5923

The Honourable Frank Billings Kellogg 1931

Seated half length to the right, full face, wearing a black suit, white shirt and black tie and a gold watch chain which he holds with his left hand on which is also a gold ring, his right arm resting on the arm of the chair, all against a brown background

Oil on canvas, 100.7 x 82.3 cm (39 ⅝ x 32 ⅜ in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László  / 1931. XII. IV

Sitters’ Book II, f. 70: Frank B Kellogg Dec 4th 1931

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 71: Frank B Kellogg Dec 10th 1931

U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.

This is the third portrait that de László painted of Frank Billings Kellogg. The sitter was first painted in 1925 and that portrait is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. [5917]. A preparatory oil sketch for that picture was in the possession of the artist on his death [5915] as was a preparatory drawing [122256]. A copy by Edward Patry, painted in 1929, was hung in the American Embassy in London. A second formal portrait, painted in 1929 for the U.S. Department of State, remains untraced [5920].

In February 1931 de László received a letter from Kellogg indicating that the U.S. government wanted to commission a portrait of him, and he agreed to paint him during his visit to the U.S. that autumn.^[1] The artist noted in his diary before he travelled that that he hoped to paint Kellogg in his black velvet robes as president of the International Court at The Hague.^[2] 

The director of the Corcoran Gallery, C. Powell Minnigerode, invited the artist to use rooms in the new wing as his studio and dressing room, which de László felt was a suitably dignified place to receive his sitters. Kellogg surprised him there on 1 December, the day before his sitting was meant to start: “Kellogg to my surprise called me up – already 9.30 – from The Corcoran gallery - & had to hurry There… K. brought all his robes – but decided without – Robes.”^[3] The portrait was begun the next day. “On my arrival at the studio Kellogg was already there he is very keen on his portrait – He sat during the whole day & by 4 ocl. - The whole portrait was well prepared in fact – there – tomorrow morning will begin the detour [sic, i.e. ‘contour’] of the head.” Kellogg sat on successive mornings until the picture was completed on 5 December.

A further portrait was begun a few days after for the International Court of Justice at the Peace Palace in The Hague and remains untraced [31].

For biographical notes on the sitter, see [5917].

PROVENANCE:

Given by the sitter to the U.S. Department of State in 1933

EXHIBITED:

•The National Gallery of Art, Washington, Makers Of History In Washington 1800-1950, June-November 1950, no. 120

LITERATURE:

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, 23 February entry, p. 57; 23 August entry, p. 239; 4 September entry, p. 251; 28 October entry, p. 305; 29 October entry, p. 306; 11 November entry, p. 319; 2 December entry, p. 340; 5 December entry, p. 343

•The Syracuse Herald, Sunday Morning, 6 December 1931, p. 9

•Rainey, Ada, “Philip A. de Laszlo, Noted Painter, Busy on Portrait of Former Secretary Kellogg,” The Washington Post, 27 December 1931, p. A5

•The New York Times, 5 January 1932, p. 28

•“Every Court But China,” Time, 25 January 1932

•“Working on Portraits,” The New York Times, 21 February 1932

•Patterson, Richard S., The Secretaries of State, Portraits and Biographical Sketches, Washington, 1956, p. 96, ill. p. 97

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

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

MD 2015