5569

UNTRACED

Warren Gamaliel Harding, President of the United States of America 1921

Seated half-length slightly to the right in an Empire chair, full face and looking to the viewer, wearing a suit and tie, his right arm resting on the arm of the chair, his left holding a dispatch on his knee

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower left: de László / The White House 1921. VII

Sitters’ Book II, f. 25: Warren G Harding / July 7, 1921. / White House.

De László also painted a study portrait of the sitter’s wife, First Lady Florence Kling Harding [5568], during the same period as the present portrait.

President Harding sat at the White House for approximately twelve hours over the series of six or seven sittings. He sent a telegram to his wife Lucy to tell her of its completion: “Gloriously finished president’s portrait.”^[1] De László noted his own aims for the portrait to a contemporary journalist: “What I wish to say about President Harding is that his fate put him in one of the most exalted positions in a time when opportunity is given him to make great history to the good of mankind, and I feel he will take his great opportunity and will do so—he is a wise man surrounded by worthy advisors.” The same journalist noted that “the picture is framed in a dark blue, relieved with gold, chosen by the painter. It will hang in the White House.”

De László originally intended to complete the picture in a manner similar to that of the Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes [5698].^[2] Oakley Williams also alludes to this in his Selections from the Work of Philip de László: “American reporters, with the rather naive inquisitiveness into a painter’s methods which is no doubt a symptom of a nascent interest in art, aver that László’s first intention was to paint the President as he saw him at their first meeting, garbed from head to foot in spotless white. As a subject, an all-white, full-length figure against a silver-grey background (as in his head-and-shoulders portrait of Mr. Secretary Hughes) would no doubt have presented certain problems of technique whose successful solution would challenge even László’s craftsmanship. But he no doubt felt that this personal point of view would be too informal for the official portrait of the Head of State, destined to hang in the White House with those of Washington and Abraham Lincoln.”^[3]

The completed work, Williams notes: “has all the formal dignity of a State portrait—of the chief magistrate of a great Power. Its keynote is straightforward dignity. The massive dark figure is outlined against an obsidian background very low and restful in tone. The only note of colour in the whole composition is the dull gold in the Empire chair, an historic Napoleonic trophy in [the] White House familiar from Zorn’s portrait of one of his predecessors [Taft].^[4] The attitude suggests alert response. The steady gaze of the clear blue eyes under the thick well-arched eyebrows is very kindly and frank. There is no suggestion of the subtlety and finesse of diplomatic statecraft about the expression. But even in repose the firm-cut mouth is very resolute and purposeful.”^[5]

Warren Gamaliel Harding was born 2 November 1865 in Blooming Grove, Ohio, the eldest of eight children of Dr George Tryon Harding Sr (1843–1928) and Phoebe Elizabeth (Dickerson) Harding (1843–1910). The family later moved to Caledonia, Ohio, where George Harding purchased a local weekly newspaper. From the age of 10, Warren Harding learned the fundamentals of journalism and continued to work in that field while attending college at Ohio Central College in Iberia, from which he graduated in 1882. After graduating, he worked as a teacher and insurance man, and briefly trained as a lawyer, before purchasing the Marion Daily Star. He used the paper to promote the Republican platform, and fought a bitter battle to make the paper the official daily paper of Marion. By age 24 he had fought so hard for his cause that he suffered exhaustion and nervous fatigue. He spent several weeks at the Battle Creek Sanatorium to recuperate and would revisit the sanatorium on four subsequent occasions in the next 14 years.

Harding’s rival in the world of journalism was Amos Hall Kling, of the rival paper Marion Independent. It was a surprise to many when, on 8 July 1891, Harding married Kling’s daughter, Florence Kling DeWolfe, a divorcée five years his senior with a young son. The pair complemented one another, he with his affable personality and she with a pragmatic approach. She was her husband’s staunchest supporter and was instrumental in his success. Harding entered politics, serving in the Ohio Senate (1899–1903), as Lieutenant Governor of Ohio (1903–05) and as a U.S. Senator (1915–21).

Harding was chosen as the compromise candidate at the 1920 Republican National Convention. During his presidential campaign, he promised the nation a “return to normalcy,” after the upheavals of the First World War. He called for a focus on industrialization and a strong economy independent of foreign influence. He and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, easily defeated their Democratic opponents.

As President, Harding rewarded friends and political contributors with financially powerful positions, which later led to scandals and the corruption that plagued his administration. In foreign affairs, he spurned the League of Nations, and signed a separate peace treaty with Germany and Austria, formally ending World War I. He also strongly promoted world naval disarmament at the 1921–22 Washington Naval Conference, and urged U.S. participation in a proposed International Court. Domestically, Harding signed the first child welfare program in the U.S. and dealt with striking workers in the mining and railroad industries. The nation’s unemployment rate dropped by half during his administration.

In August 1923, while returning from a trip to Alaska, Harding suddenly collapsed and died in San Francisco, California. He was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge, whom de László would later paint in 1926 [4169].

PROVENANCE:

Hung in The White House, Washington, D.C., 1921

EXHIBITED:

•The 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.1

LITERATURE:

•Williams, Oakley, ed., Selections from the Work of P.A. de László, Hutchinson, London, 1921, p. 245, ill.

•Wright, Helen, “Philip A. de László,” Art and Archeology, Vol. XII, n˚6 (December 1921), p. 234, ill.

•American Art News, Vol. XX, No. 15 (21 January 1922), p. 1

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

•Grange, Paulin, “Les Portraits de Philippe A. de László,” La Revue de l’art ancien et moderne, Paris, Vol. XLII, n˚ 238 (July/August 1922), p. 143, ill.

•Rainey, Ada, “Philip A. de Laszlo, Noted Painter. . . ” The Washington Post, 27 December 1931, p. A5

•Rutter, Owen, Portrait of a Painter, London, 1939, p. 346

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 180-181

•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, pp. 9, 43

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

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

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

•László, Lucy de, 1921 diary, private collection, 14 July entry, p. 221

MD 2008