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Imaging Nationalism in the Cold War: The Foundation of the American National Portrait Gallery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
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In October 1968 the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London was under siege from students protesing against the continued American presence in Vietnam. In France the universities were in turmoil. The Washington Post for 6 October covered the Apollo Flight – the first step to the moon–, uprisings in Columbia university, Twiggy in person and a debate about when the Bikinians might return to their island. Nixon was edging his way towards the presidency in a year that had seen the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, a year in which Johnson decided not to stand for another term in order (allegedly) to devote himself to ending the Vietnam war, in which the Democratic convention took place in Chicago in the midst of violent clashes between police and demonstrators.
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1 I would like to thank the Smithsonian Institution for their generosity in awarding me a visiting fellowship in 1988 which enabled me to undertake the research for this paper. I am also grateful to the staff of the Smithsonian and the National Portrait Gallery for their advice and help. Special thanks are due to Robert Stewart and Ellen Miles for their encouragement, and to Vivien Hart for hospitality, and for her helpful scholarly advice. Versions of this paper were read at the Congress of the Comité International d'Histoire de 1'Art in Strasbourg in 1989 and at the University of Sussex American Studies Research Seminar in 1992.
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