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George Washington and His Portrait
The Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts, Accession No. UR333. Gift of the Estate of George Deem, 2011.
| Image Notes
"George Washington and His Portrait, 1972, by George Deem (b. 1932) analyzes how a familiar portrait of Washington provides a mental conception of reality. It is a Washington of the imagination as well as of the dollar bill, who is somehow more tangible than the real Washington. Deem's painting portrays a Magritte-like encounter between the real Washington and his double in art." (Franklin Hill Perrell, The Revolutionary War: Founding the New Nation, Exhibition catalogue essay, 2000, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York).
"In 1795, at Martha Washington's request, George Washington sat for a portrait by Gilbert Stuart. George directed that the portrait when it was finished should go to Martha. Gilbert Stuart did not finish the portrait. He kept the unfinished portrait as his reference for 75 portraits which he sold for $100 each. The original unfinished portrait by Gilbert Stuart was in the collection of the Boston Athenaeum for 150 years and became known as the "Athenaeum Portrait" of George Washington. The painting now is shared between the National Gallery in Washington and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. George Deem's George Washington and His Portrait depicts George Washington standing in front of one of the 75 Gilbert Stuart variations on his portrait." (Note by Ronald Vance, 2012).
| Artist's Notes
"George Washington George Washington. This is a public painting. It depicts George Washington passing by his own portrait. George Washington knew that he was George Washington." (George Deem, June 1, 1978. Note written for an exhibition of paintings by George Deem at the Merida Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky, June 12 - July 8,1978).
"About the painting: I was living in Italy when I painted George Washington and His Portrait in 1972. One of the things I learned living away from America was that it defined my sense of being an American. In another country one is constantly identified as "the American." The local mechanic spoke of my Volkswagen as the American's car for the seven years that he took care of it. My house came to be known as the American's house, not Signor Giorgio's, although when I was first there it was still being called Signora Paola's house (that being the name of the previous tenant) or by its name, "La Lodalina" (the little lark). When I arrived in Italy in 1970 I had with me a print of Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington, the unfinished portrait that hangs in American schoolrooms. I hung the print on the kitchen wall. It was a farmhouse kitchen and guests who came to lunch or dinner would sit in the kitchen and talk with me while I cooked. Soon after my arrival in Cortona, an English woman newly met was invited to lunch and upon entering the kitchen she said "Oh, and there is your George Washington." She was the first of many non-Americans to respond in this way to my George Washington print. Everybody knew who it was, just as everyone recognizes a picture of Napoleon. At about that time, in 1970 or 1971, I was reading George Washington's diaries. It is interesting that in his diaries George Washington was perfectly conscious of who "George Washington" was. He knew that what he did as the first president could become a precedent for those who were to come after him, and he acted accordingly. He created the idea and the role of "the President," sitting for portrait after iconic portrait, and traveling throughout the thirteen new states so that he could be seen by the people. When he neared a town he would get out of his carriage and mount a horse, the better to be seen, and at the same time presenting the image of the man on horseback, the leader, the man in control. Identity and celebrity, the public image and the private self: these concerns are as old as America. We created the nation and/as we created ourselves. We are self-made, and it is perhaps this that others see in us that makes us recognizably American to them. I thus came to make my painting, which I thought of as "George Washington's George Washington" (my first and alternative title for this work). George Washington is seen in front of his portrait, his shadow falling upon the painting behind him from which he has turned to look at us, the viewers looking always at him. For the foreground image of George Washington seen in front of his portrait, I quote Gilbert Stuart's unfinished portrait of 1796. For the "portrait" behind George Washington I quote one of the many copies that Stuart made from his unfinished 1796 portrait, and here I duplicate Stuart's paint application and color. Painting the foreground image of George Washington, however, I dulled Stuart's color and, instead of duplicating his brush strokes I used a thin glaze application to give the effect of a snapshot. (George Deem, New York, August 10th 1999)
Sneed Gallery, Rockford, Illinois
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York
The Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts
Merida Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky
The Boston Athenaeum, Boston Massachusetts