Next Smithsonian exhibit may be portraits of museum executives doing "perp" walk for perp-etuity

Washingtonians - and others with big egos - have a portrait fetish that is obscene especially when it involves taxpayers money.

Even half that nealry 50 grand could have been significant funding for the non-profit Native American and environment projects I volunteer for in northern Michigan.

More comment after a few sentences of the article and a look at this portrait:

Portrait Cost Indian Museum $48,500: Senators, Trustees Question Spending By Former Director

By James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writer

W. Richard West Jr., the founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, spent $48,500 in museum funds to commission a portrait of himself.
The portrait of West by New York artist Burton Silverman hangs in the patrons' lounge on the fourth floor of the flagship museum, which is dedicated to the arts and culture of American Indians.

Silverman said West picked him after he saw a portrait Silverman had done of former Smithsonian secretary Robert McCormick Adams.

The Adams portrait, completed about a decade earlier, was smaller and cost about half as much.

Rest of the Washington Post story:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010304163....

Portrait:
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/01/04/PH2008010400031...

[IMG]http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee225/YOOPERNEWSMAN/RichardWestcrookedSmithso...[/IMG]

Native American on Native American crime - much like black on black crime - is especially insidious because so much good could have been done for First Nations peoples heritage with this wasted and misappropriated money.

It's also a crime against taxpayers and common decency.

Spending $48,500 on a self portrait is among the disgraceful financial crimes of W. Richard West Jr., the founding director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

For this crime to occur in the hallowed halls of the Smithsonian shows again thievery knows no class boundaries - and should be treated just as severely as the poor man who sticks a gun into the face of a 7-11 clerk.

The Smithsonian needs to be thoroughly audited from top to bottom as this is at least the second huge scandal to tarnish its once respected reputation.

No doubt it's only the tip of the fiduciary iceberg that's tearing through the Smithsonian's highbrow richly-protected hull.

I do volunteer work for several Native American related non-profits whose budgets are much smaller than even the cost of that disgraceful portrait.

And the suggestion that it could not have been painted by an American Indian artist is as laughable as it is sickening with a hint of racism against one's own culture.

Even the portrait stance is borrowed and unoriginal, as a buttoned-down Mr. West gazes thoughtfully off to the east, his coat hanging on a crooked forefinger and tossed over suspenders with his soft thumb and the remaining fingers forming the "OK" sign.

The Washington ego commands that a portrait much be painted to prove one's importance.
No doubt many law offices, banking institutions and the halls of officialdom are plastered with the self-aggrandizing crafty art.

Prior to the Polaroid, a self-portrait may have been necessary to preserve one's historic legacy but in today's world it's merely a measure of one's self-importance that is more often scoffed at than admired by those it's meant to impress. Perhaps, a modern definition of irony.

Maybe the next exhibit at the Smithsonian will be portraits of former executives doing the proverbial "perp walk" - cuffed and stuffed for perp-etuity.