The Learning Lab Collection highlights the ways in which portraiture reveals the past, present, and future of artist, sitters, and the nation. By analyzing portraiture, students will consider how portraiture reflects the past, mirrors the present, and inspires the future. Students will explore a variety of mediums, sitters, and eras of the United States through portraiture of the following individuals:

• Faith Ringgold
• Fred T. Korematsu
• Leonora O'Reilly
• Fisk Jubilee Singers

Objectives: After completing this lesson, students will be better able to: 

• Examine how modern and contemporary artists use portraiture to reveal aspects of a sitter’s individual, community/cultural, and national identity. 
• Identify key components of a portrait and discuss what one can learn about the sitter through these components. 
• Discuss the artistic choices that portrait artists make and consider how such decisions can reveal the artists’ viewpoints and also influence the viewers’ understanding of the sitters’ identity. 
• Use the museum’s collection as a gateway to investigating and exploring of the visualization of past, present, and future

Keywords: Faith Ringgold, Fred T. Korematsu, Leonora O'Reilly, Fisk Jubilee Singers, Self-Portrait, Textile Art, Story Quilt, Activism, Japanese Incarceration, Topaz, Korematsu v. United States, Suffrage, Wallace Morgan, Newspaper Sketch, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Music, Choir, Photography, Cabinet Card, Past, Present, Future

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