arts
Hosted by National Portrait Gallery · arts · EN
Art, biography, history and identity collide in this podcast from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Join Director Kim Sajet as she chats with artists, historians, and thought leaders about the big and small ways that portraits shape our world.
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Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
23%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchArt, biography, history and identity collide in this podcast from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Join Director Kim Sajet as she chats with artists, historians, and thought leaders about the big and small ways that portraits shape our world.
PORTRAITS is hosted by National Portrait Gallery. The show has published 85 episodes to date.
Recent episodes include "Asteroid Strike" (6 May 2025, 26 minutes), "How Do You Portray A Dinosaur?" (15 April 2025, 25 minutes), and "Blink: A Flower Is Not Just A Flower" (1 April 2025, 8 minutes).
PORTRAITS publishes roughly every two weeks, with episodes averaging 19 minutes across 85 episodes.
Booking probability for PORTRAITS is 23%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. PORTRAITS requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. PORTRAITS's contact route on record: verified email.
The strongest fits for PORTRAITS are Museums, Zoos & Historic Sites. PORTRAITS has an arts audience.
National Portrait Gallery hosts PORTRAITS, an arts podcast with 85 episodes published.
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.
Episode #13
Geologist Walter Alvarez was working away on some limestone samples in Gubbio, Italy, when he became intrigued by an odd layer of rock. He was looking at the K-T boundary. Underneath it, there are dinosaur fossils...
Episode #12
We have portraits of people in our galleries. But what if you’re a natural science museum? How do you portray a dinosaur? We talk with Kirk Johnson , Sant Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural...
Episode #11
This mini 'Blink' episode celebrates the cherry blossoms that are blooming all over Washington D.C. at the moment by taking a closer look at portraits that feature flowers. Kim visits three paintings in the National...
Episode #10
When William Temple Hornaday's exhibition of stuffed bison went on display at the Smithsonian Institution in 1888, it caused a sensation. Most visitors had never seen this majestic, hulking animal up close. And most...
Episode #9
From the Smithsonian's Sidedoor podcast: sorting fact from fiction to find the real Sojourner Truth. As a prominent woman's rights activist and abolitionist, Sojourner Truth gave hundreds of speeches and sold countless...
Episode #8
We follow a paper trail back in time to learn about the laborers -- some of them enslaved -- who put their backs into the graceful old building that now houses the National Portrait Gallery. When construction began on...
We remember former President Jimmy Carter through a slightly different lens-- through the eyes of a longtime friend and through the portraits of Carter that are housed here at the National Portrait Gallery. Political...
Episode #6
In this mini 'Blink' episode, Kim asks political aide Jack Watson for his thoughts on a couple of Time magazine covers featuring his old boss, former President Jimmy Carter. One depicts the transition team that helped...
Episode #5
Paris in the early 1900s was a magnet for convention-defying American women. It offered a delicious taste of freedom, which they used to explode the gender norms of their day, and to explore new kinds of art...
Episode #4
Every time a president leaves office they're asked to do something that might not come naturally-- sit still, be quiet and surrender to someone else's work. In other words, they have their portrait painted. The National...
Episode #3
In 1872, decades before women were legally allowed to vote, Victoria Woodhull made an audacious run for the White House. The press ridiculed her stance on 'free love' and she spent election night in jail. But she had...
With Election Day just around the corner, we go back in time to figure out how early presidential candidates got their message, and their image, in front of voters. It wasn't easy. Asking directly for people's vote was...
Episode #1
We're back! Season six of PORTRAITS hits your feed Oct. 22 with a new slate of shows that use artwork to decode our world. Kim Sajet , director of the National Portrait Gallery, talks with guests about presidential...
Episode #22
As AI art gets more and more sophisticated, how do we tell the difference between a portrait that’s created by a human being – with a soul – and art that’s created by a complex algorithm? And if we can’t tell the...
Episode #21
In this mini episode from our 'Blink' series, Rick Chapman shares stories from photographing elite athletes who have competed in the Olympic Games. The first step, he says, is to put the camera down. The second is not...
Episode #20
Dolley Madison was eight years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and 40 when her husband James became president. In her late 70s she sat for a photograph, becoming the first (former) first lady to do...
Episode #19
There are not many portrait artists who get recognized on the street, but it happens to Devon Rodriguez all the time. After quietly honing his skill for a decade, Devon started posting videos of his live drawings of New...
Episode #18
Next in our 'Blink' summer series, Kim speaks with Robyn Asleson, curator of the 'Brilliant Exiles' exhibition, about a dreamy painting that holds a secret code. Edward Steichen's mural assigns a flower to several...
A globe turned to Haiti. A glove on the ground. This life-size portrait of President Abraham Lincoln contains intriguing details that can be read as a freeze-frame of race relations at the time of his assassination. The...
Episode #16
In our 'Blink' summer series, Kim takes listeners behind the scenes for a quick glimpse at some of the goings-on at the National Portrait Gallery. This first mini-episode finds staff in a tight spot. How do they fit a...
Recent guests on PORTRAITS. Study who booked and why before you pitch.
Sant Director of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History
Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University, Politifact
Pulitzer Prize-winning art and architecture critic, Washington Post
Labor Leader and Co-Founder of United Farm Workers, Green Buildings Council España
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