A painting of former President Bill Clinton on display at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery features a secret reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the painter told the Philadelphia Daily News in an interview published Sunday.
Artist Nelson Shanks, 77, told the newspaper that a shadow falling across the left side of the painting “literally represents a shadow from a blue dress” the artist kept on a mannequin while he worked on the painting outside of Clinton’s presence.
“It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him,” he added.
Shanks, who described Clinton as “probably the most famous liar of all time,” said: “He and his administration did some very good things, of course, but I could never get this Monica thing completely out of my mind.”
He also said that the Clintons “hate the portrait” and want it removed from the National Portrait Gallery, although a representative of the museum denied that to the Daily News.
See the portrait below:
Is this the same guy who made Bobby Jindal look like Greg Brady?
Gosh, this is my favorite story of the month and the month just started. The artist is a classic of the type but he failed to ‘capture’ Clinton, the 42nd President looks like Ted Koppel absent wedding ring and shadow notwithstanding…
Did the Clintons ‘check the artist out’ beforehand? And, why did Shanks “terrify” Clinton?
Hillary, FYI, I know a couple of fabulous portrait artists with credits worthy of a major personage…be square politically but daring artistically, not sorry.
Can I paint a portrait of W? Can I? Please?
So if this “artist” has any intellectual integrity, if he did a portrait of Dubya, the shadow cast from the historically damaging lies of the Iraq war would be so dark that you would barely be able to recognize him.
Haters gonna hate.