5698

Charles Evans Hughes 1921

Half-length to the right, full face to the viewer, wearing a cream jacket, dark tie and white shirt

Oil on canvas, 93.9 x 73.7 cm (37 x 29 in.)

Inscribed lower left: de László / 1921 July

Sitters’ Book II, f. 25: Charles E. Hughes / July 16, 1921

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

De László is reputed to have seen Charles Hughes in the street in Washington, D.C. and determined to paint him.^[1] Despite Hughes’ pleas that he was too busy he was persuaded by the promise that the portrait would be complete in two sittings. The artist was not satisfied with his first portrait and put the canvas aside, much to the distress of the sitter. Such was the speed at which de László painted, however, he proceeded to complete the picture in two sittings. Unusually, the rejected portrait [41] was given to William Castle Jr.

De László was evidently very proud of the portrait: “I understand you consider your portrait of Hughes the best painting of your life,” George McFadden [29] wrote to him.^[2] He further discussed the work with an American journalist: “I should have liked to do the President [Harding] in the same way, but the white coat would have been a little too informal. . . It is very difficult to paint gray on gray, to keep the whole in that silvery color. Even the background is gray. Is it not a beautiful silver? It is much more difficult than with a dark background. It means much more subtleness, but it is the kind of painting I like.”^[3] 

Charles Evans Hughes was born 11 April 1862 in Glens Falls, New York, the son of David Charles Hughes and his wife Mary Catherine Connelly. After a private school education he enrolled at Madison (now Colgate) University, where he was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity. He later transferred to Brown University and completed his degree at age 19. He attended Columbia Law School in 1882 and graduated with highest honors in 1884 and was admitted to the New York Bar where he practiced law 1884-91 and 1893-1906. In 1888 he married Antoinette Carter, daughter of one of the senior partners in the law firm where he worked. He was made a partner shortly after their marriage and the firm became Carter, Hughes & Cravath. There was one son, Charles Evans Hughes Jr (born 1890) and three daughters of the marriage, Helen (born 1892), Catherine (born 1899) and Elizabeth (born 1908).

In 1906 Hughes was appointed to the Armstrong Insurance Commission as a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General to investigate the insurance industry in New York. He defeated William Randolph Hearst in the 1906 election for Governor of New York and held the office from 1907 to 1910. He turned down the opportunity to run for  Vice President as William Howard Taft’s [7328] running mate in order to run for a second term as governor in 1908. In 1910 he was appointed Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served until 1916. He resigned to run as the Republican nominee for President and was narrowly defeated by Woodrow Wilson.

In 1921 he was appointed by Warren G. Harding [5569] as Secretary of State, a post he would hold until 1925. During his tenure he worked to establish America as a presence in international affairs. His greatest achievement was the Washington Conference of 1921-22 where he engineered an agreement to reduce naval armaments among the major world powers and a series of treaties designed to ensure peace in the Pacific.

Hughes wrote several books, including Conditions of Progress in Democratic Government (Yale University Lectures), 1909; The Pathway of Peace, and Other Addresses, 1925; The Supreme Court of the United States (Columbia University Lectures), 1927; Our Relation to the Nations of the Western Hemisphere (Princeton University Lectures), 1928; and Pan American Peace Plans (Yale University Lectures), 1929.

He died on 27 August 1948, in Osterville, Massachusetts and is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, New York.

PROVENANCE:

Mrs. Charles Evans Hughes, the sitter’s wife, Washington, D.C.;

Chauncey Lockhart Waddell, the son-in-law of the sitter, New York;

Bequeathed to The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

EXHIBITED:

•Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Seven Portraits by Philip de László, 10-24 November 1921

•M. Knoedler & Co., New York, Paintings by Philip A. de László, 16-28 January 1922, no. 8

•National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C., This New Man: A Discourse in Portraits, 7 October 1968-2 February 1969

•National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C., Portraits of American Law, 1989

•National Portrait Gallery, London, Americans: Paintings from the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, 4 October 2002–5 January 2003

LITERATURE:

•Williams, Oakley, ed., Selections from the Work of P. A. de László, London, 1921, p. 246

•Wright, Helen, “Philip A. de László,” Art and Archaeology, Vol. XII, No. 6 (December 1921), p. 236, ill.

•“Notable Portraits in de Laszlo Show,” American Art News, Vol. XX, No. 15 (21 January 1922), p. 1

•The New York Times, 22 January 1922, Sec. VI, p. 8

•“Sargent’s Tradition: Its Fortunes in the Hands of Philip de Laszlo,” New York Tribune, Sunday, 22 January 1922

•Pusey, Merlo John, Charles Evans Hughes (Vol. II), 1951, p. 604

•Townsend, James Benjamin, This New Man: A Discourse in Portraits, National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution), 1968, p. 71, ill.

•American Heritage, Vol. 19, p. 16, ill.

•Voss, Frederick S., Portraits of the American Law, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution and University of Washington Press, 1989, p. 147-150, ill. p. 149

•Americans: Paintings from the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, National Portrait Gallery, London, 2002, p. 46, ill. p. 47

•DLA109-0215, letter from George McFadden to de László, 1 September 1921

•DLA109-0243 (page 19), “De Laszlo: Special Exhibition of His Portraits,” The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, 21 November 1921

•DLA119-0030, New York Evening Post, 6 March 1926

MD 2016