Moe: Fame didn’t change humble Pollard . . .

Doug Moe
dmoe@madison.com
As published in the Wisconsin State Journal

This was late spring 1998 and George Pollard was in his Kenosha home on the shore of Lake Michigan talking about the time he did a portrait of Harry Truman.

“It was his last portrait,” Pollard said.

The former president was not famous for his patience. “His hip hurt and he didn’t like sitting,” Pollard said.

Pollard was undaunted. After all, as a sergeant during World War II, he had known the pressure of being asked to paint generals. “This experience,” Pollard would later note, “had taught me two things — paint fast and do not be intimidated by important people.”

The Truman portrait, done in 1964, had taken a full year to set up. It was at the presidential library in Missouri. Truman sat, began to chat, and Pollard went to work.

Although he called Truman one of his most memorable subjects, George Pollard, the internationally known portrait artist who died Thursday in his Kenosha home at 88, was used to working with the celebrated and the powerful. His subjects — and his subjects nearly always became admirers — were presidents, popes, A-list entertainers and athletes. Yet somehow Pollard remained as friendly and unpretentious as the Wisconsin farm boy he was.

I was at his home in Kenosha that day in 1998 in the company of my Madison friend Bob Royko. It was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I’ve ever spent.

Click HERE to read the rest from the Wisconsin State Journal