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COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS
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NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

TRIBUTE TO HENRIETTA LACKS

The National Portrait Gallery recognizes the life of Henrietta Lacks with 

the installation of a 2017 portrait by Kadir Nelson. The portrait was 

jointly acquired by the National Portrait Gallery and the National 

Museum of African American History and Culture as a gift from Nelson 

and the JKBN Group LLC, and will be shared by the two museums. The 

artwork will be on view at the Portrait Gallery through November 4.

“It is fitting that Henrietta Lacks be honored at two Smithsonian 

museums, as each approaches American history from unique and 

complementary perspectives,” said Kim Sajet, director of the National 

Portrait Gallery. “Lacks’ story presents moral and philosophical 

questions around issues of consent, racial inequalities, the role of 

women, medical research and privacy laws, providing rich platforms for 

historical understanding and public dialogue.”

“The National Museum of African American History and Culture has 

always felt that the story of Henrietta Lacks is a significant and important 

moment that deserved greater recognition,” said Lonnie Bunch, director 

of the museum.

Lacks (1920 – 1951), whose great-great-grandmother was an enslaved person, lost her life to cervical cancer at 

age 31. During her treatment, doctors took cells from her body and discovered they lived long lives and 

reproduced indefinitely in test tubes. These “immortal” HeLa cells have since contributed to over 10,000 medical 

patents, aiding research and benefiting patients with polio, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease and other conditions.

Considering the history of medical testing on African Americans without their permission, the fate of Lacks raises 

questions about ethics, privacy and race. Addressing those issues forthrightly, Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book, The 

Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, prompted Oprah Winfrey and HBO to explore her story on film. Commissioned 

by HBO, Nelson used visual elements to convey Lacks’ legacy. The wallpaper features the “Flower of Life,” a 

symbol of immortality; the flowers on her dress recall images of cell structures; and two missing buttons allude 

to the cells taken from her body without permission.

SMITHSONIAN ARCHIVES

SMITHSONIAN CULTURAL RESCUE INITIATIVE

EMERGENCY RESPONSE FOR PUERTO RICO’S CULTURAL HERITAGE

In November and December 2017, the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI) and Nora Lockshin from 

Smithsonian Archives were detailed to Puerto Rico with colleagues from multiple federal agencies as part of 

the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (FEMA-HENTF), co-sponsored by the Smithsonian and the Federal 

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The mission operates under Emergency Support Function 11, 

protecting Natural, Cultural Resources, and Historical Properties (NCH) “to preserve, conserve, rehabilitate, 

and inform long-term recovery of NCH resources .... providing post event assessments of damages and 

providing technical assistance and resources for assessing impacts of response activities on NCH resources.”

The mission focused on assessing damage and providing assistance at the National Archives and Library and 

the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. The team visited a number of other affected governmental and cultural 

“Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of 

Modern Medicine” by Kadir Nelson, oil on 

linen, 2017.
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heritage institutions, and gave three day-long training sessions in heritage emergency response in three cities 

across the island.

Preparedness and Response in Collections Emergencies

Collections emergency preparedness is an international 

focus during the month of May. Closer to home, the 

National Collections Program and the Preparedness and 

Response in Collections Emergencies (PRICE) team 

organized and led the second annual MayDay Training 

opportunity for staff from across the Institution. Twenty 

staff members were invited to participate in a two-day 

lecture and hands-on learning session on salvaging wet 

collections. The exercise provided object handling 

instructions using a variety of stunt-double artifacts. The 

participants were from 15 different Smithsonian units 

and multiple disciplines including security, industrial 

hygiene, fire protection, engineering, facilities, 

emergency management, conservation, collections 

management, registration, archives, and libraries. 

DIGITIZATION MILESTONES: 2 MILLION OBJECTS AND 1 MILLION BOTANY SPECIMENS

The mass digitization program recently reached two 

digitization milestones: it digitized the one millionth 

botanical specimen sheet (in just 17 months) and the 

two millionth object (an orchid from Smithsonian 

Gardens.) Working closely with Paleobiology staff, the 

Digitization Program Office also launched a production 

project to digitize one million fossils from the Cenozoic 

era at the National Museum of Natural History

(NMNH). This project is part of a larger digitization 

effort: the NSF-funded Eastern Pacific Invertebrates of 

the Cenozoic Collaborative (EPICC), to digitize one 

million fossils across the U.S. and enable greater 

research into this critical era, a time of great climate 

change and speciation.

The program also launched a four-year initiative to 

digitize the collections of eight Smithsonian history, art, 

and cultural museums. This “Many Museums X Mass 

Digitization” effort began with a pilot project to digitize 

the Meserve/Matthew Brady glass plates collection at 

the National Portrait Gallery, and a production project 

with Smithsonian Gardens to digitize over 7,000 orchids 

from their collection.

The 3D program made a strategic decision to move away from scanning single iconic objects, which is resource 

intensive, towards developing a plan for scaling up 3D capture and processing of entire collections. To 

accomplish this goal, the 3D program is developing infrastructure to ensure that the 3D datasets captured will 

As part of the FEMA-HENTF mission assignment, Nora Lockshin 

discusses types of personal protective equipment for mold 

remediation with Dr. Samuel Quinones Garcia, Archivo General de 

Puerto Rico. Photo by FEMA/Yuisa Rios.
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be sustainable in the long-term. To that end, the program team is conducting pilot projects to push innovation 

in ways that will allow the Smithsonian to scale up, while simultaneously building infrastructure that will more 

efficiently process, store, sustain, and deliver the large datasets that 3D captures generate.

The pilot projects conducted by the team included test scanning of Chinese bronze objects at the Freer | Sackler 

Galleries, Paleobiology specimens at NMNH, and ivory tusks from the National Museum of African Art. These 

pilots explored the feasibility of reducing 3D capture and post-processing time. 

Other efforts to build more robust 3D infrastructure included launching a 2.0 version of the Smithsonian 3D 

Viewer (in collaboration with Autodesk), and creating a collections management tool to store annotations, 

articles, and stories associated with various 3D models. These efforts will take the Smithsonian a step closer to 

being 3D-viewer agnostic, a goal that will ensure the Institution’s 3D assets can be viewed on any viewer a user 

chooses. This effort furthers the goals of the Institution’s Strategic Plan, which calls for greater efforts towards 

making Smithsonian assets available to users where they are, and in ways they want to use them.

SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS RECEIVE WORKS FROM THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART TRUSTEES

Nine Smithsonian museums were among the art institutions in Washington to receive the collection that 

became available following the closure of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2014. The distribution of more than 

10,000 works was announced May 14 by the Corcoran Board of Trustees. Nearly all of the art (99.4%) will stay 

in Washington, D.C. museums. More than 8,000 artworks had previously been accessioned by the National 

Gallery of Art.

Below is a list of the Smithsonian museums and the number of works for each:

 The Anacostia Community Museum will receive a collection of 100 photographs, paintings, drawings and 

sculptures, including a painting by Gene Davis.

 The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will receive nine photographs and a 19th-century Persian rug.

 The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will receive 92 works of decorative art, furniture and 

sculpture, including four plaster studies by Daniel Chester French of the “Continents” at the U.S. Custom 

House.

 The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will receive a collection of 10 prints, photographs, 

sculptures and paintings, including two paintings by Sam Gilliam. 

 The National Museum of African Art will receive 11 photographs, including a collection by Constance 

Stuart Larrabee.

 The National Museum of African American History and Culture will receive 123 works, including 

photographs by Milton Rogovin, and a number of photographs taken in 1968 by Benedict J. Fernandez. 

 The National Museum of the American Indian will receive three photographs by Joseph A. Dixon.

 The National Portrait Gallery will receive a collection of 81 paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings 

and prints that include many 19th-century portraits of American Presidents, including nine paintings by 

George Peter Alexander Healy.

 The Smithsonian American Art Museum will receive the largest collection of all Smithsonian museums. 

The 318 pieces will include photographs by Russell Lee and Jack Delano for the museum’s social 

documentary photography collection, a major painting by Gronk Llorona and prints by Puerto Rican artist 

Lorenzo Homar.

The museums will take possession of the artworks in the next few months.
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NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM TO OPEN ALEXANDER HAMILTON EXHIBITION

The pistols used in the infamous 1804 duel between 

Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr will be on display 

May 25 through June 24 at the National Postal 

Museum. They are featured in the exhibition “Alexander 

Hamilton: Soldier, Secretary, Icon,” along with mail, 

portraits, and postage and revenue stamps reflective of 

Hamilton’s life and career as the first U.S. treasury 

secretary.

The full exhibition remains on view through next March. 

The opening in late May is set to coincide with the June 

opening of the hit Broadway play, Hamilton: An American 

Musical, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

The original dueling pistols used by Hamilton, former secretary of the treasury and retired two-star general, and 

Vice President Aaron Burr in the duel that resulted in Hamilton’s death are on loan to the museum from 

JPMorgan Chase & Co. This rare public showing represents the first time the pistols have been on public display 

in the Washington area.

In the 215 years since his untimely death at 39 in the duel with Burr, Hamilton has become an American icon. 

Stamps, money, movies, television miniseries, and now a hit Broadway musical, commemorate his meteoric rise 

and his sweeping vision for America’s future. In a scene that is scarcely imaginable today, on July 11, 1804, Burr 

killed Hamilton in a duel. Burr had lost the U.S. presidential election of 1800 and the New York governor’s race 

of 1804. He blamed Hamilton’s outspoken opposition for both losses—especially a letter attributed to Hamilton 

and published in the Albany Register that referred to Burr as “despicable.” Burr then issued the challenge to a 

duel, which was set for a location outside New York City in nearby New Jersey.

Far from vindicating himself as he had hoped, Burr instead became a pariah. Indicted for the capital crime of 

murder in both New York and New Jersey, he was forced into hiding. President Thomas Jefferson dropped him

from the Democratic–Republican presidential ticket, and later ordered Burr’s arrest on treason charges 

stemming from an alleged plot to set up an independent country in the Louisiana Purchase territories. Burr was 

eventually acquitted of murder, dueling and treason, and he resumed a modest law practice in New York but 

died bankrupt and living in a Staten Island boarding house in 1836.

“History remembers Alexander Hamilton as the pioneering first secretary of the treasury, but he was also 

responsible for the Post Office Department,” said Daniel Piazza, NPM chief curator of philately. “He used the 

mail to collect import and export data from customs officers all over the country, and his ability to interpret this 

data made Hamilton the best informed member of Washington’s first Cabinet.”

Original Hamilton–Burr Dueling Pistols on Rare Public Display