National Affairs: Portraits

President Coolidge sat very still. He was looking at the face of an elderly English gentleman with large, bushy eyebrows. The eyes beneath these eyebrows looked intently back at Mr. Coolidge. After many minutes of motionless sitting, the President gave place to Mrs. Coolidge. She in turn sat very still, looked at the eyebrows, was looked at by the eyes. Eventually the results of these sittings, these lockings, will be portraits of President and Mrs. Coolidge, exhibited in the new building of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, Manhattan. The owner of the eyebrows was Frank O. Salisbury, “painter laureate of England.”

A Member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Painter Salisbury has done the portraits of England’s King, Queen and Archbishop of Canterbury. Many a U. S. Tycoon, including George F. Baker, the late great Elbert Gary, and Andrew Mellon, has sat for the Salisbury brush. The Coolidge portraits should be finished in another fortnight. President and Mrs. Coolidge have agreed to sit daily.

In addition to painting President and Mrs. Coolidge, Painter Salisbury has been collecting newspaper clippings concerning the illness of King George. He intends to send these clippings to Lord Stamfordham, royal private secretary.