“Shortly after I finished painting the mural in the Truman Library I tried, at the request of some of the President’s admirers, to make a portrait of him. I failed. The reason – there were too many people around him, secretaries, politicians, & would be cronies who wanted me to make him look like God – or maybe Clark Gable – anyhow some kind of beauty. The President sensed the predicament this put me in and let me ‘off the hook’. Later on, when he was 86 years old, I went to visit him and somehow we got to joking about my failure with his portrait, & why I had failed, which he understood perfectly. Looking at his old face while we talked I found it wonderfully interesting so I said, ‘You know, Mr. President, we can try that business again’. He said, ‘Why not?’ I made some drawings of him and later a portrait which this time, did not fail. The litho is from one of the drawings.”

-Thomas Hart Benton