5787

President Herbert Hoover 1931

Seated half-length to the right, full face to the viewer and looking slightly left, wearing a dark suit and waistcoat with a white trim, a white shirt and blue striped tie, his right arm resting on the arm of a carved wood chair, holding a folded document in his right hand, his left hand resting upon his knee, a green curtain to the right

Oil on canvas, 125.8 x 100.4 cm (49 ½ x 39 ½ in.)

Inscribed upper left: de László. 1931. XII. / White House

Sitters’ Book II, f. 71: [in the artist’s hand, in pencil: Washington / President & Mrs. Hoover. White House] / Herbert Hoover Dec 25 1931.

American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York

De László first met Herbert Hoover and his wife in London in 1912,^[1] and again during his 1925-6 visit to the United States when he described him as: “a most interesting man, one of the most well-informed people I have met.”^[2] In October 1931, de László travelled to America to complete a number of commissions and hoped that Hoover, then President of the United States, would be among them. This would be his fourth portrait of a sitting U.S. President; having previously painted Theodore Roosevelt [5201], Warren G. Harding [5569] and Calvin Coolidge [4169].

The artist’s diary indicates that the present portrait was commissioned by Ambrose Swasey [7227] for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and that Frank B. Kellogg [5917], former Secretary of State, helped persuade the President to sit for it.^[3] On 23 December 1931 the artist visited the White House and with the assistance of Irwin Hoover [11272],^[4] Chief Usher, who knew the artist from his previous visits to the White House, set up a studio there for painting the President.^[5] 

The first two sittings took place on Christmas Eve. The artist had a mirror placed to enable the sitter to watch and follow his work on the canvas, helping to make him more interested and alert and counteract his habit of looking down. De László recorded in his diary that Hoover; “made a little speech a warning – Telling me that this moment is the greatest crisis in the world’s history – which keeps every moment occupied & he – cannot give me to [sic] many sittings,”  and went on to hope that the artist would finish the picture within a week.^[6] The sittings continued daily from 24-31 December, usually for about 40 minutes in the morning and sometimes for an hour before or after lunch. A stand-in for the President was also used to minimize the hours required for the sittings. The artist finished the picture on 3 January.

The portrait, together with that of Mrs Hoover [5789], were both immediately lent to the special exhibition of de László’s work at M. Knoedler & Co., New York, in January 1932 held in aid of the New York Unemployment Fund. “The Hoover portrait, of course, attracted most attention. Erased from the President’s face were lines of strain and worry. Painter de Laszlo showed him in majestic mood, narrowed slightly by a becoming shadow, equipped with the dignity which Presidents so frequently require. His hands were white and soft upon his lap.’^[7]

De László recorded his own recollection of the sittings in an article published shortly thereafter: “President Hoover, who sat for me during my recent American visit, I found to be a most interesting man, and, although he is weighed down by the responsibilities of one of the most critical periods through which his great country has passed, he does his best to conceal this from the casual observer. Preoccupied as he is, conversation with Mr. Hoover is not easy, but I succeeded in learning what a great knowledge the President possesses of the world, and particularly of Europe, which, in the present situation, must be a very great asset to him and to America. President Hoover has, I think, visited every famous gallery in the world, and his memory is such that he can describe even the positions in which most of the outstanding pictures are hung.  In spite of his adventurous career, in his younger days he always found time to take an interest in the artistic side of life, an interest he still retains to a marked degree, and our conversations on Art certainly helped to bring us nearer to each other.”^[8]

The finished portrait was presented by Hoover to the Headquarters of the United Engineering Societies during the convention of The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers in New York in February 1932. A contemporary press photo shows that the artist attended the unveiling, accompanied by H. A. Kidder, President of the United Engineering Trustees; Gano Dunn, Chairman of the Hoover Medal Board of Award, and Ambrose Swasey, Dean of American Engineers and founder of the Society of the Engineering Foundation. The portrait was displayed in the main room of the Engineering Societies Library and Hoover was told that it was “a daily inspiration to engineers who, with the rest of us, are grateful to you for the privilege of having it.”^[9] 

Probably in 1962 the portrait was moved to be hung on the ground floor of the United Engineering Center Building in New York. The President was a former engineer and an honorary member of each of the engineering societies that had their headquarters there.^[10] 

Herbert Clark Hoover was born in Iowa on 10 August 1874, the son of a Quaker, Jessie Hoover (1849-1880), blacksmith and merchant of farm implements, and Hulda Randall Minthorn (1849-1884). Orphaned at the age of 9, he lived with various family members until he enrolled at Stanford University when it opened in 1891. He graduated with a degree in geology in 1895. In 1897 he accepted a position in Australia with a London-based gold-mining company.

As a senior at Stanford in 1894 Hoover met Miss Lou Henry, a geology student. She graduated in 1898, and after he returned from Australia they married on 10 February 1899. They were to have two sons: Herbert Jr (born 1903), and Allan (born 1907).

The family travelled widely for the Hoover’s career as a mining engineer visiting among other places China, Africa, and Central and South America. Together, the Hoovers translated Agricola’s De Re Metallica, a 16th-century encyclopedia of mining and metallurgy. This work was published in 1912 and is still in print as the standard English version.

In 1927 President Coolidge announced that he would not seek another term as President in the following year; Hoover became the Republican nominee and was elected in 1928. Within months of his taking office, the U.S Stock Market had crashed, and the country was in the grip of a major financial crisis. Hoover’s strategies to fight the Great Depression included government-enforced efforts, public works projects such as the Hoover Dam outside Las Vegas, Nevada, and increased tariffs and corporate taxes. These did not prevent his popularity waning, and he was defeated in the 1932 elections by Franklin D. Roosevelt, after which Hoover was an extremely outspoken critic of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programme.

The Hoovers returned to their home in Palo Alto, California after the elections and the sitter turned his focus to his writing. Among the sixteen works published in his lifetime were The Challenge to Liberty (1934) and a biography of Woodrow Wilson (1958). Lou Henry Hoover died in 1944 and the former President died at the age of 90 in New York on 20 October 1964. He was honoured with a State funeral and buried with his wife at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa.

The sitter had been painted earlier in 1931 by Douglas Chandor (1897-1953).^[11]

PROVENANCE:

Presented to the Headquarters of the United Engineering Societies, 1932;

The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, New York 1963-1993

EXHIBITED:

•M. Knoedler and Co., New York, An Exhibition of Portraits by P.A. de László, M.V.O., 4-16 January 1932, no. 6

LITERATURE:

•“De László Portraits on View,” The New York Times, 31 December 1931

•Jewell, Edward Alden, “Portraits by de László Shown,” New York Times, 5 January 1932, p. 28

•“Engineers to Get Hoover Portrait,” The New York Times, 15 January 1932

•“Engineers to Get Hoover Portrait,” The New York Times, 16 January 1932

•The New York Times, Sunday 17 January 1932, ill.

•“Every Court But China,” Time Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (25 January 1932), pp. 26-28

•“Philip de László Paints President and Mrs. Hoover,” Herald-Tribune, [exact date unkown], 1932, ill.

•László, Philip de, “Famous Men Who Have Sat for Me,” The Straits Times, 25 August 1932, p. 10

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 373

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 228, 229-230, 231

•Field, Katherine, Philip Alexius de László; 150th Anniversary Exhibition, de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 22

•Field, Katherine ed., Gábor Bellák and Beáta Somfalvi, Philip de László (1869-1937); "I am an Artist of the World", Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, 2019, p. 43

•Field, Katherine, with essays by Sandra de Laszlo and Richard Ormond, Philip de László: Master of Elegance, Blackmore, 2024, p. 10

•DLA040-0152, letter from de László to C. Powell Minnigeroide, 11 March 1926

•DLA103-0006, press cutting, “Philip de Laszlo Paintings Exhibited for Job Fund,” Herald-Tribune, 5 January 1932

•DLA103-0087, press cutting, “Portraits Added to Exhibition to Aid Unemployed,” New York Herald-Tribune, Wednesday, 13 January 1932, ill.

•DLA103-0117, press cutting, “President’s Latest Portrait: De Laszlo Paints Chief Executive for Engineers,” The Star, 10 January 1932

•DLA103-0125, press cutting, “Hoover Portrait Unveiled before Engineers Here,” New York Herald-Tribune, 16 February 1932

•DLA103-0126, press cutting, “Scientist Reviews Element 87 Claim/Engineers Unveil Portrait of President Hoover,” The New York Times, 16 February 1932

•DLA162-0052, Pesti Hírlap, 3 May 1932, p. 6

•DLA103-0118 and DLA103-0127, undated press cuttings, “Portrait of Mr. Hoover Unveiled,” Herald-Tribune

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, private collection

MD  2013