The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-06)

The Sunday Times February 6, 2022 5

Travel

Luke Jones

kicks off our

celebration of

all things US

with a history

crammer in

DC’s museums

I

f you stand in the

middle of Washington

DC’s National Mall, a fat

strip of lawn stretching

from the domed Capitol

building (with the famously

impregnable security) to the

steps of the Lincoln Memorial

(where Forrest Gump reunited

with Jenny), a whole education

is laid out in every direction.

Around you is a Smithsonian

museum of every variety,

delving into histories natural,

national, African-American,

Native American, artistic,

aeronautical and more.

Basically, you needn’t move

much. Which is just as well,

because with this being

America I’ve already put on a

stone since lunch. I’m an avid

follower of US news, but have

little more than a pop-culture

appreciation of the country’s

history, so I’m on a mission to

improve myself in this town,

which has a reputation for

being a merry-go-round of

museum and monument. This

is my educational Everest —

244 years of nation-building

consumed in a matter of days.

“Oh there are so many

museums — you can’t go

wrong,” said almost every

local, confirming that they’ve

never been to any of them.

I’m advised to rule out the spy

museum on account of not

being 14 years old, tick off

as many Smithsonians as

possible and to venture

beyond the middle of town.

I limber up, pack some

Kendal Mint Cake and

assemble a spreadsheet.

First up: paying my respects

to James Smithson, a fellow

Brit whose tomb is rather

modestly tucked away in one

of the museum’s ante-halls.

The Smithsonian Institute,

founded in 1846 with money

from his will to “increase the

diffusion of knowledge among

men”, can hoover up as many

as 30 million visitors a year

across its many museums and

libraries throughout the land.

The institute is known as the

nation’s attic, but it’s that of an

inveterate hoarder. Whipping

through the National Museum

of American History I’m

surprised to be moved not

only by the sight of the

original Star-Spangled Banner

— a huge, battered old flag that

was flown above Fort McHenry

in Baltimore during the War

of 1812 — but also by Julia

Child’s kitchen, dismantled

after the TV chef ’s death and

reassembled here, with each

utensil, masking-tape label,

scribbled note and book

placed exactly where she had it.

I skip a history of baseball,

heading instead to a faintly

patronising parade of first-lady

dresses and dinner services —

you realise just how tall Jackie

Kennedy was and what gaudy

taste in dinner plates Mamie

Eisenhower had. The thrill,

though, is in a bonkers

collection of political tat

spanning Howard Taft cigars,

playing cards from the

presidential campaign of John

Kerry and the magnifying glass

that Judge Robert Rosenberg

used to examine a “hanging

chad” ballot paper in 2000.

While looking at a Ku Klux

Klan hood and an “America:

love it or leave it” bumper

sticker, a lady, unbidden, tells

me: “I’m very disappointed

with American history.”

There’s more locomotive

than slave history there, so

I head down the road to the

relatively new Museum of

African American History

and Culture. Everyone —

fellow tourists, receptionists,

even the British Airways cabin

crew — has told me that this is

a must-see. It takes an hour to

get inside, then another hour-

long queue to get to the start

of the main collection — a

victim of its own success. But it

offers a fascinating dissection

of the glaring contradiction of

a country supposedly founded

on freedom.

It’s also an interesting

exercise in how to assemble

an entirely new museum with

no existing collection to draw

from — a slave cabin salvaged

from South Carolina, a stone

boulder used as an auction

block, a seat from the

Greensboro store sit-in (a

key anti-segregation demo).

It extends up the building via

Oprah Winfrey’s sofa, and the

instruments and costumes of

soul music.

But the highlight is a

posthumous portrait by the

artist Amy Sherald of Breonna

Taylor, the black woman

killed by police in a botched

raid in 2020. It is stunning:

a strong glowing face, a bright

fan of blue dress and an

engagement ring — a fictional

addition to comfort her

grieving boyfriend. Busy

crowds hush as they trundle

past; parents bend down to

explain its significance to

their young children.

The American Art Museum,

the big stone Smithsonian that

looks most like a mausoleum,

has European masters aplenty

and a crazy indoor garden,

but grab a map and a handful

of minutes to seek out the

fantastic James Whistler

portraits or the buccaneering

frontier landscapes of Albert

Bierstadt and Jasper Cropsey.

In the annex next door you’ll

find a load of Jackson Pollocks,

with some Mark Rothkos and

Andy Warhols, but avoid the

Hirshhorn Museum further

along — it’s a cavernous

building for modern art that’s

practically empty, apart from

a Marcel Duchamp exhibition

claiming him as American and

a long nonsense tapestry. Next!

I’m flagging by this point,

though have already overtaken

several school groups, so I go

for a smash-and-grab in the

National Portrait Gallery. I’m

in and out in an hour, taking

in a Richard Nixon by Norman

Rockwell, a John F Kennedy by

Willem de Kooning, a spooky

life mask of Abraham Lincoln,

a sculpture of Andrew

Jackson with the

campest quiff this side

of the Potomac and the

hundred-dollar bill

portrait

of Benjamin Franklin looking

like a busty old grandma.

The inclusion of so much

American-Indian portraiture

and enormous intricate

sculpture here makes up for

the totally avoidable National

Museum of the American

Indian. There’s a disgraceful

and important story to tell,

but it is tackled here with very

few artefacts. Instead, there’s

wall after wall of text — the

worst of museumship. In a

room about Pocahontas, the

only object is an old Disney-

themed Pez dispenser.

Away from the museums,

a fellow stranded Brit

recommends a visit to the

countryside, to some of the

many civil-war battlefields

open to tourists. But since I

haven’t the time nor the

inclination to look at what are

essentially messy lawns, I opt

for a far more pleasing study

trip south to Mount Vernon,

home of George Washington.

The house is “a short cycle

away”, a cheery local tells me

— words that ring round my

head as I turn back an hour

later with a broken hotel

rental bike and tired thighs.

Take two was a 30-minute

cab, and a pleasure. “No

estate in United America is

more pleasantly situated

than this,” Washington said

of the medium-sized home

with a lovely view.

It is wonderful to see what

a relative cheapskate he was,

having timber exterior walls

treated to look like stone. The

interior has been delicately

restored with the gaudy

colours and fabrics that were

The Thomas

Jefferson

Memorial

looks over

the Tidal Basin

FOCUS ON...

13-PAGE

USA

SPECIAL

AMERICA

Continued on page 6→

Arlington National Cemetery,

left; statue of Tommie Smith

at the Museum of African

American History and Culture

useum,

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Willem de Kooning, a spooky

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a sculpture of Andrew

Jackson with the

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STEVEN HEAP/GETTY IMAGES; HENK MEIJER, MICHAEL WALD/ALAMY

American Art Museum

and National Portrait

Gallery

Capitol

White House

Museum of

African American

History and Culture

National Mall

Potomac

River

Lincoln

Memorial

½ mile