There’s A Secret Reference To Monica Lewinsky In Bill Clinton’s Official Portrait

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Famous artist (hey, he’s got a Wikipedia page; for an artist, he’s basically a member of the Beatles) Nelson Shanks has painted portraits for the likes of Ronald Reagan, Princess Diana, and DMX, probably. But he only included a hidden message into the painting of one of his subjects. Shanks told Philly.com that he left a suggestive reference to a certain SNL guest in the picture of former President Bill Clinton hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.

Q: Was there anybody who made you nervous painting them?

No. There are plenty of them I’ve made nervous. Especially Clinton. Oh, he was petrified.

Q: Who did you find was the hardest to capture?

Clinton was hard. I’ll tell you why. The reality is he’s probably the most famous liar of all time. He and his administration did some very good things, of course, but I could never get this Monica thing completely out of my mind and it is subtly incorporated in the painting.

If you look at the left-hand side of it there’s a mantle in the Oval Office and I put a shadow coming into the painting and it does two things. It actually literally represents a shadow from a blue dress that I had on a mannequin, that I had there while I was painting it, but not when he was there. It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him.

And so the Clintons hate the portrait. They want it removed from the National Portrait Gallery. They’re putting a lot of pressure on them. [Reached by phone Thursday, a spokeswoman from the National Portrait Gallery denied that.] (Via)

If you look even closer, you’ll see a cigar painted on the vase, and if you look even closer at the cigar, you’ll see a saxophone, and if you look even CLOSER at the saxophone, you’ll see Arsenio Hall and his Dog Pound. Shanks didn’t add that, though. Hall snuck into the National Portrait Gallery one night and drew it in crayon. He does that to all famous paintings.

Via Philly

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