The National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program are collaborating on an exhibition that will be the Smithsonian’s first major showcase of contemporary Asian American portraiture. Through the groundbreaking work of seven talented artists from across the country and around the world, the exhibition offers provocative renditions of the Asian American experience. Their portraits of encounter offer representations against and beyond the stereotypes that have long obscured the complexity of being Asian in America.
The artists featured are Cindy Hwang, New York, Hye Yeon Nam, Atlanta and New York, Shizu Saldamando, Los Angeles, Roger Shimomura, Lawrence, KS, Satomi Shirai, New York, Tam Tran, Memphis, TN and Hong Chun Zhang, Lawrence, KS.
Lead support for the exhi ... Go to event
By 1750, almost 2,500 professional artists and amateurs were working in pastel in Paris alone. Portraits in pastel were commissioned by all ranks of society, but most enthusiastically by the royal family, members of the court, and the wealthy middle classes. Eighteenth-century pastels are brightly colored, highly finished, often of large dimensions, and elaborately framed, evoking oil painting, the medium to which they were invariably compared. The powdery texture of pastel and its diffuse, velvety quality were particularly suited to capturing the fleeting expressions that characterize the most life-like portraits. Pastel Portraits: Images of 18th-Century Europe includes some forty pastels, belonging to the Metropolitan Museum and, with important exceptions, to museums and private collecti ... 
Simon Dinnerstein began work on his monumental painting The Fulbright Triptych, measuring 14 feet by almost 7 feet, in 1971, when he was living in Germany on a Fulbright Grant. Long considered by many to be a masterpiece of contemporary American art, it is a richly detailed, collage-like composite of family portrait, still life and landscape, as well as a meditation on the creation of art. Thematically rich and intensely autobiographical, it tells the story of a time and a place, and has been described as a visual memoir. Its wide-ranging imagery encompasses works by Ingres, Holbein, van Eyck, Bellini and Seurat, as well as children’s art and photographs.
This major work will be accompanied in the exhibit by other selected paintings and drawings by the artist. Coinciding with the exhibit ... 
Second only to China in its economic miracle, India is undergoing one of the most momentous national transformations the world has ever seen. In India: A Portrait, Patrick French gives us an intimate biography of 1.2 billion people as their country is transforming in front of their eyes examines from a listless planned economy to capitalist and entrepreneurial powerhouse.
A book sale and signing will follow its launching at the Asia Society this month.
French is the author of several prize-winning books on South Asia including: Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division(1997); Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land (2003) and The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul (2008). He is a contributor to publications including The Economist, Vanity F ... 
FILM CLUB – Documentary films by Martin Rysavy. Free admission. Q&A with director Martin Rysavy after the screening.
Bear Islands / Medvědí ostrovy
Martin Ryšavý / Czech Republic / 60 min
Q&A with the director Martin Rysavy after the screening.
In Bear Islands, director Martin Ryšavý continues his exploration of subjects related to the Sakha Republic, or Yakutia, Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District. The film captures the life of residents in the remotest part of the territory, Nizhnekolymsky Ulus. Bear Islands are located in the East Siberian Sea at the mouth of the Kolyma River. The camera follows park rangers who take care of the nature reserve as they travel to an isolated polar station through the vast space where the past meets the present. A portrait of a lands ... 
Six-foot-six Ukrainian brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko moved to Germany to begin careers in heavyweight boxing in 1996, and the sport was never the same. After a 15-year reign over the ring, they made history in 2008, becoming the first brothers in the sport to hold world titles at the same time. Through an engaging mix of candid interviews and absorbing fight footage, KLITSCHKO offers a captivating glimpse into the makings of these champion boxing brothers.
Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko are two exceptional boxers, both icons and role models in their native Ukraine and around the world. But they also represent the original Cold War nightmare: The Mighty Russian Boxer. The myth of the strongest man in the world has a new face now; actually two, The Klitschkos.
But who are these s ... 
