Director Used Museum Funds for Self-Portrait

Jan 05, 07:23 AM

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The recently retired director of the National Museum of the American Indian spent $48,500 in museum funds to commission a portrait of himself and selected a non-Indian artist to create it, a newspaper reported Friday.

The portrait of W. Richard West Jr. by New York painter Burton Silverman hangs in a fourth-floor lounge of the museum, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution and is dedicated to the arts and culture of American Indians.

West authorized the payment for the 2005 portrait after consulting with some members of the museum's advisory board, Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas told The Washington Post. No other museum directors have commissioned portraits of themselves, she said.

West, who was traveling in Australia on Friday, told The Associated Press that he initially resisted the idea of a portrait of himself.

"What I want to be clear about is it was not a project initiated by me," West said. "Believe me, if I had known it was going to come up in this context, I would not have done it."

Silverman, of Polish ancestry, was chosen after the Smithsonian "couldn't find a Native artist who did formal portrait sittings like this," St. Thomas said.

West, a 64-year-old Harvard-trained historian and member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, was hired in 1989 to oversee planning for the flagship museum, which opened in 2004. He retired last month.

His expenses have come under scrutiny after recent reports that he spent more than $250,000 in the past four years on first-class transportation and luxury hotels.