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Woodrow Wilson, 1917.
Sir William Orpen.
The White House, Washington, DC.
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Sir William Orpen, the
dashing Irish painter, was unmatched
in the swiftness and sureness of his
touch. Working impromptu at the peace
conference at Versailles which followed
the end of the First World War, Orpen
recorded the head and shoulders of
President Woodrow Wilson in a breathtakingly
real unfinished study. One of my own
portrait subjects, New York lawyer
John J. McCloy, while still a law
student, served as an aide to Wilson
at the conference, and was actually
in the room as the Orpen painting
was executed. McCloy recalls that
the sitting was concluded after ninety
minutes! The result is one of the
twentieth century's most vivid and
telling examples of portrait painting.
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