Official Clinton portrait by Simmie Knox to be unveiled Monday

[LTR]

It's probably already been noted in GD, but I included a link to Simmie Knox's other work

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040612/ap_en_ot/clinton_painting_4

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Simmie Knox, the first black artist to paint an official presidential portrait, is preparing to unveil his oil painting of former President Bill Clinton in a ceremony Monday at the White House.

"My mind hasn't completely wrapped around it yet," Knox said in a telephone interview from his Silver Spring, Md., home. "Just imagine: I was born in 1935 in Aliceville, Alabama, a sharecropper, and now I'm painting the president. Can you imagine that?"

The self-taught artist, best known for his portraits of black celebrities like baseball legend Hank Aaron and comedian Bill Cosby, also will unveil a painting of the former first lady, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

At the former president's request, the oil painting is set in the Oval Office. It will be the first presidential portrait in the White House collection to include the American flag.

The part about the flag should make the freepers' heads spin!

Here's a site with Knox's other works:

http://www.simmieknox.com/

And his portrait of Thurgood Marshall:



I can't wait to see it. He is a very good artist.