Please note that the following is a digitized version of a selected article from White House History Quarterly, Issue 58, originally released in print form in 2020. Single print copies of the full issue can be purchased online at Shop.WhiteHouseHistory.org No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All photographs contained in this journal unless otherwise noted are copyrighted by the White House Historical Association and may not be reproduced without permission. Requests for reprint permissions should be directed to rights@whha.org. Contact books@whha.org for more information. Š 2020 White House Historical Association. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.
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Fine Art Selections for Presidential Christmas Cards Works by N. C. Wyeth, George Durrie, and Jamie Wyeth Feature Seasonal Themes ni kki pi sh a
ALAMY
on christmas day 1927, an official message from the president appeared on the front page of newspapers across the United States. The holiday greeting, handwritten by President Calvin Coolidge, fulfilled requests that the president send Christmas wishes directly to American homes and became an annual tradition.1 Throughout the years since Coolidge’s message was published, first families chose to deliver their good tidings with ceremonial speeches, celebratory parties, and cards. President and Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt sent greeting cards featuring photographs of themselves in various locations around the White House; President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his staff prints of paintings he created himself; and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy reproduced sketches of completed State Room renovations to give to staff. Today, the Christmas cards are physical records of annual decorating themes as well as reflections of the era and the first family’s style. In the last fifty years, several families selected paintings by American artists to adorn their holiday messages, specifically works by artists who are a part of, or related to, the White House collection.
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that were in need of updates, and headed efforts to bring portraits of former first ladies into the collection. The renovated Red Room and Green Room were reopened at the beginning of the 1971 holiday season.7 Wyeth’s depiction of the construction of the White House showed the beginnings of the history that Mrs. Nixon wanted to share with the American public.
N. C. Wyeth’s Building the First White House was selected by President and Mrs. Nixon for their 1971 Christmas card.
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N. C. WYETH In 1971, President and Mrs. Richard Nixon chose a painting by Newell Convers Wyeth (1882–1945) for the official Christmas card. Building the First White House was created for a poster promoting the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1930. It pictures President George Washington and the architect of the White House, James Hoban, observing the laying of the roof slats in 1798.2 Wyeth described the image as a depiction of Washington’s interest in the construction of the building. President Nixon noted in 1970 that Wyeth’s work captured “the heart of America” and that the railroad project had appealed to the artist’s fascination for history. 3 Using a photographic reproduction of Hoban’s original drawing for the White House and studying paintings of the nation’s first president, Wyeth aimed to create a historically accurate scene.4 In the end, the railroad did not produce the posters, but the painting was reproduced in several commercial forms. Wyeth was known for his illustrations, many of which appeared on the covers of such popular publications as the Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s Monthly, and Ladies’ Home Journal. His character studies were influenced by his training with Howard Pyle, one of the country’s most renowned illustrators. Although Wyeth gained fame from illustrating Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, he yearned to be acknowledged as a fine art painter. Unfortunately, he died in a car accident at the age of 62 before this hope was realized.5 The Nixons recognized the talent of the entire Wyeth family and appreciated their work. In 1970, they hosted an exhibition of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings in the East Room.6 In 1978, Mrs. Nixon’s official portrait was painted by Henriette Wyeth, N. C. Wyeth’s daughter. Today, the White House collection includes not only Wyeth’s Barn in Winter (c. 1907) but works by his son Andrew Wyeth (b. 1917), Jupiter (1994) and Mrs. Charlie Stone (1942). The selection of Building the First White House for the 1971 Christmas card reflects First Lady Pat Nixon’s interest in the American artist and her desire to preserve and showcase the history of the White House. During her time as first lady, she worked to provide as many Americans as possible with the opportunity to experience Christmas at the White House and to appreciate the historic wealth that the house had to offer. She opened the doors for candlelight tours, restored public rooms
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A selection of White House Christmas cards sent through the years are displayed in the White House Bookseller’s Area in 2018. right
To accommodate as many people as possible on White House tours during the holiday season, First Lady Pat Nixon initiated candlelight tours during the evening hours. below
BOTH PHOTOGRAPHS: GETTY IMAGES
First Lady Pat Nixon is seen with Andrew Wyeth as she opens an exhibition of his works in the East Room, 1970.
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George Durrie’s Farmyard in Winter, 1858, was featured on President and Mrs. Ford’s 1975 Christmas card. The scene was in keeping with the “Colonial Christmas” theme of the White House decorations that year. below
As part of Mrs. Nixon’s White House restoration project, the Richard King Mellon Foundation gave George Durrie’s (1820–1863) painting, Farmyard in Winter (1858), to the White House collection.8 It was hung in the Green Room, where it remains today. George Durrie’s work represented the folksy atmosphere in the White House during the Gerald R. Ford years.9 It was no surprise that in 1975 the president and First Lady Betty Ford selected Farmyard in Winter for their Christmas cards, which were sent to approximately thirty-five thousand heads of state, foreign dignitaries, members of Congress, state and federal officials, and personal friends.10 The painting shows a rural scene: a saltbox farmhouse and barn are the focus of the snowy landscape that also includes animals and workers completing farm chores such as pitching hay and drawing well water. The atmosphere of the work is serene and uncomplicated. It depicts a simpler time before industrialization. Durrie was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He was self-trained, and his paintings reflected his surroundings: churches, farmyards, and inns. The artworks told the story of place. Durrie was inclined to show quiet winter scenes from New England.11
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His figures were anonymous and relatable: farmers, churchgoers, and innkeepers. Unlike many artists of his time, Durrie developed his style with little European influence, and his work stands out as particularly American. Ten of Durrie’s depictions of rural life in New England were distributed and popularized through
LEFT: AP IMAGES
GEORGE DURRIE
Most of the ornaments on the 1975 White House Christmas tree, including the pig held by Betty Ford, were made by volunteers from Colonial Williamsburg.
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reproductions by Currier and Ives,12 which replicated artists’ work with black-and-white lithographs and hand-colored prints. Farmyard in Winter was one of those works, and thus, as a Christmas card, the image was recognizable by the American public. Durrie’s name was not prominently associated with this scene, so he did not gain much recognition from this distribution of his work. The Fords’ theme for the 1975 Christmas celebration was “A Colonial Christmas.” President and Mrs. Ford worked with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to decorate the White House in the style of an old-fashioned Christmas, a continuation of their 1974 celebration that showcased their dedication to thrift and simplicity during the recession of that year.13 Farmyard in Winter’s depiction of the livelihood of everyday Americans in an earlier era carried forward the theme with a message about simplicity—a good reminder for the financially recovering country. The President and Mrs. Ford turned to Durrie’s work again for the 1976 Bicentennial Christmas card. His painting, Going to Church (1853) was reproduced on the greeting card that was sent, again, to thirty-five thousand individuals.14 Going to Church depicts parishioners heading to Christ Church in Bethany, Connecticut,
across a snow-covered lawn. Using artistic license, Durrie added the spire to the building and moved the carriage shed from across the street into the view. He wanted to depict the scene in the best light possible, as this church held particular meaning for him. His wife, Sarah Perkins, was the daughter of Archibald Perkins, a member and choirmaster of the church for several decades.15 William Kloss writes, “George Henry Durrie ignored the crowded city and chose instead to depict a soundless, self-contained, and nearly anachronistic corner of American life.”16 During Durrie’s lifetime he saw the growth railroads and factories, but he did not represent these technological advances in his work. He opted to show an earlier time, and this was the view of America that the Fords wanted to project for the nation’s Bicentennial year. The theme for the year was “America Is Love,” Mrs. Ford’s favorite words for expressing her love of the country: “America is love! America is all of us.”17 Durrie’s work showcased a happiness obtained from humble means. For the Fords, his views resonated as the recession ended and the country reflected on its past, a recalling of the era of the Centennial at the time of the Bicentennial.
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The theme for the White House decorations of 1976, the nation’s Bicentennial year, was “America Is Love,” and the Fords again chose a work by George Durrie for their Christmas card. Durrie’s Going to Church, 1853 conveyed the idea that happiness could be obtained with humble means.
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Jamie Wyeth’s Christmas Eve at the White House was featured on President and Mrs. Reagan’s first White House Christmas Card, 1981. Wyeth explained that the single lit widow suggested that the first family prepares for Christmas at the last minute, “just like everybody else.” below
With the objective of sharing the spirit of the White House at Christmas, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan began the tradition of asking young artists to paint scenes of the Executive Mansion.18 Several of these paintings were added to the White House collection. For their first Christmas in 1981, the Reagans asked James Browning (“Jamie”) Wyeth (b. 1946), the grandson of Newell Convers Wyeth, to paint for their card. Wyeth learned the trade from his father, Andrew, who was recognized for his melancholy landscapes, cityscapes, and lonely figures. Around the age of 12, Jamie left school to focus on his art, working with a tutor to continue his schooling and studying painting with his aunt, Carolyn Wyeth.19 He came to focus on perspectives of human condition. Working in a realist style, he captured the individuality of his subjects. Unlike his father, Jamie was drawn to brighter hues and worked in a cheerier palate. When offered the opportunity to paint at the White House, he chose to depict the building as the president’s home, stating, “We tend to forget that the First Family actually lives here. They prepare for
Christmas, late at night, just like everyone else.”20 Jamie Wyeth’s Christmas Eve at the White House (1981) depicts the South Front of the house with the lawn blanketed in snow. A single light shows through a Second Floor window, suggesting some Christmas Eve activity, perhaps the late-night preparations that many families engage in that evening. Wyeth’s painting delivered a message that the first family was not too different from other American families. For the 1981 official decorating theme, President and Mrs. Reagan chose “Old-Fashioned Christmas with the Museum of American Folk Art,” and they displayed objects lent by this museum that celebrated American history and culture.21 Earlier in the year, the president had been wounded during an assassination attempt, so gratitude for family and holiday traditions were also underlying themes of the holidays. Wyeth’s serene scene for the card alluded to these annual Christmas practices and this grateful spirit. In 1984, Wyeth was again asked to create a work for the holiday greeting. Depicting “more of an intimate expression” was his goal for the painting.
LEFT: GETTY IMAGES / RIGHT: SHUTTERSTOCK
Nancy Reagan is seen in the private quarters on the Second Floor wrapping presents in 1981, and with Jamie Wyeth at an exhibition of his work at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1987.
JAMIE WYETH
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Additionally, these artworks and artists were elevated by the presidential Christmas greeting distribution list, gaining recognition and making their way into homes across the country. notes 1.
Mary Evans Seeley, Season’s Greetings from the White House: The Stories of Presidential Christmas Cards, Messages and Gifts: Calvin Coolidge to Donald J. Trump, 7th ed. (Tampa: A Presidential Christmas Corporation, 2018), 9.
2. Christina B. Podmaniczky, “The Case of the Missing White House,” posted January 21, 2009, Hoover Digest, Hoover Institute website, www.hoover.org. 3. Quoted in John Canaday, “Wyeth Show Opens at White House Today,” New York Times, February 20, 1970, 28. 4. Podmaniczky, “Case of the Missing White House.” 5. “N. C. Wyeth Biography,” Brandywine River Museum of Art website, www.brandywine.org. 6. Canaday, “Wyeth Show Opens at White House Today.” 7. Seeley, Season’s Greetings from the White House, 119; Coleen Christian Burke, Christmas with the First Ladies: The White House Decorating Tradition from Jacqueline Kennedy to Michelle Obama (San Rafael: Insight Editions, 2011), 49. 8. Seeley, Season’s Greetings from the White House, 119. 9. Ibid., 135. 10. “People,” Washington Post, December 17, 1975, C6.
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Jamie Wyeth’s Christmas Morning at the White House, featured on the Reagans’ 1984 card, paid homage to the president’s habit of feeding the White House squirrels by including a squirrel making tracks in the snow near the North Portico. President Reagan is seen (above) crossing the South Lawn carrying a large bag of acorns collected at Camp David for feeding the squirrels outside the Oval Office.
While visiting the White House during the summer for inspiration, Wyeth noted that the president kept a bag of acorns he gathered at Camp David by his desk in the Oval Office, so he could feed the squirrels on the White House Grounds.22 The public could relate to this activity, and Wyeth knew his rendering must include the squirrels. The first lady had similar thoughts in terms of the holiday theme. The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, had an annual display of Christmas “critters” ornaments that showcased woodland creatures in natural materials, and Mrs. Reagan selected “Year of Second Genesis and Natural Pieces” as the theme.23 Wyeth’s painting, Christmas Morning at the White House (1984) showed the North Portico at dawn with a squirrel making footprints across the snow-covered lawn.24 Inside the White House, wooden squirrel ornaments hung with other forest animals from the tree in the Blue Room. Not only was Wyeth’s painting suggestive of the theme, but it referenced a favorite presidential activity. The works by the Wyeths and Durrie that made appearances on Christmas cards are small instances of how the White House collection is annually woven into the holiday celebration. In years past, the paintings came to illustrate annual themes, reference the times, and relate to the first family.
11. Martha Young Hutson, George Henry Durrie (1820–1863), American Winter Landscapist: Renowned Through Currier and Ives (Laguna Beach: American Art Review Press, 1977), 19. 12. The ten lithographs that Currier and Ives produced were after paintings by Durrie. They were not exact copies of his work, lacking some details. Ibid., 166. 13. Seeley, Season’s Greetings from the White House, 133–35. 14. White House Office of the Press Secretary to Mrs. Ford, press release, December 14, 1976. 15. “Christ Church Bethany Has Distinguished History,” Connecticut Churchman, November 1973. 16. William Kloss, Art in the White House, 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association, 2018), 140. 17. Burke, Christmas with the First Ladies, 66. 18. Seeley, Season’s Greetings from the White House, 158. 19. “Brief Biography: James Browning Wyeth,” Jamie Wyeth Editions website, www.jamiewyeth.com. 20. Quoted in Seeley, Season’s Greetings from the White House, 158. 21. Burke, Christmas with the First Ladies, 87. 22. Seeley, Season’s Greetings from the White House, 167. 23. Second Genesis is an organization that focuses on the treatment and prevention of drug abuse among youth in the Washington, D.C., area. In 1982, Mrs. Reagan asked program members to assist with decorating at the White House, and for the remainder of her time in the White House she invited them in annually to help with the holidays. “Nancy Reagan and Second Genesis,” White House Historical Association website, www. whitehousehistory.org. 24. Elizabeth Kastor, “A Creature was Scurrying,” Washington Post, December 6, 1984.
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