LOS ANGELES — D.C.’s National Portrait Gallery, the nation’s official home to portraits of U.S. presidents, will add another chief exec to its collection next month — that of President Frank Underwood, Kevin Spacey’s menacing character on the Netflix series, “House of Cards.” The painting by British artist Jonathan Yeo was presented to the gallery on Monday by Spacey and its creator.
The larger-than-life portrait presents the character gazing downward disdainfully at the viewer, an American flag at his side and sharp knuckles at the ready. A surreal quality to the painting is aimed at presenting it as a digital image projected on a screen, said Yeo at a press gathering.
The work was officially unveiled at a private event in D.C. that also included Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos, gallery director Kim Sajet and members of the White House press corps.
Per an agreement between the gallery and the artist, the portrait is on loan to the facility while a donor is sought.
The portrait is actually the third painting by Yeo of a role-playing Spacey. The others are from two productions at London’s Old Vic where Spacey played Richard III and Clarence Darrow. The painting of King Richard recently hung at London’s National Portrait Gallery, while the Darrow portrait is not yet completed.
Yeo’s painting will go on display in late March, but it will not hang alongside the gallery’s iconic renderings of actual presidents such as Gilbert Stuart’s “Lansdowne” portrait of George Washington. Instead, it will be been given a street-level location near an entrance for expedient viewing by visitors.
Presumably, that will be a better location than the museum selected several years ago to display the gifted portrait of then-Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert — on a wall directly across from the men’s room. That painting has since been removed.