From the Boston Herald and the Face to Face blog of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. (Smithsonian site includes recordings of interview with artist and proceedings of ceremony.)

The National Portrait Gallery has installed a painting of disability rights advocate and Special Olympics organizer Eunice Kennedy Shriver standing alongside four Special Olympics athletes and a member of the Best Buddies program.

In an interview, Wisconsin artist David Lenz says he used sunlight as a visual element in the Shriver portrait to reflect a “civil rights movement,” with Eunice Shriver “leading this group of athletes out of the darkness of the past and into the light of acceptance and understanding and community.”

Lenz was commissioned to paint the portrait as part of the first prize in the inaugural Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Lenz’s son Sam, a Special Olympics athlete who has Down syndrome, was the subject of Lenz’s winning entry, “Sam and the Perfect World.”

This is the first portrait commissioned by the museum of an individual who has not served as a president or first lady. Others in the portrait include (left to right): Airika Straka, Katie Meade, Andy Leonard, Loretta Claiborne, and Marty Sheets.

Earlier posts here and here.

Press release here.

(Photo of Lenz’s painting from the National Portrait Gallery)

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 2:33 pm and is filed under arts/music, civil rights, exercise/sports, intellectual/developmental disabilities, NOT2BEMISSED. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.