5205

Study portrait

President Theodore Roosevelt 1910

Head and shoulders in three-quarter profile to the left, wearing a dark jacket, waistcoat, tie, and white shirt and wearing a pince-nez

Oil on board, 86 x 68 cm (33 ⅞ x 26 ¾ in.)

Inscribed lower right: P.A. László / Paris / 1910. April 22   

Sitters’ Book I, opp. f. 87: Theodore Roosevelt / April 23d 1910

The White House, Washington, D.C.

De László had previously painted the sitter in 1908, while he was serving as President of the United States [5201]. After leaving office at the beginning of 1909, Roosevelt went on an extensive African safari and visited several European capital cities before returning home. The present picture was executed while he was staying at the American Embassy in Paris, at the request of his friend the Ambassador to France, Robert Bacon, who sat to de László at the same time [2701]. Lucy de László noted in her diary that the artist received £420 for both pictures.^[1]

De László travelled to Paris with his friend and patron Colonel Arthur Lee (later Viscount Lee of Fareham) [11019]. The details surrounding the painting of the portraits of Roosevelt and Bacon [111524] & [110781] were later recounted in a biography of Bacon by his friend James Brown Scott. “The portrait of Colonel Roosevelt, painted during hurried sittings in the early morning hours, before Paris was up and around, shows him worn and haggard, as he came from the wilds of Africa. . . de Laszlo [sic] wrote, in August, 1921: ‘Never shall I forget the hours I had the pleasure to spend in the late Robert Bacon’s company.^[2] It was during the few days when the late President Roosevelt stayed in Paris with him. He had just returned from his glorious days in the various countries and Paris was thrilled with Roosevelt. It was then that I painted both the heads of Robert Bacon and, for him, Roosevelt. In the festival atmosphere of the American Embassy I had the sitting of the spontaneous, volcanic Roosevelt, and the distinguished Robert Bacon.’”^[3] 

The former President’s “worn and haggard” appearance on the heels of his African adventures probably accounts for a subsequent criticism of the portrait when it was exhibited at the Knoedler Galleries in New York in 1921, when the New York Times art critic wrote, “The sketch of Theodore Roosevelt lent by Mrs. Robert Bacon. . . gives little idea of the energy of the spirit behind a drooping mouth and tired eyes.”^[4]

De László also painted a portrait of the sitter’s wife in 1908 [5203], their son, Captain Kermit Roosevelt, in 1917 [5152] and daughter-in-law, Mrs Kermit Roosevelt, née Belle Willard, in 1914 [5153]. President Roosevelt was also painted by John Singer Sargent in 1903.

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [5201].        

PROVENANCE:

The family of Ambassador Robert Bacon;

Bequeathed by W. B. Bacon to the White House, Washington, D.C., 1971

EXHIBITED:

•Avery Hall, Columbia University, Roosevelt Memorial Exhibition, 9 May-4 June 1919

•The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, Paintings by Philip A. de László, 26 February-20 March, 1921, no. 31

•M. Knoedler & Co., New York, Paintings by Philip A. de László, 4-16 April 1921, no. 15

•M. Knoedler & Co., New York, Portraits by Philip A. de Laszlò, M.V.O., 16-28 October 1933, no. 15

•Grand Central Art Galleries, Hotel Gotham, New York, The Golden Nineties, 4-16 May 1943

LITERATURE:

•“Get Roosevelt Reminders: Mementoes of Former President Sent to Memorial Exhibition,” The New York Times, 3 May 1919

•The Washington Post, Sunday, 13 March 1921, p. 7

•The New York Times, 10 April 1921, Section 6, p. 8

•Field, Hamilton Easter, “Comment on the Arts, by the Editor,” The Arts, April 1921, p. 48

•Scott, James Brown, Robert Bacon: Life and Letters, 1923, p. 146; ill. facing p. 157

•Art News, Vol. 32 (21 October 1933), p. 6

•The New York Times, 25 October 1933, p. 17

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 247, 249, 250-256, 259-260, 263, 390

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 124, ill. 73

•Boera, A. Richard, ”The Rest of the Story: “Official” Copies of Philip de László’s 1908 Painting of Theodore Roosevelt (and More), Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, Volume XXXVII, Number 4, Fall 2016, p. 27

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 94

•Field, Katherine ed., Transcribed by Susan de Laszlo, The Diaries of Lucy de László Volume I: (1890-1913), de Laszlo Archive Trust, 2019, p. 117

•László, Lucy de, 1902-1911 diary, private collection

•László, Lucy de, 1910 diary, private collection

•László, Lucy de, 1911 diary, private collection

MD 2012