Beard of the Week LIII: The National Portrait Gallery at 40
This week's somewhat stern beard (with eyebrows to match) belongs to Adolph Cluss (1825–1905), an architect born in Germany, who immigrated to America, working in Washington, DC. A few years ago the Washington Post described him as "without question the least known of Washington's most important architects."* As used in the title of that article, Cluss was known as the "Red Architect": apparently he did know Karl Marx when he (Cluss) left Germany at the age of 23, but he was also notably fond of building with red brick. Some of his buildings still remain; perhaps the most familiar to area residents is the Smithsonian's "Arts and Industries Building". (The building, which was the Smithsonian's original museum building, is currently being renovated.)
I hate to admit it, but Mr. Cluss was really just a pretext, but a good pretext in this case, since I've learned another interesting little bit of forgotten history.
Originally, when I saw from a piece in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery blog that the NPG had just turned 40 years old (Deborah Sisum, "The National Portrait Gallery Turns 40!", FaceToFace, 8 October 2008), I thought that would be a great topic to write about and it could be a BoW entry — all I needed to do was find someone associated with the NPG who had a beard.
Yikes! That turned out to be something of a challenge. None of the directors ever had a beard so far as I could discern, for instance. I didn't want to make too tenuous a connection, but it took some digging before I found a mention of Mr. Cluss deep in the bowels of the NPG website.†
The NPG is housed in what was the original home of the US Patent and Trademark Office. About the history of the building, they say this:
The National Historic Landmark building that houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery is the third public building constructed in early Washington, D.C., (after the White House and the U.S. Capitol) and is considered one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the United States. Several important early American architects were involved in the original design of the building, including Robert Mills (1781–1855), Ithiel Town (1784–1844), Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892), Thomas U. Walter (1804–1887) and William Parker Elliot (1807–1854).
One notes that of the several "important early American architects" they list, there is no mention of "the least known of Washington's most important architects." Ah well, his role in this building was not of such great import. In 1877 there was a fire that "ravaged" the upper floors of the west and north wings, destroying nearly 87,000 patent models. From 1878 to 1881, Adolf Cluss and his partner, Paul Schulze, reconstructed the damaged west and north wings.
After that there were plenty of challenges to remaining a grand building — it almost became a parking lot in 1953 — but in 1958 the building was given to the Smithsonian, and the National Portrait Gallery moved in in 1968 after four years of renovation. In 2000 the building was again closed for major renovation, opening again on 1 July 2006. As it turned out Isaac and I visited in the first week that the NPG was open again, and it was a delight.
Of all the delightful and fascinating collections housed in buildings around the National Mall, I think the National Portrait Gallery is the one I most enjoy visiting over and over again. I certainly do like portraiture as a genre of art, and of course there's lots of that at the NPG on display. Celebrity doesn't excite me all that much, and seeing portraits of famous Americans is a big draw for some people, but I don't mind it either. The Gallery has a handful of works by John Singer Sargent, an artist at the top of my list of favorites. We have also seen some splendid transient exhibits there as well; I still remember seeing "Gilbert Stewart" (famous for his portraits of George Washington), among others whose names escape me at the moment.
Also, on the third floor, probably in the new display of the "Twentieth-Century Americans" collection, there is an exquisite small portrait, a drawing I think, of Amelia Earhart. I hesitate to mention it because I can't even remember who made the portrait, but the image lives vividly in my mind, full of vitality and adventuresome spirit. I need to go see it again and report back. Look for it if you happen to be there; it rewards minute scrutiny.
When we were there just after the reopening in 2006 we also saw the prize-winners and 100 or so finalists in the Biennial "Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition"; the online exhibition is here (that is, the competition in 2006 whose exhibition we saw). One goal of the competition is to explore and expose the remarkable diversity and creativity of American portraiture as being practiced today, and I found it very exciting, the sort of thing we couldn't have been happier to have chanced upon by accident. Take some time to look at some of the exhibit if you have the time.
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* Benjamin Forgey, "'Red Architect' Adolf Cluss: A Study in Sturdy", Washington Post, 17 September 2005.
† "Architectural Chronology of the Patent Office Building", Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, accessed 12 October 2008.