January 4, 2008
Indian Museum Director Spent $48,500 on Portrait
The Washington Post has a new nugget today in the story of the impressive spending habits of W. Richard West, Jr., retiring director of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. In addition to the $250,000 in public money he used for luxurious travel expenses we noted last week, the Post reveals West commissioned a $48,500 portrait of himself (pictured left) that hangs in the patron's lounge of the museum.
Some would argue that portraits of long-standing leaders -- and West was not just the director, but a founder of the museum -- is tradition. However, the story goes on to note that West is the only director of the 19 Smithsonian museums that has his own portrait, and furthermore, two of the trustees that West supposedly consulted before making the commission in 2005 say they were not asked, at least about paying for it with public money -- one trustee says he was made to believe it was a gift from a law firm.
A Smithsonian spokesperson said the artist, of Polish descent, was chosen after they could not find a Native American with formal portrait skills. Perhaps a portrait done in a Native American style by a Native American, to hang in the National Museum of the American Indian, instead of a "traditional" Anglo-Saxon formal portrait, would have caused less of an uproar? Even if the Institution had still paid $48,500 to the artist, at least it would have gone to the people the museum is supposed to be representing.
The Post goes on to note that two U.S. Senators, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.), chair of the committee that oversees the Smithsonian, have asked for further investigations into West's spending, as well as the spending of nearly every other museum director. West has also been removed from the committee that will select the new Smithsonian Secretary.
Image of West's portrait courtesy the Post
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Yup, he looks like a Dick.
What do you expect West to do? Give the money back? Damn Indian givers. Har, I kill myself.
Kidding aside, at what point in history did the Anglo-Saxons invent formal portraiture? Where is the Anglo-Saxon in this equation? The artist? No. West? No. How would one define a traditional Native American style outside the contexts of tribe, cultural/language groupings or historical period? To generalize these groupings could be construed as infantilizing. Not as infantilizing as my Indian giver joke, but still. I’m not personally familiar with any Native American art form similar to portraiture. To make one up on the spot that is a portrait that is Indianish is touchy business.
The the guy headed a museum with a commitment to advancing contemporary Native art and he doesn't know a contemporary Indian artist who can execute a conventional corporate portrait? Come on. If that were true he would not have been hired in the first place.
A certain arrogance is part of Rick West's charm but this goes too far.
Solution: Send Rick the portrait -- and the $48,500 bill.
the Post had some good quotes from people who are outraged about this, including descriptions of the Indian children who gave their lunch money to help raise money for the museum....
monkeyrotica, as usual, is right: he does look like a Dick. he should be in jail....
I find it hard to believe that there are no Native American artists who are capable of painting a traditional portrait. Furthermore, unless the museum specified that the artist depict Mr. West as a K Street Douchebag playing pocket pool, I'd want my $40,000 back for that reason, alone.
Obviously, old Dick here didn't have the time to just Google "native american portrait artists," and deal with the dozens of possible candidates. Look closely and you'll see he's frightfully busy playing pocket pinball with himself. Yes, elitist museum directors are different from you and I. Jerk yourself off in public and you might go to jail; these guys get $50k pictures painted of them doing it and six-figure severance packages. And what the hell kind of pose is that? "Where the hell is that kid with my limo and latté? Oh well, guess I can just stand here and rub one out. Ugh...ugh...mommy...baby loves blue velvet...."
Sounds like the Smithsonian is peopled with DC Office of Tax and Revenue staffers
The least he could do was have his spare tire airbrushed out.
I can't come up with a defense for this expense the way I did for some of the travel ... it's pretty clearly a self-aggrandizing and wrongheaded use of museum funds. Kind of like the nearly-promotional display of jewelry designed by Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the Colorado Senator who was one of the prime movers behind the Museum, that was one of the museum's first exhibitions.
That said, can we please get a grip on the use of terms like "public money" and "the public's money" in articles like thse? It's little more than a rhetorical device designed to inflame the reader's emotions, and in the case of these Smithsonian expenses it might not even be accurate. Substantial percentages of each Smithsonian museum's budget are provided by private donors, and they're generally pretty careful to track what expenses are allowable/charged to the government, and which are funded by the "Trust." I didn't see anything in either of the Post articles indicating which pot of money the relevant expenses came out of.
Yeah, I don't get the anglo-saxon comment. Besides the fact that the painter was Polish (which is not anglo-saxon), the basic model of portraiture that they and you are talking about is certainly not primarily a product of England. Italian and Dutch painters perfected the "traitional" portrait model.
It seems more that you're trying to shoehorn in an opressor-victim language when it's really enough to point out what a dick this guy is (which his suspenders made self-evident). But then again, just about all presidents of non-profit institutions like this have turned out to be dicks over the last couple years.