Bill Kaiser’s hearty laugh broke Olin Library’s quiet as he looked at a photo of President Lyndon B. Johnson playfully pulling on the ears of one of his pet beagles.
“(Johnson) got his tail in a crack with that one,” he said. The caption on the prize-winning photo, taken by Maurice Johnson in 1964, said, “Johnson claimed that the ear-pulling and subsequent yelping was harmless, and actually did the dogs good.”
Kaiser and his wife, alumna Helen (Griffiths) Kaiser (1951 and 1956), were clearly enjoying seeing the traveling show of 68 prize-winning photographs of U.S. presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush. “We recognize lots of these photos,” she said.
The exhibit, The Presidential Image: 60 Years of the Best in White House Photography, featured archival images from Pictures of the Year International and was produced by the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism and the University of Miami’s School of Communication. Sponsored by MSNBC, Fujifilm and National Geographic, the exhibit was staged at this year’s three presidential debate sites.
Viewers’ favorites included both famous and lesser-known images. Scott Nichols, who was visiting campus with his daughter, Allison, a high-school senior in Westchester, Pa., and prospective University student, liked Susan Biddle’s 1997 image of Bill Clinton playing “Heartbreak Hotel” on his saxophone. So did University junior Erica Sampson, who said, “I like images that show the presidents with their hair down.”
Peng Guo, a postdoctoral biomedical research associate, said he liked Frank Cancellare’s 1972 image of Richard Nixon sharing a toast with Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai, “because Nixon helped the U.S. and China open up to each other, which allowed me to come study in the States.”
Another exhibit in Olin Library, Presidential Debates at Washington University, which shows memorabilia from the 1992 and 2000 debates at the University, will run until Nov. 3.
On Oct. 4-5, student volunteers led about 90 group tours of the Athletic Complex, where two other exhibits were housed.
The exhibit of 16 rare and historically important American flags attracted many, such as a group of fifth-grade girls from Our Lady of Lourdes School in Clayton. One girl bubbled, “Ooh, look at the flags!” Another asked, “Are these originals or copies?”
Flags in the exhibit, The Flag & America’s Presidential Campaigns, were from the private collection of University alumni Louise Veninga (1972) and Ben Zaricor (1972). The exhibit was supported with the cooperation of The Flag Center and the University, the Commission on Presidential Debates and Good Earth Teas.
The group of fifth-graders got to the final exhibit, the only complete collection of American presidential oil portraits by one artist, Chas Fagan. Called American Presidents: Life Portraits, it was sponsored by C-SPAN and the White House Historical Association.
Prompted by a mother chaperoning the group, the girls — many of them soccer players and all in plaid uniforms — rushed to search accompanying biographical sketches for at least one new, interesting fact about a president.
One girl excitedly reported back and, referring to President Ronald Reagan, admiringly said, “I didn’t know he played football.”