BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: America's Presidents

DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: America's Presidents:

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Description of Pictures: Including the long-gone Bill Clinton portrait. This one had attracted flak from the anti-Clinton folks because he didn't have a wedding ring which they claimed was a comment on him being a philandering. It turned out that men never had portraits done wearing jewelry -- the last portrait with a wedding ring was William McKinley and that didn't work out so well. (Benjamin Harrison was the only one with a wedding ring.) But, after that "scandal", the second Bush's portrait had both a wedding ring and a wristwatch.
In 2015, the artist, Nelson Shanks, revealed that he had painted the shadow of Monica Lewinsky in the portrait.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIPGPR_060701_005.JPG: Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919 Born New York City Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most vibrant and dynamic figures in American history. Highly opinionated and calculating in his self-presentation and public statements, Roosevelt took part in the debate on modernism, throwing his voice into the reviews of the Armory Show. In his famous critique of the show, titled "A Layman's View of an Art Exhibition," he denounced the artists he labeled "extremists" by focusing on the Cubists: "In this recent art exhibit, the lunatic fringe was fully in evidence, especially in . . . the Cubists." While Roosevelt's criticism of the show was inconsequential in terms of shaping the direction of the art world, his review is important for what it reveals about his view of the arts as an essential component of national identity and the charged political nature of the Armory Show. Charles Dana Gibson's portrait of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, published in the January 1899 issue of Scribner's, illustrated the first installment of Roosevelt's memoir, "The Rough Riders." Charles Dana Gibson, 1898
2. SIPGPR_060701_042.JPG: James Monroe, 1758-1831 Fifth president, 1817–1825 James Monroe continued the Virginia dynasty of Democratic-Republican presidents that had been interrupted only by the tenure of John Adams. As one of the last Founding Fathers to remain politically active in 1820, most people considered him to be unopposed in his bid for a second term. His success reflected the Era of Good Feelings -- the period following the War of 1812 that was marked by the temporary suspension of two-party factionalism. The Monroe Doctrine, the enduring legacy of his administration, articulated opposition to European meddling in the Western Hemisphere and became a keystone of American foreign policy. When Monroe was first elected, in 1816, the majority of voters did not know what he looked like. His friend John Vanderlyn, who had recently returned from studying art in Paris, painted two portraits of him. Monroe gave one to his friend James Madison and kept this one. With the careful rendering of Monroe's features, the highly finished surface, and the clarity of lighting, Vanderlyn's painting exemplifies the French neoclassical style that was prevalent at the time. The image was quickly engraved for public dissemination. John Vanderlyn, 1816
3. SIPGPR_060701_121.JPG: George H.W. Bush, 1924-: In the early 1960s, George HW Bush presided over a thriving oil business in Houston, Texas, but then he turned to politics. By 1980, when he was elected Ronald Reagan's vice president, he had served as ambassador to the United Nations, envoy to China, and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1988, he won the presidency. Bush proved sure-footed in foreign policy, where, according to one observer, he proved a master of both "timing and substance." More widely traveled than any other president, he managed the policy transitions prompted by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Perhaps his greatest success was the alliance he crafted to thwart Iraq's forceful takeover of Kuwait in 1990. Bush sat for this portrait at his home in Kennebunkport, Maine. The picture's backdrop, however, is the East Room of the White House. Among artist Ron Sherr's aims was to balance the formality of the composition with a warmth capable of drawing the viewer into the picture. Ronald Sherr, 1994-95
4. SIPGPR_060701_193.JPG: George Washington, 1732-1799 (Athenaeum portrait): American artist Gilbert Stuart was commissioned to paint this portrait after the success of his first portrait of Washington in 1795. Martha Washington convinced the president to sit again because, according to artist Rembrandt Peale, she "wished a portrait for herself; he therefore consented on the express condition that when finished it should be hers." Stuart, however, preferred this portrait to his earlier Washington; he purposely left it and that of the first lady unfinished so that he could use this as a model for the numerous copies that the first president's admirers commissioned. After Stuart's death, the two paintings were purchased for the Boston Athenaeum, which owned them for more than 150 years. This image served as the basis for the engraving of Washington on the one-dollar bill. John Neal, an early-nineteenth-century writer and art critic, wrote: "Though a better likeness of him were shown to us, we should reject it; for, the only idea that we now have of George Washington, is associated with Stuart's Washington." Gilbert Stuart, 1796
5. SIPGPR_060703_19.JPG: Hillary Rodham Clinton Born Park Ridge, Illinois A graduate of Wellesley College, Hillary Rodham enrolled at Yale Law School in 1969. There, she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and met Bill Clinton, whom she married in 1975. During her husband's three terms as governor of Arkansas, she focused on child and family issues. In 1993, as the country's first lady, she chaired the Task Force on National Health Care Reform and wrote the bestseller It Takes a Village. In 2000 she was elected U.S. senator from New York-the first first lady elected to Congress-and served on several important committees. In 2007 she became the first woman to seriously contest the presidential nomination in a major political party. President Barack Obama, who defeated her for the nomination and won the presidency, appointed her secretary of state in 2009. Clinton chose Ginny Stanford, based in northern California, to create this, the Portrait Gallery's first commissioned portrait of a first lady. Ginny Stanford, 2006
6. SIPGPR_060707_062.JPG: Bill Clinton Forty-second president, 1993-2001 The first of the post-World War II baby boomers to sit in the White House, Bill Clinton came to national political attention when, at age thirty-two, he claimed the Arkansas governorship. He later served an additional ten years as governor. Clinton's political resilience earned him the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination and the presidential victory in November. During his presidency, Clinton's resilience continued to be his mainstay. In the face of several controversies, he maintained his credibility with the electorate. The most ambitious initiative of his presidency was an attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system. That effort failed, but Clinton could claim accomplishments on other fronts, including a role in reshaping the nation's public welfare system. His administration also played a crucial part in curbing the massive federal spending deficits that had soared out of control in the 1980s; during his second term the government had a surplus in revenues for the first time since the late 1960s. Nelson Shanks, 2005
7. SIPGPR_060707_091.JPG: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis In 1961, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy brought an elegance and glamour to the White House that has rarely been matched. At times public interest in her seemed to overshadow even that of her husband, President John Kennedy, who during a state visit to France good-humoredly introduced himself as "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris." Her quiet dignity after her husband's 1963 assassination only increased public admiration for her. In 1968 she married Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate. After his death, she had a long career in publishing, remaining an object of popular fascination until her own death. This likeness appeared on Time's cover on the eve of President Kennedy's inauguration in 1961. Mrs. Kennedy was not especially relishing the prospect of being first lady; Time reported that she found it all rather "frightening." The baby carriage on the White House balcony is a reference to John F. Kennedy Jr., born on November 25, 1960. Boris Chaliapin, 1960-1961
8. SIPGPR_060707_232.JPG: George Washington, 1732-1799 (Houdon portrait)
9. SIPGPR_060707_249.JPG: George Washington, 1732-1799 (Lansdowne portrait): As the general who led us to victory in the American Revolution and as our first president, George Washington was often painted and sculpted. Everyone, it seemed, wanted the hero's portrait. But it is this portrait that stands for all time as the image that best represents what Washington meant to us when we were a new nation and continues to mean to us in the twenty-first century. It is the one picture that we can say ranks in importance with those sacred founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We see Washington in 1796, the last year of his two-term presidency. Earlier full-length portraits show him in military uniform, but here he is in civilian dress, revealing that in our democracy the elected executive is the true commander-in-chief. Standing in elegant surroundings suggesting the grandeur of European tradition, Washington is nonetheless not draped like a king, which he refused to be; he is a man powerful only by the people's consent. This was the man who told us what this new kind of leader -- an elected president -- could be and whose maturity and resolve gave us confidence in our future. The rainbow behind him breaks through the stormy sky. Washington was lucky in his portraitist, and so are we. American-born Gilbert Stuart had eighteen years in Europe to hone his artistry. He was commissioned by Senator and Mrs. William Bingham of Pennsylvania to provide a gift to the Marquis of Lansdowne, an English supporter of American independence. It was copied by Stuart and others as THE image of Washington who sustains our national purpose -- the Washington every generation of Americans needs to rediscover. Gilbert Stuart, 1796 Fred W Smith: The great "Lansdowne" portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, on loan to the National Portrait Gallery since 1968, was threatened with sale in 2000. But when Fred W. Smith, chair of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, learned in a news article and then on television that the nation might lose this founding portrait of the American presidency, he responded quickly. It was his desire that every school-aged child might have the opportunity to see the painting in person. Toward that goal, the Reynolds Foundation provided $30 million to purchase the portrait, tour it around the country, and place it in this presidential gallery, which the Smithsonian Regents have named in honor of Smith's patriotic vision.
10. SIPGPR_060826_14.JPG: Ulysses S. Grant, 1822-1885 (photo).
11. SIPGPR_060826_35.JPG: George Bush Since the late nineteenth century, the editorial cartoon has played a provocative role in presidential politics, countering partisan advertising with irreverence. Australian-born Pulitzer-Prize winner Pat Oliphant (born 1935) hones a distinctive, repeatable caricature of each incoming president. When each fails to live up to expectations, those exaggerated figures begin to age, sag, shrink, weaken, or bloat. Oliphant has summarized his cartoon depictions of each president since Lyndon Johnson in a series of bronze sculptures. His images of Richard Nixon as a haunting and malevolent Napoleon, Gerald Ford as Band-Aided hollow mask, Jimmy Carter as an insignificant miniature, and George H. W. Bush as a wizened horseshoe player, remind us of the powerful impact of satiric portraiture. Pat Oliphant, 1989
12. SIPGPR_061025_27.JPG: William Jefferson Clinton, born 1946 (Nelson Shanks portrait) (detail) Back in 2006, Time magazine had an article about the then newly-unveiled portrait of Bill Clinton. They mentioned snidely he was not wearing a wedding ring which indicated his marital infidelity. I dutifully photographed the ring-less hand but then found that none of the other presidential portraits in the gallery had wedding rings either. Not Reagan, Eisenhower, Bush 41, the Roosevelt, Carter, Washington, Lincoln... none! But Clinton's was the only one that was mentioned. The Bush 43 portrait, unveiled in 2009, was the first to have a wedding ring, mostly I guess to prove that he wasn't Bill Clinton. (It was also the first to have a wristwatch, which had a tacky flag on it.)
13. SIPGPR_061025_29.JPG: Gerald Ford Since the late nineteenth century, the editorial cartoon has played a provocative role in presidential politics, countering partisan advertising with irreverence. Australian-born Pulitzer-Prize winner Pat Oliphant (born 1935) hones a distinctive, repeatable caricature of each incoming president. When each fails to live up to expectations, those exaggerated figures begin to age, sag, shrink, weaken, or bloat. Oliphant has summarized his cartoon depictions of each president since Lyndon Johnson in a series of bronze sculptures. His images of Richard Nixon as a haunting and malevolent Napoleon, Gerald Ford as Band-Aided hollow mask, Jimmy Carter as an insignificant miniature, and George H. W. Bush as a wizened horseshoe player, remind us of the powerful impact of satiric portraiture. Pat Oliphant, 1989
14. SIPGPR_061025_82.JPG: Richard Nixon (detail)
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Description of Subject Matter: The nation’s only complete collection of presidential portraits outside the White House, this exhibition lies at the heart of the Portrait Gallery’s mission to tell the American story through the individuals who have shaped it. Visitors will see an enhanced and extended display of multiple images of 42 presidents of the United States, including Gilbert Stuart’s “Lansdowne” portrait of George Washington, the famous “cracked plate” photograph of Abraham Lincoln and whimsical sculptures of Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush by noted caricaturist Pat Oliphant. Presidents Washington, Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt will be given expanded attention because of their significant impact on the office. Presidents from FDR to Bill Clinton are featured in a video component of the exhibit.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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2006 photos: Trips this year: Florida (two separate trips including Lotusphere and taking care of mom), three weeks out west (including Yellowstone), Williamsburg, San Diego (comic book convention), and Georgia. Equipment this year: I was using all six Fuji cameras at various times -- an S602Zoom, two S7000s,a S5200, an S9000, and an S9100. The majority of pictures this year were taken with the S9000. I have to say, the S7000s was the best camera I've used up to this point.. Number of photos taken this year: 183,000.
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