Former US president George W. Bush is displaying his portraits of world leaders in the first exhibition of his work as an artist.
The portraits, which include everyone from a grim-looking Russian President Vladimir Putin to a smiling likeness of the late Czech playwright and president Vaclav Havel, are part of an exhibition that opened yesterday at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas.
He even did a self-portrait.
Photo: Reuters
The exhibition called: The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy, is to run through June 3.
“I spent a lot of time on personal diplomacy and I befriended leaders and learned about their families and their likes and dislikes, to the point where I felt comfortable painting them,” he said in an introductory video to the exhibit.
“Painting portraits of my friends and some people who weren’t necessarily my friends gave me a sense to convey a feeling I have about them because I got to know them well in the presidency,” he added in the video.
Bush, who started painting in 2012, three years after leaving office, said reading an essay by the late British prime minister Winston Churchill on painting inspired him to take lessons.
“I’d never lifted a brush before. I’d never been next to paint. So I gave it a whirl,” he said in the introductory video.
Accompanying many of the portraits are photographs of Bush with the leader he painted, along with gifts.
On display with Bush’s portrait of former British prime minister Tony Blair is a book of Churchill’s speeches that Blair gave to Bush with the inscription: “To George, my ally and my friend.”
The exhibit includes more than two dozen portraits. Other subjects include the Dalai Lama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Bush also painted his father, George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the US.
Bush, who was the 43rd president, signs his works “43.”
“I tell people that the signature on my paintings is worth more than the paintings,” he said.
Interviewed by his daughter Jenna Bush Hager in a segment that aired on Friday on NBC’s Today show, he said: “I paint a lot because, as you know, I’m a driven person.”
Talking about his portrait of Putin, he said, “I got to know him very well. It became more intense as time went on.”
The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which includes the library and museum, opened almost a year ago on the campus of Southern Methodist University.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
RSS