Nelson Shanks, artist who painted controversial Clinton portrait, dies at 77 - Washington Post
Nelson Shanks, who painted portraits of prominent leaders and who stirred a controversy this year when he revealed that he included a subtle reference to Monica Lewinsky in his painting of President Bill Clinton at the National Portrait Gallery,... Shanks painted well-known subjects such as Princess Diana, Pope John Paul II, a group portrait of the first four women to serve on the U. S. Supreme Court and presidents Ronald Reagan and Clinton. He was called “the most talented contemporary traditional portraitist” by D. Dodge Thompson, chief of exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. “I think the painting really feels like Bill Clinton,” Mr. Shanks told The Washington Post at the time. Nine years later, Mr. Shanks told the Philadelphia Daily News that a shadow near the former president was a reference to Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress. The artist placed a mannequin wearing a blue dress in his studio to add authenticity and to symbolize what he called a lingering shadow over Clinton’s presidency. “He and his administration did some very good things, of course,” Mr. Shanks told the Daily News, “but I could never get this Monica thing completely out of mind, and it is subtly incorporated in the painting. The painting was on display at the National Portrait Gallery, but it has been in storage since 2009, in what the gallery calls a standard rotation of. Source: www.washingtonpost.com
