250 years of First Lady portraiture
Une exposition sur les portraits des Première dames.
Aux États-Unis, les Premières dames font, tout comme leurs conjoints, exécuter leur portrait officiel à leur entrée et à leur sortie de la Maison Blanche. Every eye is upon me, une exposition de la National Portrait Gallery de Washington DC, expose et analyse le rôle de ces oeuvres souvent méconnues. A visiter en ligne jusqu'au 23 Mai 2021.
Bess Truman, US first lady from 1945 until 1953, has not become the sort of historical figure people quote on Instagram. “A woman’s public role is to sit beside her husband, be silent, and be sure her hat is on straight,” she said, even though, behind the scenes, she was nicknamed “the Boss” and wrote many of President Truman’s speeches.
2. Such anecdotes permeate Every Eye Is on Me, a new exhibition of first lady portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, which tracks the development of the role from the early 19th century to the present. The portraits, which range from Martha Washington’s detached stare and frilled bonnet to Melania Trump’s soft-focus smise, aim to examine “the way these women were framed”. The show is also part of an effort “to help rectify the absences of women in US history,” according to its curator, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw.
3. Ideally, we would be talking about first spouses, of course, but so far, alas, the US president has always been a man, with a first lady beside him. The position was born of what we might now describe as emotional labour, too.
4. These early first ladies were often very ambitious. “I was struck by how many of these women were smarter than their husbands,” says DuBois Shaw, “but, because of women’s secondary position, had to attach themselves to a man who could take them where they wanted from to go.” Mary Lincoln, for example, “was very interested in politics. But she was constantly thwarted by sexism. She develops a reputation as being a difficult woman.”
5. If Eleanor Roosevelt represents the years, during her tenure of 1933 until 1945, when
many women’s lives changed dramatically as they entered the workforce as part of the war effort, Mamie Eisenhower’s portrait expresses a thousand words about the 1950s backlash. She is kind of a regressive antidote to the liberated work-empowered women that had come out of the war years; it’s a way to get women back in the kitchen.
6. All the portraits illustrate something unique about each of the sitters and their approach to the role. Jacqueline Kennedy’s Time magazine cover, for example, speaks of the growing prominence of the role as a political celebrity.
7. But while many first ladies have achieved extraordinary things, within the confines of this unpaid and unelected role, many more have been unsure how to use their power and prominence. Even Mrs Washington, says DuBois Shaw, had a “complicated” relationship with the position. “She was very unhappy about being put into this role because it confined her.”
WHAT DOES A FIRST LADY DO?
8. This was before the role was, to some extent, regularised by Edith Roosevelt, who established offices in the East Wing and hired a social secretary in 1902. Over the ensuing decades, a retinue of staff sprung up, “helping the first lady to meet the expectations of the public”. Still, over 250 years, there is no satisfactory answer to the question of exactly what a first lady should be. And perhaps that is appropriate: until there are more women in office, and there are routinely first gentlemen too, the role of first lady, and its assumed continuation of a gendered division of power, must remain uncomfortable.
9. At least later first ladies have had the chance to create their own images. Since 2006, first lady portraits have been actively commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, along with its long-running collection of presidential portraits. Hillary Clinton was the first, captured in side-profile, by Ginny Stanford, looking composed and regal, like the head of a coin, flanked by gold leaf panels, and wearing a hopeful shade of buttercup yellow.
10. It is a rather poignant image, given what happened later of which, DuBois Shaw believes, the role of first lady played its part. “Much of the animosity towards her begins when she does not inhabit that role of first lady in the way that the sexist powers-that-be would have it.”
11. Michelle Obama’s 2018 portrait, by Amy Sherald, reflects her openness and interest in contemporary art as well as her understanding of the power of her endorsements. Sherald and Kehinde Wiley, who painted Barack Obama’s portrait around at the same time, were the first black recipients of commissions from the National Portrait Gallery.
12. The dress she wears, designed by Michelle Smith, was also thoughtfully chosen. Its patterns are reminiscent of “patterns and designs commonly found in American quilting, particularly African American quilting traditions, and references the history of women’s needlework and American folk art, and that was something Mrs Obama was drawn to,” says DuBois Shaw.
13. Melania Trump's razorsharp jawline, tonged hair and HD eyebrows present a level of grooming that would have been alien to first ladies of yore. It is a highly structured portrait. “Mrs Trump was a model, so she really understands the camera and knows exactly how she wants to look,” says DuBois Shaw. Given that Mrs Trump has played close to a nonspeaking role over the past four years, the choices she makes for her official exit portrait, when it is released, will be worth a thousand words, and everyone will be listening.