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PROFILESmithsonian National Portrait Gallery News Fall 2004 From the DIRECTOR We won’t win any points for originality by making our fall issue of Profile mostly about the American presidency. But in this case, that’s a good thing. Appropri- ately in an election year, our society as a whole—and particularly those institu- tions devoted to education—should be focusing on an office that continues to grow in importance for our nation and for the world. We need to know as much as possible about what to expect from the individual who will occupy the Oval Office, and also how those expectations have changed over the years. I have written elsewhere in this issue about America’s Presidents, but here I’d like to make a special point about the visual record of the presidency that is the Portrait Gallery’s contribution to our national understanding. The Portrait Gallery has about 1,200 images that refer to the American presidency, and these paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and photographs are at the heart of our collection. In our Hall of Presidents, we literally look these Presidents in the eye and take their measure at moments when they had the greatest effect on our life as a people. But the Portrait Gallery’s curators and historians have also taken care to assemble images that make us aware of not only the process through which we choose Presidents—campaigns and elections—but also the process through which we evaluate them once in office. A President’s formal portrait tells us a great deal about the symbolic place the office holds, as well as something of the individual’s look and personality. Yet the repre- sentation of the political process is what really provides a picture of who we are as a democratic people: energetic, rambunctious, idealistic, suspi- cious, disappointed on occasion, but in the end hopeful, always hopeful, about the next candidate, the next election, the next change. These are the images provided us by the print-makers, the photographers, the caricatur- ists, the poster-makers, the masters of opinion and opinion-making. And this is why to the roll call of honor of the formal portraitists of the presidency—such as Gilbert Stuart, G.P.A. Healy, and Douglas Chandor—we add the vital, biting visual wit of Thomas Nast, Herblock, Edward Sorel, and Oliphant. The American presidency, like the nation it embodies, is both ideal and all too human. It is the artists who constantly remind us of this duality, and for that the National Portrait Gallery salutes them in this presidential season. 2 PROFILE Contents Vol. 5. No. 3. Fall 2004 4 13 Time Covers the Retratos Candidates 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits 6 The Editorial Cartoon 14 as Portraiture Paul Peck Presidential Initiative 8 Cover: Presidential Campaigns New Acquisitions 15 by Edward Sorel, 1996, gift of NPG Schedules Alan Fern 10 The American 16 Presidents Portrait Puzzlers In the next issue 12 • The glamour and mystique of Garbo Gilbert Stuart See other The Exhibition exhibition-related web pages: • The Scottsboro boys www.npg.si.edu ! Marc Pachter Commission Director Daniel Okrent, Chair PROFILE Carolyn Carr Anthony C. Beilenson, Vice Chair Deputy Director and Chief Curator Sally G. Chubb Eloise Baden Jeannine Smith Clark Associate Director for Administration Joan Kent Dillon Ella Milbank Foshay Editor National Portrait Gallery Manuel L. Ibáñez Carol Wyrick Jill Krementz Smithsonian Institution Office of Education Jon B. Lovelace 750 Ninth Street, NW Associate Editor Joan A. Mondale P.O. Box 37012, MRC 973 Sidney Hart Robert B. Morgan Washington, DC 20013-7012 Department of History Roger Mudd Constance Berry Newman Phone: (202) 275-1738 Editorial Committee V. Thanh Nguyen Fax: (202) 275-1887 Dru Dowdy Barbara Novak E-mail: [email protected] Office of Publications R. Theodore Steinbock Website: www.npg.si.edu Pie Friendly Jack H. Watson Jr. Office of External Affairs Readers’ comments are welcome. Marianne Gurley Ex Officio Members Office of Photographic Services Earl A. Powell III Ellen G. Miles To receive Profile, please send your William H. Rehnquist Department of Painting and Sculpture Lawrence M. Small name, home address, and e-mail address Ann M. Shumard (if applicable) to [email protected] or Department of Photographs Honorary Commissioners the post office box listed above. Editorial Support Julie Harris Jessica Hoffman David Levering Lewis Unless otherwise noted, all images are from Program Assistant Bette Bao Lord the National Portrait Gallery collection. Fred W. Smith ©2004 Smithsonian Institution. Design All rights reserved. Leslie London, London Graphics 3 Time Covers the Candidates Sidney Hart Senior Historian and Editor of the Peale Family Papers At the start of the presidential race in 1952, pundits gave the soft-spoken man with a mild southern drawl and coonskin cap little chance to win for the Democrats in the New Hamp- shire primary. Estes Kefauver, the junior senator from Tennes- see, had become a household name the previous year during the televised hearings of his Estes Kefauver by Boris Chaliapin, special committee investigat- 1952, gift of Time magazine Thomas Eagleton and George ing organized crime. But Kefau- McGovern by Ken Regan, 1972, ver had entered the presidential gift of Time magazine primaries with no professional organization and little money. And if President Truman decided to again seek the cratic urban machines, southern delegates, Harry Democratic nomination, it was assumed to be his S. Truman, and even many party liberals denied for the asking. Nonetheless, Kefauver beat Truman him the nomination. decisively and won all twelve delegates. To New The Democratic presidential nominees for 1972, Hampshire voters, Kefauver was the anti-politi- George McGovern and Thomas Eagleton, sought cian, coming out of the Tennessee hills and prevail- to convey a sense of a new beginning to American ing over the state Democratic machine in his 1948 politics. After the party’s bitter divisiveness in the run for the Senate. When accused by the machine 1968 election, a reform commission under McGov- leader, Memphis mayor Edward H. Crump, of ern successfully took much of the power from the being a radical and as deceptive as a pet raccoon, Democrats’ “old guard” and gave it to younger Kefauver replied, “I might be a pet ’coon, but I members, women, and minorities. The number of ain’t Boss Crump’s pet ’coon.” The coonskin cap young voters had vastly increased the previous year with which Kefauver appeared on the Time cover with the passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, of March 24, 1952, would become a fixture. which lowered the voting age to eighteen. McGov- In New Hampshire, Kefauver fully developed ern’s platform was aimed at those younger voters, his image of a nonprofessional politician. Report- and the candidate pledged an immediate end to ers noted that voters were disarmed by his earnest the Vietnam War, huge cuts in defense—with the demeanor as he shook their hands and introduced money going to social spending—and higher taxes himself, a plainspoken man of strong facial fea- for the wealthy. tures, with thin lips that broke “easily into a wide Running against a popular incumbent, McGov- grin.” He had few friends in the Senate and was ern contrasted himself with the politically savvy regarded as one of its dullest speakers, but voters Richard Nixon (branded “Tricky Dick” by Demo- saw those qualities as indicators of his sincerity and crats) as a man of moral conviction, honesty, and independence. Awkward episodes during the cam- integrity. Ten days after the Democratic conven- paign, such as wearing two right shoes and look- tion in Miami, these very qualities would be put ing, as his wife described it, as if he were walking to the test. Stories had begun to circulate that around the corner all the time, only reinforced this Eagleton had been hospitalized and had received popular perception. It did not matter that Kefauver electric-shock treatments for depression. At first, voted the straight Democratic line in the Senate; McGovern announced his strong support for the voters saw him as a maverick up against pro- Eagleton and promised to keep him on the ticket. fessionals. Shortly after, however, he bowed to political pres- Kefauver came to the convention with the larg- sure and replaced Eagleton with Sargent Shriver. est number of committed delegates and was the The character issue was gone, and the McGovern most popular Democrat in public opinion polls. campaign never achieved momentum. The Eagle- But the very independence he sought to convey to ton and McGovern Time cover of July 24, 1972, the public alienated the party regulars. The Demo- was as fleeting as their ticket. 4 Time Covers the Candidates was Reagan, and not the more experienced Bush, who could best manage himself and the country in times of peril. Even those who are not fans of President Bill Clinton would agree that he is a political figure of almost irresistible charm and magnetism. It is easy to forget, however, that this did not translate into big electoral victories; in both elections he won the presidency with less than 50 percent of the vote. During his reelection campaign Bill Clinton and Dick Morris by Ste- in September 1996, Clinton led Ronald Reagan by Burt Silverman, phen Kroninger, 1996, gift of Time in the polls by nearly as much 1980, gift of Time magazine magazine as Ronald Reagan did over Walter Mondale in 1984. But In early March 1980, Gordon Nelson, the chair- he aroused far less enthusiasm and won far less man of the Republican Party in Massachusetts, affection than either Reagan or Dwight D.

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