The website is the result of a seminar at the University of New Mexico, for which students curated s museum show and developed an online exhibition catalog. The project focused on the ways prints and photographs from the 17th to the 19th centuries promoted and manipulated identity as constructed by artist and sitter. Looking at the physical nature and the use of printed portraits, this exhibition and website reflects on how images constructed public and private personas.

Conventionally, portraits reflect the likeness of a person. This exhibition challenges the traditional role of portraiture and the parameters by which it is defined. The selection of images exhibited in the gallery proposes the understanding of portraiture as a reflection of identity, which can be attributed to people, monuments, and regions.

Seminar students are the exclusive authors of this website. Susanne Anderson-Riedel edited the entries as well as supported the student's curatorial efforts.