Washington — In keeping with its mission to showcase notable contributors to American culture, the National Portrait Gallery unveiled a portrait of software pioneers and philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates on May 17, installing the piece in its “Recent Acquisitions” exhibition.
The painting, commissioned by the gallery and painted by Jon Friedman, “tells the story of their [philanthropic] foundation’s work,” according to Martin Sullivan, director of the gallery.
The portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates now on view at the Portrait Gallery shows the couple seated in the foreground, with a flat-screen monitor in the background showing images of people around the world who have benefited from programs supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the motto: “All lives have equal value.”
BILL AND MELINDA GATES: GIVING BACK
William Henry Gates III left Harvard University as an undergraduate to write software for the earliest personal computers. Later, as chairman of computer software giant Microsoft Corporation, which he co-founded with Paul Allen, Gates was chief architect of a computer operating system for wide-scale, nontechnical use that fueled the personal computer revolution of the 1980s. Microsoft remains a leader in the industry, and Gates’ pioneering efforts have transformed how people live, work and communicate all over the world. Melinda French Gates, who once worked at Microsoft, has degrees in computer science, economics and business.
One of the best-known entrepreneurs in the world, Bill Gates is consistently ranked among the world’s wealthiest people, and — with his wife, Melinda — donates large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
The foundation has three components: a global health program, which harnesses advances in science and technology to save lives in poor countries; a global development program, which fights hunger and poverty in developing countries; and a U.S. program to improve education and especially ensure that high school students graduate and enter college prepared for success.
The foundation has also established offices in China and India to help manage large programs there.
CREATING THE PORTRAIT
Artist Jon Friedman, who met with his subjects for a preparatory session before painting began, described his approach to the project.
“Because I only had one hour with Bill and Melinda Gates out in Seattle, I relied on the digital photographs that I shot and on the image-manipulating power of my computer to construct a compositional road map for the portrait,” said Friedman. “In addition to painting accurate and compelling likenesses of Bill and Melinda, I hoped to communicate a sense of their contrasting but complementary personalities, their co-equal partnership and their mutual dedication to the foundation.”
“The schematic representation of the flat-screen monitor in the background is intended to suggest the importance of the software revolution in the genesis of the foundation, while at the same time illustrating the size, scope and global ambitions of the foundation’s work,” Friedman said.
Bill and Melinda Gates issued a joint statement about the gallery’s tribute. “It is an honor to have our portrait joining those of so many outstanding Americans in the National Portrait Gallery,” the statement says. “Our thanks go to Jon Friedman for creating the portrait in so thoughtful a manner, and for calling out the work of our foundation so evocatively.”
To learn more about the National Portrait Gallery or the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, visit their respective websites.