As of April 12, Stephen Colbert’s portrait will no longer be at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Created for the final season of The Colbert Report, the show loaned the comedian’s portrait to the Smithsonian in December 2014.
This was the second time a portrait of Colbert has been in the museum. The first was in 2008, when he contacted the Portrait Gallery hoping to donate his portrait from the show. The museum agreed to go along with the joke and temporarily installed the portrait. As with many other items that bore the Colbert stamp of approval, the museum experienced a “Colbert bump”—crowds lined up to get their picture taken with Colbert’s portrait. After its stint at the Portrait Gallery, the 2008 portrait was accepted into the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
The painting currently hanging in the museum is a six-deep image of Colbert bearing various props that reflect the entertainer’s over-the-top TV persona, from Emmy statuettes awarded for The Colbert Report to a copy of Colbert’s best-selling book American Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t.
Through April 12, the portrait can be viewed on the second floor of the museum where the earlier iteration of his portrait appeared: between the bathrooms and above the water fountain.
National Portrait Gallery
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery tells the history of America through the individuals who have shaped its culture. Through the visual arts, performing arts and new media, the Portrait Gallery portrays poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists whose lives tell the American story.
The National Portrait Gallery is part of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture at Eighth and F streets N.W., Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Information: (202) 633-1000. Website: npg.si.edu. Follow the museum on social media at @NPG, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Tumblr.
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Editor-in-Chief/Entertainment Reporter
I knew early on that I wanted to take my place among the stars. One day, my mother saw me reading The Washington Post at a very young age. Who would have known that it would be the building blocks of my journey? Since that day, I dedicated my life to learn all that is learnable. I read everything from encyclopedias, to books, to dictionaries, to magazines. I’m also an avid consumer of television, with my favorite genre being game shows. If you’ve seen me on Who Wants to be a Millionaire or Wheel of Fortune, then you know that this interest has served me well!
My unique style of reporting began back in junior high school, when I started to chronicle the events that shaped my life. Whether it was the annual family vacation or the local science fiction convention, I shot numerous pictures and recorded my thoughts so I could truly appreciate the history. During my senior year at Friendly High, I wrote what was to be my first masterpiece, “Advanced Space Academy – A One Week Journey.” I sent the eleven-page article back to the U.S. Space Camp staff. The article was highly praised for being “one of the best written articles in the history of U.S. Space Camp.” From then on, I knew what I wanted to do for rest of my life — to be a reporter.
Since then, I have trained in Broadcast Journalism at Bowie State University (2008) in Bowie, MD earning a B.S. in Communications. I gained experience in news production and editing through field experiences with Bowie Community Media Corporation, Prince George’s Community Television, and Bowie State University Television. I also wrote scripts for a variety of quiz shows for over five years.
As a lifelong movie buff, I now see close to 100 films every year. I took this love of movies to the next step when I became a co-host for Eclipse Magazine TV in the fall of 2005. While at EMTV, I interviewed celebrities, worked red carpets, and attended a wide variety of movie screenings. In January 2009, I took a leap of faith and started my own entertainment news magazine, The Rogers Revue. Shortly afterward, my life-long journey of studying the silver screen and writing about what I learned finally earned me a place in the Washington Area Film Critics Association.
All of this has led me here, giving you the latest entertainment news for the DMV and the entire nation, and I am truly excited for whatever will come next.
