Every Eye Is Upon Me: First Ladies of the United States

Exhibition Website

Nov 13 2020 - May 23 2021


The largest showing of first lady portraiture ever held outside the White House, this exhibition will span nearly 250 years, spotlighting the likes of Dolley Madison, Mary Todd Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jacqueline Kennedy. The show will feature some 60 portraits, with paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs, including a video installation of images by Annie Leibovitz. In addition, ephemera and artifacts, such as the geometric-patterned gown by American designer Milly that Obama wore in her official portrait by Amy Sherald.

The exhibition features 53 women, including women who died before their husband took office. In addition to the presidents’ wives, other women, such as female relatives of the commander in chief, have been pressed into duty as White House hostesses, sometimes unofficially.​

“These remarkable women by and large set aside self-interest to devote themselves to the responsibilities of being ‘First Lady,’ a complicated, non-electable role that continues to adapt with each beholder,” said exhibition curator Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, the National Portrait Gallery’s senior historian and director of history, research, and scholarly programs. The portraits included in this exhibition visualize the difference between these women, revealing fascinating details about the worlds in which they moved and the historical moments in which they lived,” she added.

The museum collection is supplemented with works on loan from the National First Ladies’ Library, the State Department, and the White House, which boasts the largest collection of first lady portraits. 

Every Eye Is Upon Me is part of the Smithsonian’s $2 million American Women’s History Initiative, “Because of Her Story,” established in 2018 in response to growing calls for the institute to recognize and celebrate women’s roles in US history. It is one of 11 exhibitions dedicated to women that the Portrait Gallery is staging between 2018 and 2022.


Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website
Image credit: Eleanor Roosevelt in 1944. Photo courtesy of the Estate of Yousuf Karsh





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