Pietro Annigoni: The General's Coat, Pt. 2

Annigoni's Portrait of Gen. Mark Clark

Photo of General Mark Clark 

After a very negative response from General Mark Clark to Pietro Annigoni's portrait of him, ending with the general walking out of the studio in a huff, Annigoni continues the account:

"Not long afterwards Clark's friend, General Hume, who was at the Allied Armies HQ, came to me and indicated that he and his colleagues wanted to pay for the portrait and keep it for themselves. As his Italian, like my English, was totally inadequate to the occasion, I pointed to my studio stove and mimed the action of breaking up the painting and burning it. I must have looked absurd but the effect was evidently effective.

In fact, I had hidden the painting, face to the wall, behind a curtain and there it stayed until after the Allies had quitted Florence completely. Then, at the invitation of my friend at the Excelsior it was exhibited in the hotel foyer, where it was seen by the proprietor of the hotel who later bought it for himself. Still later, he sold it to an American army officer who was living in Italy, and then it came into the hands of General McMahon, of the United States Army. McMahon wanted to present it to the West Point Military Academy, but the gift was refused on the grounds, so I was told, that it was not the right size! But it did finally find its way to General Mark Clark, who sent me a photograph of himself standing beside the portrait in his home and looking quite at east with it.

Probably I shall never know why he behaved as he did on the night of the presentation. But I do know that before he came to the studio he had been dining with Prince and Princess Corsini, who admired the painting and had told him that, for Italians, it expressed something of the sadness they felt about the tragedy of Montecassino (for which some people blamed Clark). Perhaps that gave him the idea that I was getting at him through the portrait. Of course I was not. But with the best will in the world I could not make a winner in war, which means so many dead, look happy like a winner in a foootball match.

Ah yes, I had almost forgotten about the General's coat. It was a combat jacket which he left behind, together with a shirt, after his last sitting and forgot to collect when he made his hurried exit from my studio I found it fitted me admirably and was very comfortable for painting in, especially when the weather was cold. I wore it at Buckingham Palace when I painted the Queen and later when I painted the Duke of Edinburgh. No, neither of them made any remarks about it. But then I had, of course, removed all the General's insignia from it long before."

To be continued) 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)