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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s been more than a decade since President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, welcomed back George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, for the unveiling of their White House portraits, part of a beloved Washington tradition that for decades managed to transcend partisan politics.
President
Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, are set to revive that ritual — after an awkward
and anomalous gap in the Trump years — when they host the Obamas on Wednesday
for the big reveal of their portraits in front of scores of friends, family and
staff.
The Obama
paintings will not look like any in the White House portrait collection to
which they will be added. They were America’s first Black president and first
lady.
The ceremony
will also mark Michelle Obama’s first visit to the White House since Obama’s
presidency ended in January 2017, and only the second visit for Barack Obama.
He was at the White House in April to mark the 12th anniversary of the health
care law he signed in 2010.
Portrait
ceremonies often give past presidents an opportunity to showcase their comedic
timing.
“I am
pleased that my portrait brings an interesting symmetry to the White House
collection. It now starts and ends with a George W,” Bush quipped at his
ceremony in 2012.
Bill Clinton
joked in 2004 that “most of the time, till you get your picture hung like this,
the only artists that draw you are cartoonists.”
Recent
tradition, no matter the party affiliation, has had the current president
genially hosting his immediate predecessor for the unveiling — as Clinton did
for George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush did for Clinton and Obama did for the
younger Bush.
Then there
was an unexplained pause when Donald Trump did not host Obama.
Two
spokespeople for Trump did not respond to emailed requests for comment on the
lack of a ceremony for Obama, and whether artists are working on portraits of
Trump and former first lady Melania Trump.
The White
House portrait collection starts with George Washington, America’s first
president. Congress bought his portrait.
Other
portraits of early presidents and first ladies often came to the White House as
gifts. Since the 1960s, the White House Historical Association has paid for
most of the paintings.
The first
portraits financed by the association were of Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird
Johnson, and John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, said Stewart McLaurin,
president of the private, nonprofit organization established by first lady
Kennedy.
Before presidents
and first ladies leave office, the association explains the portrait process.
The former president and first lady choose the artist or artists, and offer
guidance on how they want to be portrayed.
“It really
involves how that president and first lady see themselves,” McLaurin said in an
interview with The Associated Press.
The
collection includes an iconic, full-length portrait of Washington that adorns
the East Room. It is the only item still in the White House that was in the
executive mansion in November 1800 when John Adams and Abigail Adams became the
first president and first lady to live in the White House.
Years later,
first lady Dolley Madison saved Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Washington from
almost certain ruin. She had White House staff take it out of the city before
advancing British forces burned the mansion in 1814. The painting was held in
storage until the White House was rebuilt.
President
and first lady portraits are seen by millions of White House visitors, though
not all are on display. Some are undergoing conservation or are in storage.
Those that
are on display line hallways and rooms in public areas of the mansion, such as
the Ground Floor and its Vermeil and China Rooms, and the State Floor one level
above, which has the famous Green, Blue and Red Rooms, the East Room and State
Dining Room.
Portraits of
Mamie Eisenhower, Pat Nixon, Lady Bird Johnson and Lou Henry Hoover grace the
Vermeil Room, along with a full-length image of Jacqueline Kennedy. Michelle
Obama’s portrait likely will join Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush
along the Ground Floor hallway.
The State
Floor hallway one floor above features recent presidents: John F. Kennedy,
Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Gerald
Ford’s portrait and the likeness of Richard Nixon — the only president to
resign from office — are on view on the Grand Staircase leading to the private
living quarters on the second floor.
Past
presidents’ images move around the White House, depending on their standing
with the current occupants. Ronald Reagan, for example, moved Thomas Jefferson
and Harry S. Truman out of the Cabinet Room and swapped in Dwight Eisenhower
and Calvin Coolidge.
In the
Clinton era, portraits of Richard Nixon and Reagan, idols of the Republican
Party, lost their showcase spot in the Grand Foyer and were replaced with
pictures of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Truman, heroes of the Democrats. Nancy
Reagan temporarily moved Eleanor Roosevelt to a place of prominence in the East
Room in 1984 to mark the centennial of her birth.
One of the
most prominent spots for a portrait is above the mantle in the State Dining
Room and it has been occupied for decades by a painting of a seated Abraham
Lincoln, hand supporting his chin. It was placed there by Franklin Roosevelt.
Bill
Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s portraits hang on opposing walls in the Grand
Foyer.
Clinton’s
would be relocated to make room for Barack Obama’s if the White House sticks to
tradition and keeps the two most recent Oval Office occupants there, McLaurin
said.
“That’s up
to the White House, to the curators,” he said.
The
association, which is funded through private donations and the sale of books
and an annual White House Christmas ornament, keeps the portrait price well
below market value because of the “extraordinary honor” an artist derives from
having “their work of art hanging perpetually in the White House,” McLaurin
said.
Details
about the Obamas’ portraits will stay under wraps until Wednesday.
Biden will
be the rare president to host a former boss for the unveiling; he was Obama’s
vice president. George H.W. Bush, who held Ronald Reagan’s ceremony, was
Reagan’s No. 2.
Betty
Monkman, a former White House curator, said during a 2017 podcast for the White
House Historical Association that the ceremony is a “statement of generosity”
by the president and first lady. “It’s a very warm, lovely moment.”
The White
House portraits are one of two sets of portraits of presidents and first
ladies. The National Portrait Gallery, a Smithsonian museum, maintains its own
collection and those portraits are unveiled before the White House pair. The
Obamas’ unveiled their museum portraits in February 2018.
Linda St.
Thomas, chief spokesperson for the Smithsonian Institution, said in an email
that a $650,000 donation in July from Save America, Trump’s political action
committee, was earmarked for the couple’s museum portraits. Two artists have
been commissioned, one for each painting, and work has begun, St. Thomas said.
Associated
Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.