New Clinton portraits unveiled for National Portrait Gallery

[Garth Herrick]

Thanks Lacey, great link! Yikes....

I guess we better be extra careful to avoid insinuating poses when we paint presidents; not that this portrait actually has such a problem, but evidently people will read the most marvelous insights into portraits and poses, warranted or not. I guess we all need a degree in popular body language studies.

Garth

Originally Posted by Lacey Lewis

Let's see if this works:

LINK

[Cindy Procious]

Originally Posted by Lacey Lewis

I am not sure how to link to a video on CNN.com, but this morning I saw a video clip that was picking on Bill Clinton's portrait quite a bit, and also highlighted Hillary Clinton's portrait.

Anyone else see if or interested in linking to it here?

That's Jeanne Moos. I don't think she's done a serious news story in her life. She's all about poking fun. I like her stuff.

She did mention BOTH artists, too!

Oh - as for the NYPost, they're hilarious. It's a daily, but comes off more like the National Enquirer in flavor.

[Lacey Lewis]

Garth- Hah! You say "we" like we all get presidential commissions! Well, at least maybe this will be something you can think about in the future when painting such a subject.

Cindy- I do miss the Post. I used to read it everyday on lunch break when I lived in Syracuse. Page Six was it? I thought the comment about him making a gang sign was especially inventive!

Anyhow, I do happen to like the pose and I think if I did some searching I might find a president or royalty in such a stance. (I am envisioning someone in tights and a white wig.) Afterall, he was a 'groovy' president; he played the sax, had Fleetwood Mac do his campaign song, and jogged to McD's! (Among other things.) So it fits, I think.

[Claudemir Bonfim]

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=27526

http://smh.com.au/news/world/picture...861350318.html

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...=Entertainment

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1885974

http://www.wodzianski.com/candid%201/AndrewandBill.jpg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...042401783.html

[Claudemir Bonfim]

On some of the links above you can get a closer look at the painting. That's a wonderful portrait.

[Tom Edgerton]

I don't believe that Simmie Knox was named initially when the Clinton White House portraits were unveiled. Print media picked it up, but the nightly news pieces didn't name the artist then, either. I guess the paintings just spontaneously generate themselves. Immaculate conception.

[Sharon Knettell]

I don't know, I think Shanks caught our most famous lounge lizard in just the right pose. I always thought, as well as dear Diana, that he was quite dishy. So did the women of the press corps. This revelation just drove my husband nuts!

I do hope that if I were ever to get a presidential commission that it would be the president of Namibia or some such country because a loud and garish costume with a feather or two wouldn't be considered too outre.

[Kimberly Dow]

You have to wonder about people's reactions to the pose. I watched some of those clips - and I just dont get it. He is just standing there. It is more casual than some, but suggestive? Nutty.

At first I cringed on behalf of Shanks and some of the unkindly remarks, but I suppose what they say is true - its all publicity.

[Sharon Knettell]

Suggestive? Hardly, but I suppose those untalented twits have to find something sexy or an original bon mot (In their mini minds) to say to sell newspapers. The fact that they let their unfiltered thoughts run from their computers like Montezuma's revenge to a fitting receptacle, whose end use is either a trash liner or fish wrapper is somehow poetic justice of a kind.

[Carol Norton]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

Suggestive? Hardly, but I suppose those untalented twits have to find something sexy or an original bon mot (In their mini minds) to say to sell newspapers. The fact that they let their unfiltered thoughts run from their computers like Montezuma's revenge to a fitting receptacle, whose end use is either a trash liner or fish wrapper is somehow poetic justice of a kind.

I was just about to comment on Kim's remarks but Sharon said it far more eloquently that I would have. "UNFILTERED THOUGHTS" is the perfect phrase. I strongly suspect that ANY pose other than that early American famous painting of the couple in front of their barn with pitchfork in hand - face squared to the audience and grimly set mouth would have evoked the same remark. Had the former president not had several well-publicized adventures, the image probably wouldn't have been projected onto the portrait. I even suspect that if the press hadn't seen the portrait, the remarks would have been written the same.