Bucks County Pennsylvania painter Nelson Shanks painted a shadow into his portrait of Bill Clinton that hangs in the Smithsonian. The shadow was cast by a blue dress like the one made famous in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. (The dress hung on a mannequin while Shanks painted; it wasn’t there when the president posed.) The shadow also represents, to Shanks, a more general shadow that hung over the Clinton administration.
The grandiose Shanks, who also claims the former president was “terrified” of him, told Stephanie Farr at the Philadelphia Daily News that of all his subjects Clinton may have been the most difficult for him. “Clinton was hard. I’ll tell you why. The reality is he’s probably the most famous liar of all time. He and his administration did some very good things, of course, but I could never get this Monica thing completely out of my mind.” He couldn’t get it out of the portrait either. “If you look at the left-hand side of it there’s a mantle in the Oval Office and I put a shadow coming into the painting.” Shanks also said the Clintons dislike the picture and want it removed, a claim for which there is little evidence.
