Ray Beldner, E Pluribus Unum (after Rembrandt Peale, George Washington, ca. 1854), 2005, Sewn US currency
From the De Young Museum blog:
"Next Monday, the United States will celebrate Presidents’ Day, which takes place every year on the third Monday of February. This federal holiday is intended to honor all American presidents, and especially George Washington (1732–1799).
On that occasion the De Young Museum is highlighting three portraits of the first president of the United States from their collection. The first is Rembrandt Peale’s George Washington was painted around 1850, more than 25 years after his most well-known masterpiece: Washington, the Patriae Pater.
Peale’s standardized image of Washington went on to inspire generations of artists to create their own portraits of the United States’ first president. Peale himself was inspired by Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Washington (1795), which later served as the model for the portrait on the US one dollar bill. The mass-production of this bill has led to a more familiar and materialistic vision of the first president.
Ray Beldner, a native San Francisco artist, pointed out this duality—Washington as a symbol of American democracy and as a unit of national currency—in his piece named for the US national motto, E Pluribus Unum. Beldner created a facsimile of Rembrandt Peale’s portrait of George Washington (1854) by arranging 250 one dollar-bills. Therefore, he used bills, which are copies of Stuart’s portrait, in order to reproduce Peale’s copy of the same original. He kept in mind that copies make an original important. Thereby, the artist employed a common object from our daily life to refocus attention on a patriotic symbol."
For more information:
http://deyoung.famsf.org/blog/portraits-george-washington-presidents-day
