10. John Tyler
President: William H. Harrison, 1841
Party: Whig
State: Virginia
Slave Owner?: Yes.
When President Harrison gave a two-hour inauguration speech in frigid weather and died 31 days later from pneumonia, John Tyler became the first veep to ascend to the presidency. He was dubbed “His Accidency.”
From my continuing series about Supreme Court justices navigating a post apocalyptic America.
9. Richard Mentor Johnson
President: Van Buren, 1837-1841
Party: Democrat
State: Kentucky
Slave Owner: Yes. See below.
Johnson had a common-in-law marriage and two daughters with one of his slaves, Julia Chinn. When Chinn died of cholera, he turned to another one of his slaves, Chinn’s niece, who refused his affection. So he sold her. Johnson was dubbed by the doorkeeper of the U.S. Senate as “the most vulgar of all vulgar men in this world.”
Vice President George Clinton, before and after.
During From Dusk til Drawn, I was a machine. I cranked out 22 portraits of Vice Presidents in 24 hours. That’s one an hour, excluding a 2am jaunt to get a rice bowl and a handful of bathroom breaks. No sleep. Just veeps. In fact, I was so in the zone that I probably could have done portraits of all 47 vice presidents if the event was a two-day affair. I would have been a stark raving lunatic by the end but I could have done it. Sadly, they wouldn’t let me stick around.
Yet when I got back to Los Angeles, I knew that I wanted to do the full set. Since I didn’t that the urgency of that event, however, I took more time on the drawings. My portraits during DtD were efficient and clean, painted with a thin wash of watercolor. In the less pressurized environment of my apartment, I started spending more time with each drawing. The pictures got more detailed and I took more chances. My style evolved. By the time I reached Harry S. Truman, it was clear that I would have to do go and redraw all 22 of my older veeps.
Around that same time, my wife had my son. Surprisingly, drawing portraits of cephalopod-bedecked politicians became a relatively low priority during those first sleep-deprived months. As my adorable pint-sized martinet became less demanding of my time and I finally completed the whole set. So it wasn’t until last month that I completed the full set. And even now, I’m going through and redrawing some portraits that didn’t quite work out. Chester A. Arthur, for instance, is getting his third redo.
But there’s one VP who has driven me nuts. His face is so distinctive yet so oddly bland that I’ve never quite hit the mark with him, in spite of trying about a half dozen times. I’ll tell you about that next week.
8. Martin Van Buren
President: Andrew Jackson, 1833-1837
Party: Democrat
State: Kentucky
Slave Owner: Yes
Born in Kinderhook, N.Y., Van Buren’s nickname was “Old Kinderhook.” That was shortened to “OK” in rallies for his failed 1840 reelection campaign. Somehow, that abbreviation evolved into the ubiquitous idiom. You can literally say that Van Buren was OK.
I think that all supreme court justices should wear bunny ears.
7. John C. Calhoun
Presidents: John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829, Andrew Jackson, 1829-32
Party: Democratic-Republican
State: South Carolina
Slave Owner: Yes. Big time.
Calhoun became embroiled in the Petticoat Affair in 1830 when his spouse, Floride, along with a slew of other Washington socialites organized against War Secretary John Eaton’s new wife. The recently widowed Peggy Eaton had the unladylike temerity to own a bar and a boarding house. Eaton’s main defender was, Calhoun’s boss, Andrew Jackson. Calhoun was dropped from the ticket during Jackson’s second term. The scandal was turned into the 1936 film The Gorgeous Hussy.
Kickin' it.
6. Daniel D. Tompkins
President: James Monroe, 1817-1825
Party: Democratic-Republican
State: New York
Slave Owner?: No.
Daniel D. Tompkins was the only vice president to work for free. His entire salary was garnished for outstanding debts to the state of New York. Of course, his personal finance issues along with a raging case of alcoholism meant that Tompkins rarely had the time, or ability, to perform his vice presidential duties.
5. Elbridge Gerry
President: James Madison, 1813-14
Party: Democratic-Republican
State: Massachusetts
Slave Owner?: No
Gerry signed a bill on election redistricting that was highly favorable to his party. Rival newspapers decried the bill as “gerrymandering.” The name stuck. Like George Clinton, Gerry also died in office, making James Madison the only president to lose two vice presidents.
Don't mess with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
4. George Clinton
Presidents: Thomas Jefferson, 1805-09, James Madison, 1809-1812
Party: Democratic-Republican
State: New York
Slave Owner?: No.
The first Vice President to die in office. Not to be confused with the lead singer of Parliament Funkadelic. This George Clinton never got funked up nor did he go up to the mothership.
Some rough sketches for a series I'm working on about supreme court justices traveling through a post-apocalyptic America.
3. Aaron Burr
President: Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1805
Party: Democratic-Republican
State: New York
Slave Owner?: Yes.
One of only two Vice Presidents to shoot a man while in office. In this case, the man, treasure secretary Alexander Hamilton, died. He was indicted for murder. And then later, for treason.
2. Thomas Jefferson
President: John Adams, 1797-1801
Party: Democratic-Republican
State: Virginia
Slave Owner?: Yes. The guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence owned slaves.
Jefferson died precisely fifty years after signing the Declaration of Independence – July 4, 1826. His political rival John Adams died the same day. July 4 generally seems to be a bad day for veeps. Hannibal Hamlin, a vice president under Lincoln, also died on that day.
1. John Adams
President: George Washington, 1789-97
Party: Federalist
State: Massachusetts
Slave Owner?: No.
John Adams led a month long debate on the proper title of the President of the United States. One name he pushed was “His Highness the President of the United States of America, and Protector of their Liberties.”
Last year, between getting laid off of a punishing corporate job at Yahoo! and my wife giving birth to my first child, my good friend Ted invited me to participate in the From Dusk til Drawn fundraiser at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Barbara. Basically, it involved drawing for 24 straight hours. At that point in my life – i.e. before children – sleep deprivation was a novelty. It sounded insane. I was in.
The last thing I wanted was to be struggling for ideas of something to draw at four in the morning. I needed to do a series, I thought. So after some debate, I decided to do portraits of all 47 vice presidents of the United States. Why? I don’t know. I’ve always had a strange affinity to the executive branch’s number two guy. As Vice President Charles Dawes, who presided under Calvin Coolidge, once complained, "I can do only two things here. One of them is to sit up here on this rostrum [in the Senate] and listen to you birds talk without the ability to reply. The other is to look at the newspapers every morning to see how the President's health is."
The Constitution is vague on the veep. Though the position bestows on it all of the authority and pomp of the U.S. Government, vice presidents throughout history have struggled to find purpose in a poorly defined role, all the while waiting for death. It’s a bit like life itself. A few, through ambition, talent and a lot of luck, ascended to the top job. Most moldered in obscurity. I added the octopuses because I thought they were funny. It takes a rare person to pull off an air of dignity with a cephalopod on his head.
During the event, fueled by a combination of coffee, alcohol, tacos and patriotic zeal, I ended up cranked out 22 portraits during the full 24 hours. During the course of the night, I discovered that people really seemed drawn to the pictures. I sold 7 and I had friends who were asking for their own copies. Somehow I had stumbled on something.
So I resolved to complete the set. What I plan to post here over the next few months is the fruits of that crazy scheme. I hope you enjoy.