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National Portrait Gallery Hangs House of Cards' Frank Underwood

Kevin Spacey spent 16 hours posing as the fictional president so artist Jonathan Yeo could capture this piercing portrait.
Kevin Spacey as President Francis J. Underwood, by Jonathan Yeo. Smithsonian, National Portrait Gallery

It’s a bright, warm, objectively beautiful morning outside the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. I’m here to see Kevin Spacey and artist Jonathan Yeo unveil a new portrait of the ruthless and endlessly compelling House of Cards anti-hero President Frank Underwood, soon to be donated to the Gallery as Netflix plans to release House of Cards Season 4 on March 4, 2016.

The painting is already on the stage when I enter the room, and my immediate reaction is that I’d be in danger of being crushed if I get too close. The show is known for breaking the fourth wall and British painter Jonathan Yeo’s latest work is heavy with the same intimidation Spacey injects into his performance on the show. “When I look at the painting, I see the character. [Yeo] manages to through portraiture illuminate the essence of performance. When it’s hung at the right height, you may wonder if I’m going to kick you in the face,” Spacey explains at one point at the unveiling's Q&A.

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This is a testament not only to Yeo’s skill as a painter and Spacey as an actor, but the magic that can happen in a collaboration. Yeo has painted Spacey on two other occasions, capturing his visage as Richard III from his 2012 performance of the role, and the titular lawyer in David W. Rintels' one-man biographical play Clarence Darrow. Though all three are of the same man, the differences between the portraits could not be more vast.

Kevin Spacey as Richard III, 2013 ©Jonathan Yeo, Courtesy Private Collection

The trust and ease these two men have cultivated in one another is obvious within minutes of their talk. Spacey guards Yeo’s artistic process like a state secret, while Yeo diffuses tension with endearing jokes about painting Spacey naked or drunk. Rather than recount the hours they have spent dissecting Spacey's characters, their rapport elucidates the ease in their process: nothing more or less than hard-won trust, built over time.

"It is cruicial to develop a rapport with your subject," Yeo tells The Creators Project in a one-on-one interview afterwards. He spent about two months painting Spacey, spread out over the course of a year. "If there is no rapport it makes for a bland or unpenetrating portrait. Kevin and I had a head start as we had worked together before and get on very well." He tells the audience. "You're dealing with individual subjects. You're supposed to get to know them. The most intriguing subjects are by definition the ones with the least time to come sit for hours in the studio… You have to see them outside the studio environment, doing what they do. Then you seduce them into spending a bit of time in the studio."

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Damien Hirst is among the many artists and actors Yeo has painted. Damien Hirst, 2013 ©Jonathan Yeo, Courtesy Private Collection

It's Spacey's job to be seduced. Only once he's comfortable in the studio can the most compelling aspects of Frank Underwood peek out from behind his facial expressions, demeanor, and body language. Jonathan visited the House of Cards set in Baltimore and spent time with Spacey in the Oval Office. He did many studies with many different faces, ultimately landing on the smoldering grimace you see above. "Staying still for 16 hours was difficult," Spacey half-jokes after deflecting another attempt to elicit more detail about their creative process. At one point he aquiesces about his end of the deal.

"I am an actor who doesn't in any way, shape, or form sit in judgement of the characters I play. That kind of relationship I don't have. My job is to play the character as fully as I can, without apology, warts and all. I enjoy it so much. People refer to Frank Underwood as a three-dimensional person. The character has come through," he says. "The most interesting thing about the painting is that it almost looks like you're looking through a lens of images or frames. Which makes sense, given that we are—" he reflects dramatically, "streaming."

The result is a very honest look at Underwood. It shows pain, rage, conviction, anger. It's a portrait of power, Yeo explains: "There was a conscious effort to echo the traditional presidential portraits as the painting would hang in the museum which holds so many. I distorted the style and composition so that Kevin as President Frank Underwood is looking down on the viewer, gazing below his eye-line. There is no attempt to airbrush or distort him either, to make him look likeable. It is also showing candidly an actor portraying an enjoyable pantomime baddie. He is made to look deliberately intimidating, causing the viewer to feel uncomfortable—just as you do when watching the program, relishing the machinations and crimes the character is committing."

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At the press conference, Spacey takes this idea further. "I think that if you compare this portrait to what Frank spends a good amount of time doing, which is looking you directly in the eye and saying exactly what he thinks, I think it is a pretty direct address." When a character on a show directly addresses the audience, it's called breaking the fourth wall: i.e. the wall that divides the scene from those watching. But if a fictional character is painted into a portrait, then simultaneously breaks the thin barriers between portrait and audience, TV show and painting, fiction and reality, what can we call that, but the fifth? Regarding the painting, Spacey concludes, "I think [Frank'd] be pleased with it."

Yeo has also painted several other heads of state, including President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. Bush, 2007 ©Jonathan Yeo, Courtesy Private Collection

The press conference is a fruitful intersection between fine art institution and popular culture—a good time, save for the indefatigable spectre of Donald Trump. The very first question of the day asked what Underwood's opinion of Trump would be, which Spacey chooses to ignore.

When a moderator asks, "Would you like to go back to the Donald Trump question?" Spacey says, "I don't care what's going on in the real world, I have a fictional election to win." The third time, a reporter references a tweet from some months ago describing the tragic circumstances of this election season as "amusing." He responds curtly, "It is getting less amusing."

Tony Blair, 2007 ©Jonathan Yeo, The Collection of The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn

In our private interview, Yeo recalls a similar act of stone-cold Spacey when he presented their last collaboration to the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2013. "He had told me in advance what an honor it was. In the meantime, before coming to the unveiling he did further research and when making a speech at the opening proceeded to list all the criminals, murderers, and reprobates that have been depicted on the walls of the gallery. This caused great hilarity, confusion, and shock in equal measures."

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Spacey joins an illustrious cast of other fictional characters to be immortalized in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. A portrait of Ira Eldrich as Othello from Shakespeare's play of the same name, Robin Williams as Mork from Mork and Mindy, Ethel Merman as the titualr character in Annie Get Your Gun, Katy Perry as Queen Katy of Cupcake Land, and Stephen Colbert's semi-fictious character on The Colbert Report have all been displayed in the gallery. Spacey's Underwood, however, is the first fictional president to join the portraits of the other 42 presidents in the gallery. President Obama's portrait will be commissioned after his term in the White House is over.

Kevin Spacey as President Francis J. Underwood will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery starting on Wednesday, February 24, intimidating visitors through October. The National Portrait Gallery is seeking a private party to donate the portrait to its collection permanently. See more of Jonathan Yeo's work on his website. As of yesterday, you can follow Kevin Spacey on InstagramHouse of Cards returns on March 4, only on Netflix.

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