Oppenheimer's Close-Up

11/07/23 • 25 min

2 Listeners

The blockbuster Oppenheimer movie focuses on two portrayals of J. Robert Oppenheimer. One is the famous physicist known as the architect of the atomic bomb, and the second is a more vulnerable man, maligned as a communist sympathiser.

Then there’s a third portrait. It makes a cameo in the film and it resides right here at the National Portrait Gallery. Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer Kai Bird, whose book inspired the movie, takes a look with us.

See the portrait we discuss:

J. Robert Oppenheimer, Time magazine cover by Ernest Hamlin Baker

See the portrait we discuss:

J. Robert Oppenheimer, Time magazine cover by Ernest Hamlin Baker

Previous Episode

It Depends How You Frame It

Museum director Kim Sajet takes listeners to stand in front of a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, the revered commander who led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War. But it’s actually the frame that steals the show.

According to conservator Bill Adair, “The frame gives us information that the painting simply cannot.” In this case, the frame showcases Grant’s major battlefield triumphs. Another, gifted to George Washington by the King of France, tells the story of a political marriage.

Then, Chicana artist Ruth Buentello explains why she frames her portraits in soft, worn fabrics that she scavenges from the linen closet of life.

See the portraits we discuss:

Ulysses S. Grant, by Ole Peter Hansen Balling

King Louis XVI of France, by Charles-Clément Bervic

Gamer Niñas, by Ruth Buentello

Under the Mexican Colchas, Kinship Exhibition, by Ruth Buentello

Next Episode

Fakes, the Boxed Wines of the Art World

That glass of fine wine you’re enjoying so much.. What if you were told it came from a box? Would it taste different?

According to art fraud investigator Colette Loll, yes, it would. Colette draws on brain science to explain why it’s so easy to be duped by a forged masterpiece, and why even the experts get it wrong sometimes.

See the portraits we discuss:

Francis Patrick Garvan, by de Philip de László

Elmyr de Hory, in the style of Philip de László