Ellen Miles discusses Gilbert Stuart's creation in 1796 of his very familiar life portrait of George Washington, together with its companion portrait of Martha Washington, often known as the "Athenaeum portraits" because they were owned by the Boston Athenaeum for more than 150 years. Miles describes the relationship between the Washingtons and the artist, the reason for the incomplete composition of the two portraits, and the immediate and lasting success of the portrait of the President, in contrast to the relative obscurity of the portrait of Martha Washington.
Miles, chair of the department of painting and sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., will give a talk titled "Persuasion and Power: Presidential Portraits Past and Present." The talk is presented as part of the yearlong series "Visual Culture in the 21st Century," and is open to the public. Admission is free. Ellen Miles recently served as co-curator of Gilbert Stuart, an exhibition organized jointly by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Portrait Gallery, and is co-author of the exhibition's catalogue. The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is home to several Gilbert Stuart portraits, including the famous Portrait of Thomas Jefferson and Portrait of James Madison, both painted in 1805-07. Miles is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, and earned her Ph.D. in art history at Yale University. A recipient of a Getty Curatorial Research Fellowship, she was selected the Smithsonian Secretary's Distinguished Research Lecturer in 2004.