Governor Rounds’ portrait on tap.
I got word recently that the Governor’s staff & cabinet are supposedly groaning to a start for the Governor’s official portrait, which will eventually be unveiled and hung in the halls of the state capitol. (Don’t worry. The portrait is traditionally done on the staff’s dime, and not the state’s.)
No word yet on who the artist is who will be memorializing Governor Rounds’ image for all perpetuity.
His predecessor Bill Janklow eschewed allowing his own portrait to be painted to commemorate either of his two runs at the office. When I was with the state, I actually saw a couple of the proposals that were floated in those past years. And of the two or three I remember, any would have been just fine.
No matter your opinion of former Governor Janklow, in a historical sense it’s a shame that the chain of succession has been broken in that manner.
In the hallways of the capitol, you can see the visage of all the the men who held the office through time, noting the changes in clothing and hairstyles, but remembering that all of them held our state’s highest office.
One of my last tasks before I left state government was to update the long ignored state capitol website (at that time), including newer photography of the official portraits. If you haven’t had a chance to view the many portraits, I’d invite you to go here to find out more about the portraits of the men that South Dakotans called “Governor”.
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Comments
I’m glad that the staff picks up the tab for these - not like the lower-level cabinet secretaries in the Bush Administration posing for $50,000 - $75,000 official portraits at the taxpayer’s expense.
Leave it to Janklow to be disruptive and contrary in just about everything!
His potrait should be done and included. It’s part of history.
Janklow’s portrait should be hung for historical purposes if nothing else. Blow up a photo if he won’t sit for a portrait. Then bolt it to the wall so he can’t take it down.
The idea of $50,000 taxpayer-funded portraits (at federal level) is outrageous. The tradition of painted portraits started back before there was photography, and continued when photography was poor and limited to black and white. Just use a photograph in this day and age. Let someone other than taxpayers pay for an expensive painting if someone is that vain.
3:07-
I have to disagree. Paintings are much more impressive. In this day and age where most artists and photographers do things on computers (including myself) it is refreshing that a tradition like that is kept up, and artists are getting paid what they are worth for once.
Detroit, 3:07 here. My problem is not with portraits being done or with artists being paid what they’re worth. My problem is with taxpayers paying for it.
Detroit: I would say those who are elected to lead the state, have earned the right to have their painting placed in honor.
I wish they would pick me to paint his portrait; think H.R. Gieger meets Robert Crumb.