5920

UNTRACED

The Honourable Frank Billings Kellogg 1929

Seated half-length in semi-profile to the right, wearing a dark suit and tie, his left hand resting on a book on a table beside him, with a globe above

Oil on canvas, [dimensions unknown]

Inscribed lower left: de László / LONDON 1929   

Laib L15526(782) / C14(10A) Mr. Kellogg

NPG Album 1927-29, f. 9

Sitters’ Book II, opp. f. 64: Frank B. Kellogg / April 17th 1929 [above his wife’s signature dated: 24 April 1929]

This is the second formal portrait that de László made of the sitter. The first was painted in 1925, and is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. [5917]. A preparatory sketch for that painting was in the possession of the artist on his death [5915] and a copy by Edward Patry, painted in 1929, was hung in the American Embassy in London. Two further portraits of Kellogg were painted in 1931; one is in the collection of the U.S. Department of State [5923] and the other, which was painted for the International Court of Justice at the Peace Palace at The Hague, remains untraced [31]. De László also painted a portrait of the sitter’s wife in 1929, which now, with the 1925 portrait of her husband, belongs to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. [5924].

Contemporary press accounts indicate that the present portrait was initially painted for the U.S. Department of State, where it was hung in the antechamber.^[1] The arranging of the commission fell to Ray Atherton, secretary at the U.S. Embassy in London, and, as de László knew the Kelloggs so well, he offered to paint the portraits for 800 guineas each; a cheque for ₤1,680 was sent to the artist on 26 April 1929.^[2] According to contemporary press reports, the sitter spent three hours each morning for a week in the artist’s studio.^[3]

In 1931, de László painted two further portraits of the sitter, one of which [5923] was intended to replace the present portrait in the State Department. When preparing to paint Kellogg again in 1931, the artist recorded in his diary: “Kellogg pic. which I did in London 3 years ago [5920] is in three quarter which he does not like – I do another now full face.”^[4]

Correspondence in the de László Archive indicates that Edmund Patry was also asked to paint a copy of this portrait; it has not been identified and may never have been completed. While a copy of de László’s 1925 portrait of Kellogg [5917] is known to have been painted by Edward Patry in 1929, correspondence held in the de László Archive indicates that Patry was also asked to paint a copy of the present portrait.^[5]

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

PROVENANCE:

The U.S. Department of State, 1929-1933

EXHIBITED:

•The French Gallery, London, A Series of Portraits and Studies By Philip A. de László, M.V.O., May-June, 1929, no. 25

•M. Knoedler & Co., New York, An Exhibition of Portraits by P.A. de László, M.V.O., 4-16 January 1932, no. 9

LITERATURE:

•“Stimson in Office Today,” The New York Times, 28 March 1929

•The Charleston Daily Mail, Friday Evening, 19 April 1929, p. 6

•“People,” Time, 29 April 1929

•The New York Times, Rotogravure Picture Section, 5 May 1929

•“Kellogg Returns; Going to St. Paul,” The New York Times, 9 May 1929

•Suydam, Henry, “From the White House Steps,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, 15 September 1929

•The New York Times, 31 December 1931

•“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

•DLA040-0012, letter from Ray Atherton, Secretary at the U.S. Embassy in London, to de László, 24 July 1928

•DLA040-0013, letter from de László’s secretary to Ray Atherton, 25 July 1928

•DLA040-0010, letter from Ray Atherton, to de László, 23 October 1928

•DLA040-0006, letter from de László to Ray Atherton, 5 November 1928

•DLA073-0074, letter from Ray Atherton to de László, 26 April 1929

•DLA073-0073, letter from de László to Ray Atherton, 29 April 1929

•DLA101-0163, press cutting, “Mr. Kellogg’s Holiday,” Manchester Evening News, 9 May 1929

•DLA108-0081, press cutting, “Philip de Laszlo: Elegance of Recent Portraits,” Yorkshire Post, Leeds, 23 May 1929

•DLA162-0409, Pesti Hírlap, 24 May 1929, p. 13

•DLA162-0492, “Kellogg bucsuja a sajtótól” [Kellogg’s Farewell to the Press], Pesti Hírlap, 29 March 1929, p. 2

•László, Philip de, 1931 diary, 1 December entry, p. 339

MD 2012