SemiSalvadoran – Sunset, Wednesday, 5 August 2015

William Van Doren, SEMISALVADORAN. Sunset from Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. Oil on canvas, 24 x 30.

Sunset over the Potomac, as seen from the back of the Lincoln Memorial in the company of visiting friends from the south.

Don’t Turn Back the Dawn – 2012 Campaign Poster – New Edition

New, improved edition of the poster, available through Imagekind or RedBubble.

Don’t Turn Back the Dawn – 2012 Campaign Poster

Just released today, January 20th, exactly one year before next inauguration day, this poster features my painting of the Washington, D.C., sunrise from Barack Obama’s inauguration. Available in a variety of sizes, framed or unframed. Also carried on RedBubble.

Sunset, Saturday, 17 October 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

.... visiting uniform gray, rain barrel gray, Union or Confederate Zouave red-and-gray, and I guess we also have today gray, yesterday gray, and day-before-yesterday gray. But tonight I commemorate some of the most colorful of all grays (hello, Pittsburgh ... and Washington) – the legendary Homestead Grays.

Del Ankers, Photographer, Part 2

Copyright © Maria Elizabeth Freire

Del Ankers (see sunset post from today as well as the two entries below this one) photographed all the presidents from FDR through Nixon, but I think it’s significant that the one he seems to have gotten on with in a personal way was Harry S. Truman.

According to Del, Truman was supposed to sit in the Oval Office for as long as it took a sculptor to do studies and sketches necessary for his official bust. Truman couldn’t stand the idea of wasting all that time, and had Del take a 360° series of photos for the sculptor to use instead.

At one White House event, the Associated Press photographer was too inebriated to function.

“Ankers,” Mr. Truman reportedly said, “could you take the shot for this fella? I’d hate to see the poor s.o.b. lose his job just because he had too many martinis at lunch.”

Copyright © Maria Elizabeth Freire

It’s very difficult to convey Del’s combination of glamour and complete unselfconsciousness – a unique blend of Bedford, Virginia, country boy and Washington man about town. I believe the actor he’s kidding around with here is Duncan Renaldo, who had played the Cisco Kid for many years – although by this time, the series was history (it ended in 1956) and it appears the actor was doing a commercial for “Pro-tek-tiv Children’s Shoes.” And Del had started his film business, Rodel. This photo isn’t the greatest, but it does convey something of the Del Ankers I knew.

Sunset, Monday, 5 January 2009

Washington, D.C. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20.

This was during my scouting trip for the Inauguration Day paintings – a sort of spooky-intense evening on the Mall, no one around, in freezing rain and sleet. I sketched the sunset, and took a sheaf of the day’s sketches back to my motel room in La Plata, Md., and painted this in the room that night. The subject was daunting, as was figuring out how to paint in oils without hurting the room (required a trip to the hardware store for a big dropcloth) – but it was a blast. I loved it, despite the somewhat modest carefulness of the product. And I ended my three-day reconnaissance completely devoted to the beauty, inner and outer, of the Lincoln Memorial.