also created a year-long visual column on American history and democracy for the New York Times. In 2010, the Institute of Contemporary Art organized a retrospective of her work, Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World).

Diane Arbus, whose photograph Untitled (8) will be the focus of Kalman’s talk, was one of the most provocative and distinctive American visual artists of the 20^th century. Created between the 1950s and her death in 1971, her haunting, densely detailed black-and-white portraits – often of men and women considered deviant or “freakish” by society at large – continue to challenge and fascinate viewers. Norman Mailer famously said of her, “Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.”

Untitled (8), taken not long before Arbus’s suicide at age 48, is one of her most striking images. It depicts five men and women, residents of a home for the mentally impaired, dressed in Halloween costumes.

In addition to Kalman, this spring’s all-star line-up features journalist, travel writer and historian Tony Horwitz, biographer Edmund Morris, and memoirist, novelist, and musician James McBride. The series director is historian Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

2012 SCHEDULE

Saturday, March 24: Maira Kalman on Diane Arbus’s Untitled (8) (1970-71)

Saturday, April 7: Tony Horwitz on Ole Peter Hansen Balling’s John Brown (1872)

Saturday, April 21: Edmund Morris on Ronald Reagan at Bergen-Belsen (NBC television sequence, 1985)

Saturday, May 12: James McBride on Julian Wasser’s Singer James Brown during a Performance at the Shrine (1969)

For a more complete description of the four programs, click here.

Nationally Renowned Speakers Headline 2012 "American Pictures" Series at the Smithsonian

Maira Kalman Launches Series on March 24 with

Discussion of a Diane Arbus photograph.

CHESTERTOWN, MD— Four of America’s most celebrated and multi-talented writers will headline Washington College’s 2012 “American Pictures” series at the Smithsonian Institution starting March 24. Renowned illustrator and writer Maira Kalman; journalist, travel writer and historian Tony Horwitz; biographer Edmund Morris; and memoirist, novelist, and musician James McBride will bring audiences on a journey through four iconic American images – from a Diane Arbus photo to a 19th-century portrait – in this spring’s series.

The “American Pictures” series, a joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, offers a highly original approach to art, pairing great works with leading figures of contemporary American culture. Each talk features an eminent writer, artist, critic or historian who chooses a single favorite image to explore, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields. The series director is historian Adam Goodheart of Washington College. Events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington., D.C.

The series begins Saturday, March 24 with Maira Kalman, who will explore a strange and haunting Diane Arbus photograph of five adults in Halloween costumes (1970-71). A frequent contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Times, Kalman has written and illustrated many books for children and adults, including And the Pursuit of Happiness (2010) and 13 Words (2010), a collaboration with Lemony Snicket.

The program continues Saturday, April 7 with Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Horwitz, author of five bestselling books, including Confederates in the Attic and, most recently, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War (2011). Horwitz will examine an image in the National Portrait’s Gallery’s collection, Ole Peter Hansen Balling’s John Brown (1872), a gripping portrait of Brown in captivity that hides as much as it reveals. Since this painting is on display onsite, visitors will have an opportunity to view the original after the talk.

Edmund Morris will take the stage on Saturday, April 21 to speak about a short video sequence from Ronald Reagan’s 1985 visit to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen that helped inspire his bestselling biography Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (1999). One of the most celebrated biographers of our time, Morris is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of three volumes on the life of Theodore Roosevelt, the last of which, Colonel Roosevelt, was published in 2010.

The series will conclude on Saturday, May 12 with James McBride, who will explore a dynamic 1969 Julian Wasser photo of soul music legend James Brown performing at the Shrine Auditorium. McBride’s memoir, The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother, was a New York Times bestseller and has sold millions of copies worldwide. McBride is also a saxophonist who tours with his own jazz/R&B band and has written songs for Anita Baker, Grover Washington, Jr., and others.

“The idea behind ‘American Pictures’ is to have some of the most brilliant thinkers and writers and creators of the present day step inside some of the most powerful images from the past," said series director Goodheart, who is Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of Washington College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. “Each speaker chooses a picture and then has several months to think about what he or she will say. The most exciting thing is that each talk is, in effect, a brand-new work that premieres here for the first time.”

This is the fourth year for the “American Pictures” series, which has drawn large audiences for such diverse speakers as historian Garry Wills, art-rock pioneer Laurie Anderson, actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith, and filmmaker John Waters.

All “American Pictures” events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8^th and G Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. These Saturday talks, held in the museums’ Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium, will begin at 2 p.m. (a change in time from previous years). Free tickets are available beginning at 1:30 p.m. at the G Street lobby information desk on a first-come, first-served basis. No reservations are necessary for the general public.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Washington College may reserve tickets to American Pictures events on a first-come, first-served basis. The Starr Center will also run free buses from Chestertown to Washington for each talk. Buses will depart at 11:00 am and leave DC for the return trip at 7:30 pm. For details or to make a reservation, please call 410-810-7165 or e-mail lkitz2@washcoll.edu. For more information, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

About the Sponsors

Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures series is a project of the College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the history of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation's first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.