Clinton Portraits Unveiled
April 25, 2006 -- -- Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Monday night's unveiling of the portraits of former President Clinton and former first lady Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Smithsonian was that it started seven minutes ahead of schedule.
The famously tardy former chief executive had arrived early at the Smithsonian's Castle Building to see the paintings the institution had commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery.
As expected, the portraits themselves were well-received by an audience comprising the Clintons' family, friends and former staff members. The painting of Sen. Clinton is in profile. The painting of the former president shows him leaning casually against a mantel.
Clinton told the crowd the painting of his wife measures up to the great works of history. "I wound up with a wife straight out of the Renaissance," he said. "It is so beautiful."
Sen. Clinton's portrait was painted by Ginny Stanford, whose portrait of food critic M.F.K. Fisher is part of the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery's permanent collection.
The former president chose Nelson Shanks to paint his portrait. Shanks depicted former President Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Diana, Princess of Wales.
The former president was bemused at having a portrait at all. "If you grew up as I did," he said, "portraits were pictures of dead people."
The portrait of Sen. Clinton is the second official portrait of the former first lady. The first is part of the White House collection.
President Clinton has a White House portrait, as well as one painted when he was the governor of Arkansas.
"They look beautiful to me," said James Carville, a democratic strategist and architect of Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. "But I'm hardly an art critic."
When Carville was asked which portrait he liked better, he chose not to answer. "What, are you crazy?" he asked.
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