Bush takes up artistic mission
Churchill essay on painting inspires lessons
Former president George W. Bush is displaying his portraits of world leaders in the first exhibit of his work as an artist.
The portraits include everyone from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to a grim-looking Russian President Vladimir Putin to a smiling likeness of the late Czech playwright and President Vaclav Havel.
Opening Saturday at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, the exhibit is called The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy. It runs through June 3.
“I spent a lot of time on personal diplomacy and I befriended leaders and learned about their families and their likes and dislikes, to the point where I felt comfortable painting them,” he said in an introductory video to the exhibit.
Bush, who started painting in 2012, three years after leaving office, said reading an essay by the late British prime minister Winston Churchill on painting inspired him to take lessons.
“I’d never lifted a brush before. I’d never been next to paint. So I gave it a whirl,” he said in the introductory video.
Accompanying many of the portraits are photographs of Bush with the leader he painted, along with gifts. On display with Bush’s portrait of former British prime minister Tony Blair is a book of Churchill’s speeches that Blair gave to Bush with the inscription, “To George, my ally and my friend.”
The exhibit includes more than two dozen portraits. Other subjects include the Dalai Lama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Bush also painted his father, George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president.