First Lady Portraits – the Bad & the Ugly

Last week, we looked at these ladies’ spouses. I’m sorry, ladies – it’s now your turn.

Once again, though, this is really in response to all the fuss that the Obamas’ portraits caused. There’s not quite as much controversy behind Michelle’s as there is her husband’s. It’s still definitely a little different though:

Like Kahinde Wiley, the artist who painted the president’s portrait, Amy Sherald, tends to do regular black folk against very flat backgrounds. And, like Wiley’s, they may have surreal and political aspects as well as a certain iconic quality. Once again, I’m a big fan, but am not sure the style works so well for such high-profile subjects. 

Two notes:

• Like last week, I am using the official portraits here
• I’m staying away from The Good as 1) they’re weren’t too many of ‘em, and 2) there were plenty of The Bad and the Ugly.

Jackie Kennedy

So, we all know she was a looker. And the painting actually does look like her. It’s fairly innovative too (it was done by the same artist who did her hubby, Aaron Shikler). That said, once again – JACKIE KENNEDY WAS NOT A REDHEAD!

Not too surprisingly, Jackie made my First Lady hotties post.


Edith Kermit Carrow Roosevelt

 

TR’s second wife was not unattractive, if in a somewhat plain way. What gets me here is the contrast between her rather plain-Jane photo and the elegant grand dame of her painting. That, in fact, will be something of a theme here for the next few FLOTUSes (FLOTi?)

Haven’t covered Edith before, so here’s a little trivia on her:

• She was the literal “girl next door” (her family and TR’s occupied adjacent brownstones in NYC)
• She had refused TR twice before he married his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee
• Teddy and Edith were married abroad, in London
• Edith was the first First Lady to have a social secretary and to hire a full staff for entertaining
• In retirement, she traveled to 20 different countries

Grace Coolidge

 

Ditto

BTW, that dog made it into this blog too. (There’s a photo of Grace with a pet racoon in that post as well.)

Enough about her pets. Here’s a little more about Mrs. Coolidge herself:

• She was the daughter of a Democratic political appointee
• She was the first FLOTUS to earn a college degree
• Before marrying, she was a teacher of the deaf
• She and Calvin’s first date was at a Republican rally
• She was a big fan of the Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox

Helen Herron Taft

 

Ditto in spades.

And here’s a little on Helen:

• She was known familiarly as Nellie
• Her father was a college classmate of Benjamin Harrison and a law partner of Rutherford B. Hayes
• She and William Howard Taft met at a bobsledding party
• She had a stroke while living in the White House
• She was the first First Lady to smoke

Mary Todd Lincoln

 

You know, if it weren’t for the roses, I’d swear these two could not even be related.

So, just in case you didn’t know anything about Mrs. Lincoln:

• She came from a slave-holding family, with several of her step-brothers dying for the Confederacy
• She spoke French, and lived there for awhile 
• She was bipolar, and was committed to a mental institution for several months later in life
• Ruth Gordon, Julie Harris, Sally Field, and Mary Tyler Moore have all played her in film or on TV

Elizabeth Monroe

I’m sure that headband and those spit curls were all the rage, oh, back in the 1820s.

More on Mrs. Monroe:

• She was originally from NYC, and her father helped found the New York Chamber of Commerce
• She was 17 when she married, 10 years her spouse’s junior
• He was a foot taller than her
• She suffered from epilepsy, and was fairly frequently an invalid while First Lady
• And on a personal note, as a boy, I helped restore her Oak Hill home in Loudon County, VA.

Anna Harrison

Are those curlers?

Additional Anna addenda:

• She and hubby William Henry Harrison eloped (her father didn’t approve of her dating a soldier)
• The two had 10 children, all but one who reached adulthood
• She was the oldest woman to become FLOTUS, at 65
• First lady for only a month, she never lived in the White House (or in Washington, for that matter)
• By the way, I think it’s just a bow.

Julia Tyler

Quick, call a doctor. I think her neck is broken.

Poor thing. She was actually a lot more attractive than that:

Simpering aside, here are a few things we know about Mrs. Tyler:

• She caused quite a scandal by appearing in a newspaper ad with a young man and posing as the “Rose of Long Island” (the family actually went so far as to pack her away to Europe for a year).
• John Tyler proposed to her as president, and less than 6 months after his first wife died (scandal #2)
• She was only 22, and 30 years his junior (scandal #3)
• Tyler’s oldest daughter was only 5 years older than Julia (ditto)
• She converted to Catholicism later in life (scandal #4)

I’ve been dissin’ the poor ladies here, though I’ve just gotta ask … Were, perhaps, their husbands not so great shakes in the looks department as well? You bet your ass they were. In fact, they are some 1st ladies out there who pretty much put their husbands to shame.