George W Bush Paintings – A Creative Side to the President

Many people are unaware that this American ex-president took up painting as a hobby upon leaving office in 2009. The topics of George Bush’s artwork include his pets, still-lifes, and his most popular subject – portraits of veterans and immigrants. But, are George W. Bush’s paintings any good? This article will explore a few paintings by George W. Bush, providing insight into the subject matter of George Bush’s artworks and why he chose to portray these specific individuals.

Exploring George W. Bush’s Paintings

One can imagine that going from being one of the most powerful men in the world to an ex-president overnight can be a rather daunting experience. One moment every single minute of your waking life is accounted for and the next you wake up with a practically empty schedule. Perhaps this is why the ex-president started to paint. Some feel that perhaps his focus on veterans in his early work was a creative outlet for his demons regarding sending so many American soldiers to senseless wars – many returning with lifelong disabilities.

Official photograph portrait of U.S. President George W. Bush (2003); Eric Draper, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It was sometime in early 2012 that he contacted Gail Norfleet, an artist and painting tutor based in Dallas. Only one year later, his email was hacked and photos of paintings by George W. Bush started to appear on the internet, instantly thrusting him into the spotlight of the art world. In 2017, George Bush’s artwork was published in a book called Portraits of Courage, which featured portraits of war veterans. In 2022, he released another book of his art, titled Out of Many, One, this time focusing on various immigrants. In total, the book features 43 portraits of various individuals from 35 countries that faced incredible challenges and whose contributions to American society are regarded as particularly notable. All of the people in George W. Bush’s paintings are individuals that the ex-president had met or known in person.

Portrait of Junichiro Koizumi (2014)

Given his relatively recent introduction into the art world, George Bush’s artwork of a former Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, is regarded as one of the most well-known of his pieces. It is part of a series of paintings by George W. Bush inspired by his period as president between 2001 and 2009. This collection of George W. Bush’s paintings was first displayed in The Art of Leadership exhibition in 2014, which featured paintings of political leaders from all over the globe, many of whom Bush interacted with during his career in politics. Koizumi left politics in 2009 and is regarded as Japan’s sixth longest-serving Prime Minister in its political history.

During his term as Prime Minister, Koizumi backed the anti-terrorism campaign in collaboration with North America and also dispatched Japanese self-defense forces to Iraq, signifying the first foreign conflict zone military operation since the end of WWII.

Annika Sörenstam (2019)

This was one of the portraits that feature in his book about the contributions and stories of remarkable immigrants Out of Many, One. They were also displayed in an exhibition held at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas on the 3rd of January, 2022. The ex-president hoped that the exhibition would highlight the positive impact of immigrants on American society. Annika Sörenstam met Bush at a clinic for young golfers in 2011 called First Tee. It is an NPO that wants to introduce children to the sport of golf and help build character by educating them about golf’s “nine core values”: integrity, honesty, respect, sportsmanship, responsibility,  confidence, perseverance, judgment, and courtesy.

Bush saw her as the ideal individual to motivate the 125 inner-city children who had attended the golf clinic.

Annika Sörenstam, who was born in Sweden, moved to the United States in the 1980s where she ended up dominating women’s professional golf. She then retired in 2008 and established the Annika Foundation, which offers golf programs for young girls in the United States and across the globe, imparting the necessary skills that will help them be prepared for the next phase of their lives. Bush felt that her example and devotion to young adults added to the American nation’s character, and was grateful that she had chosen to ultimately reside in America.

Carlos Rovelo (2019)

Carlos Rovelo and George W. Bush first met around the same time that the ex-president was getting started on his latest compilation of portraits. Rovelo had fled El Salvador during a civil conflict that had uprooted over a million people; before the war, he hadn’t ever contemplated leaving his family and culture before. Rovelo arrived in the United States on a student visa, fearful for his safety if he stayed in his home country, yet homesick and unsuited for life in the States – and genuinely concerned about his family back at home.

He started questioning his identity and one wound up at Wichita’s First Presbyterian Church.

Rovelo was able to get citizenship not just for himself, but also for his family, thanks to the kindness and compassion of the church congregation. Four decades later, Rovelo now has a distinguished career as a college professor, teaching federal government to students at Tarrant County College South in Fort Worth. Rovelo is the first Hispanic person to teach there too. Bush remarked that as he spoke with Rovelo about his experiences, his appreciation and respect for American culture and the possibilities that have been afforded to him constantly shone out.

Roya Mahboob (2019)

Mahboob was born in Afghanistan, but the family migrated to Iran to avoid the Taliban’s brutality. They then returned to Afghanistan in 2003, with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in retreat, where she focused on her studies and acquired an interest in technology and computers. She founded a software firm after her university graduation, making her one of the United States’ first female IT CEOs. Mahboob’s company was committed to constructing free internet-enabled schools throughout Afghanistan, allowing more than 160,000 young girls in the country to gain access to the world’s knowledge and digital resources.

She was even ranked in the “100 Most Influential People in the World” list by Time magazine.

Sadly, the Taliban was still prominent in Afghanistan in 2013, and her accomplishments and activities drew their notice. She soon realized it was time to go. Mahboob was successful in obtaining a work visa and returned to New York City to restart her company without the overpowering anxiety that it would be forcibly taken from her. As America and its partners consider their future in Afghanistan, it’s essential to keep in mind the experiences of individuals such as Mahboob and what life was like for people before 2001. At the time, just 5,000 Afghan females were registered in elementary schools; whereas today, there are over 3.5 million. Everyone wins when girls and women are given the chance to achieve their full potential and contribute to society.

Gilbert Tuhabonye (2019)

Gilbert Tuhabonye was born in a small community in southern Burundi and grew up racing around wherever his fast little legs would take him. His relatives nicknamed him “Tumagu”, which loosely translates to “quick wind”. Tuhabonye would run more than nine kilometers each day to school when he first started, and by his first year in high school, he had become the country’s national champion in the 400 and 800-meter races. The very next year, he was fleeing for his life. Violence erupted throughout the area, especially neighboring Rwanda, between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes.

A mob of Hutus arrived at Tuhabonye’s high school, gathered together all the Tutsi they could locate, pushed them into one of the buildings, and set it on fire.

One of Gilbert Tuhabonye’s best friends and running teammates was among them. He escaped the burning building filled with his dead classmates with bad burns on almost a third of his body, his legs included. So, not knowing what he should do next, did what he does best: he ran to a hospital, where specialists informed him that he would most likely never be able to run again due to the severity of the burns. Tuhabonye would need three months of agonizing recuperation, but he beat the odds. He raced for an NCAA institution while training for the Olympic Games for Burundi, and he won the Division II national title in the 800 meters in 1999. He earned a business degree from Abilene Christian University and started to train local runners through his running business, Gilbert’s Gazelles. Tuhabonye was introduced to Bush by one of his students, his daughter Jenna. He currently manages his humanitarian organization, the Gazelle Foundation, and because of his initiatives, over 100,000 Tutsis and Hutus now have clean water at their disposal.

Thear Suzuki (2019)

Thear Suzuki was born under the Khmer Rouge, a Communist state founded by Pol Pot, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Pol Pot had overseen the murder of around 2 million Cambodians by the fourth year of his reign. Suzuki’s family survived the genocide, fleeing to a Thai refugee camp before relocating to America with the assistance of the Refugee Services and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration. Suzuki’s parents worked minimum-wage jobs to provide for their family, and the five children helped by digging through garbage and collecting cans and bottles for nickels and dimes.

They used charity clothing and first stayed in West Dallas housing complexes, where they constantly got messages telling them to “go back” to their homeland; and they were often afraid for their safety.

Suzuki’s life was drastically transformed by the support of a church group and two men – Ron Colwart, a local law enforcement officer who got Suzuki engaged in a scouting program he had established for Southeast Asian youngsters, as well as her third-grade schoolteacher who fought for her education, John Gallagher. She now works with more community groups than she’s able to count, including the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, the Texas Women’s Fund, and the Boy Scouts of America. As a 2019 class Presidential Leadership Scholar, Suzuki embarked on a personal leadership program in which he engaged men in a discussion on hidden gender inequalities and how women and men might unite to tackle the challenges of gender equality. “We have gone full circle, from accepting help from someone else when we were in our time of need to now assist those in their time of need”, she once told Bush.

Reception to George W. Bush’s Paintings

George Bush’s artworks have received mixed reviews from the public and art critics alike. George W. Bush’s paintings have been lauded by some art reviewers, notably his portraits of international leaders and war veterans. They have complimented his use of texture and color, in addition to his capacity to convey his subjects’ personalities. Several critics have praised George Bush’s artwork for its humanizing impact since it depicts a different perspective of the former president than the one typically seen in the press during his presidency. Several art reviewers have also criticized George Bush’s artwork, particularly his earlier works, as amateurish and wanting in technical skill.

Others have voiced concern about a former president benefitting from his paintings, particularly considering the contentious choices he made while still in office.

Others have argued that the media’s attention on George Bush’s artwork distracts from more essential political matters, or that it downplays the real issues surrounding his administration. According to one critic, Bush’s painting approach is inelegant: his models’ eyes are frequently misaligned, his colors are usually muddy, and despite his attempts at establishing depth and shadows, the sitters’ facial features inevitably fail to express anything like human emotion. Some people like the books’ themes, but the book was mainly promoted for the paintings by George W. Bush, which they feel, by any traditional art standard, are of the standard of artworks produced by a high school student with a lot of self-esteem. 

George W. Bush with his feet on the desk (2001); Tina Hager, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

George  Bush’s artwork of Gilbert Tuhabonye, a Burundian immigrant, is a perfect illustration of this. Bush aims to produce a light reflection off the subject’s forehead, which significantly contrasts with Tuhabonye’s skin tone. They add that the works are badly blended and unnecessarily rough, and the only reason George W. Bush’s paintings would be scooped up by a publisher is that they were painted by an ex-president.

That concludes our list of George W. Bush’s paintings. Starting after he left office in 2009, Bush began delving into the world of art, specifically painting. A few years later, in 2012, he decided to take the next step and enrolled in proper one-on-one art classes with an artist based in Dallas. Not even a year later, George W. Bush’s paintings were suddenly thrust into public consciousness when a few of his paintings were leaked online following an apparent hack of his emails. Since then, he has held several exhibitions and published two books featuring his artwork, the most recent of which was released in 2022.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does George W. Bush Make Art?

Yes, the former president of the United States turned to art as a hobby and creative outlet after he left office in 2009. He has dabbled with portraying his pet dogs, as well as still-lifes. Yet, it is his portraiture that Bush is most known for by the world at large. He mainly focuses on portraying veterans of war and immigrants that moved to the United States under extremely difficult situations, yet they all went on to make significant contributions to American culture and way of life.

Are George W. Bush’s Paintings Any Good?

George Bush’s artwork is not everyone’s cup of tea. Some people have lauded his attempts to discover his artistic side, whereas others argue that he still has not seemed to have discovered it yet. They also argue that given the mediocracy of his painting abilities, the only reason that his art never left his home studio is because of his position as an ex-American president. While some people argue over the aesthetic merits of his art, others attack his work from a more political or philosophical stance, arguing that he now makes portraits of the very same veterans that he needlessly sent to fruitless wars.

Jordan Anthony( Content Editor, Art Writer, Photographer )

Jordan Anthony is a Cape Town-based film photographer, curator, and arts writer. She holds a Bachelor of Art in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where she explored themes like healing, identity, dreams, and intuitive creation in her Contemporary art practice. Jordan has collaborated with various local art institutions, including the KZNSA Gallery in Durban, the Turbine Art Fair, and the Wits Art Museum. Her photography focuses on abstract color manipulations, portraiture, candid shots, and urban landscapes. She’s intrigued by philosophy, memory, and esotericism, drawing inspiration from Surrealism, Fluxus, and ancient civilizations, as well as childhood influences and found objects. Jordan is working for artfilemagazine since 2022 and writes blog posts about art history and photography.

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