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A Side of Freud With Bacon   Restitution Roundup
Sep 26 2007 9:14AM EDT

Filling the Walls in the White House

Who knew that the White House was a paddle flasher?

The Washington Post and a Manhattan-centered social website report that the White House Acquisition Trust bought Jacob Lawrence's The Builders (1947) at a Christie's sale of American paintings, drawings, and sculpture this past May for $2.5 million. (It was up against a $400,000 - $600,000 estimate.)

Lawrence is an artist known for his depictions of African-American life, including the migration of many African-Americans from the South to the North in the first half of the 20th century in search of better opportunities. Painted in strong, warm colors, The Builders shows a crew of stocky men working at a construction site. It hangs in the Green Room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue along with John Singer Sargent's The Mosquito Net.

According to the White House's website, a portrait of George Washington by Rembrandt Peale from the permanent collection and a bust of Winston Churchill by Sir Jacob Epstein on loan from Tony Blair are kept in the Oval Office.

It seems that the taste of the President and First Lady runs towards the traditional. No pickled sharks in the White House.


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