Controversial Clinton portrait with Lewinsky reference isn't on display
Lori Grisham - USA TODAY
March 3, 2015
The National Portrait Gallery commonly rotates through exhibits and sometimes work is removed from public view for a period of time, Bethany Bentley, a spokesperson for the museum told the USA TODAY Network.
"It was not taken off view because of any outside requests," Bentley said.
The gallery has space for 900 works to be displayed at any one time out of a collection of more than 22,000 items, she said. The gallery unveiled the portrait to the public in 2006 and it hung on and off through August of 2009. In 2011, it was on loan for a traveling display in Russia. The gallery does not have any future rotations scheduled right now, according to Bentley.
"It's been cycled right down to the storage area permanently," Shanks said about the painting's more-than-five-year hiatus from the gallery.
The blue dress
Shanks sees himself as a biographer and said his portraits capture the subject's personality and story. For Clinton, that meant portraying the 42nd president in a casual pose.
"In the presidency, [Clinton] had a certain amount of panache, a little bit of swagger. He didn't stand nor act like a mannequin. That swagger and that sense of self was very present and I tried to get exactly that in the painting," Shanks said.
Another undeniable part of his legacy is Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky.
"I felt it necessary to depart from complete naiveté in the painting and put in a subtle, subtle shadow across his presidency," he said.
To get the right effect, Shanks says he went through various props for something to cast the shadow. That's when he happened upon a blue dress and decided it was fitting since Lewinsky's blue dress, which had DNA that matched Clinton's, became a central part of the scandal.
A photo taken by USA TODAY in 2005 shows Shanks in his studio working on the painting with a blue dress hanging on coat rack casting a shadow onto the scene...
With a replica of the fireplace in the Oval Office set up in his studio, artist Nelson Shanks works on a portrait of former president Bill Clinton. There is a blue dress set up in the studio casting a shadow on the set. Shanks recently told reporters that the shadow represents Monica Lewinsky. (Photo: 2005 photo by Eileen Blass, USA TODAY)
More, here:http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /24318563/
Note: Mr. Shanks died in August, 2015. He was 77.
Clintons don't like his otherwise lovely portrait
- Will Williams
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Clintons don't like his otherwise lovely portrait
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Re: Clintons don't like his otherwise lovely portrait
It could have been a lot worse.
- Jim Mathias
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Re: Clintons don't like his otherwise lovely portrait
Would've been better had Shanks painted Slick Willie's fly open for the sake of accurately portraying his character (or lack thereof)...
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Re: Clintons don't like his otherwise lovely portrait
Actually, I thought that is what he was getting ready to do. Either that, or he was looking for anotherJim Mathias wrote:Would've been better had Shanks painted Slick Willie's fly open for the sake of accurately portraying his character (or lack thereof)...
cigar!