Francisco Oller y Cestero, President William McKinley

0:00:05.1 Dr. Steven Zucker: We’re at the National Portrait Gallery in a special exhibition titled 1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions. And appropriately, the exhibition opens with a large scale portrait of President McKinley.

0:00:19.1 Dr. Taína Caragol: This portrait is made by the Puerto Rican artist Francisco Oller. President McKinley was the president during the War of 1898. The War of 1898, along with the Joint Resolution to Annex Hawaiʻi and the Philippine-American War, which is triggered by the refusal of the United States to accept Filipino independence, are the three conflicts that turned the United States into a world power with overseas territories.

0:00:49.9 Dr. Steven Zucker: Because we’re in the National Portrait Gallery, when we first walk into the exhibition, our initial assumption is that this is a celebratory portrait that is honoring and praising this U.S. president. And there is something celebratory here. He looks triumphant in the tradition of portraiture of significant figures. But as we look closely, questions do arise.

0:01:12.3 Dr. Taína Caragol: We see the president in a ornate, formal interior. There are gold panel walls behind him. There’s a table in front of him with rich fabric over it, and he is holding a map of Puerto Rico. We see the west coast of the island and the map is identified on top, Isla de Puerto Rico. And it has a date. It says, “julio veinticinco mil ochocientos noventa y ocho,” July 25, 1898, the date when the United States invaded Puerto Rico during the War of 1898.

0:01:47.5 Dr. Steven Zucker: Puerto Rico with Cuba and the Philippines had been part of the Spanish Empire for centuries. And in Cuba especially, but also in Puerto Rico, there had been long standing efforts to push Spain out.

0:02:00.2 Dr. Taína Caragol: Cuba and Puerto Rico were the last remaining colonies of Spain in the Caribbean by the end of the 19th century, and both islands had been, since 1868, undergoing decolonial processes. What we see in this painting, however, is a new turn in the political process of Puerto Rico, because here Francisco Oller has depicted the President of the United States with a map of Puerto Rico in his hand. So in a way, the painting tells us that Puerto Rico is no longer a Spanish colony. And it’s fascinating that Oller emphasizes that through the inclusion of that date of the U.S. invasion on the map and the date below his signature, which reads “F. Oller” for Francisco Oller. He signs “Puerto-Rico octubre dieciocho de mil ochocientos noventa y ocho,” so October 18, 1898, the date when the official transfer of power between Spain and the United States occurs in Puerto Rico. And so all the Spanish flags in all the official buildings of the island come down and the U.S. flags are raised.

0:03:07.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: Portraiture is often something that is commissioned and yet this is something that the artist produced for himself from a photograph, never having met the president.

0:03:16.8 Dr. Taína Caragol: We know that the artist sent this portrait to Washington. Oller is documenting this pivotal moment for Puerto Rico and for the U.S., but he is also trying to secure his survival as an artist. He is recognizing that this is a moment of political transition and that he will have to court new patrons. So with the help of the military governor in 1900, he sends his painting to Washington, D.C. to the White House for McKinley to see it. And we don’t have further documentation of what McKinley thinks of it. However, Oller does end up painting the portraits of several military governors and civil governors of Puerto Rico at the beginning of the U.S. government there.

0:04:04.1 Dr. Steven Zucker: The face is remarkable. There are those signature eyebrows that lift up at the right. The president’s mouth is firmly set as he looks off to his left. His brow is knit. He seems to be staring intently, looking into the future. Look at the way that the light is so beautifully handled around the bow tie and the collar. The shadow is really remarkable, creating a real sense of texture and volume. And then there’s this wonderful, luscious painting in the cut crystal of the inkwell down below, set off against that luxurious velvet drape that covers the table.

0:04:41.1 Dr. Taína Caragol: On top of that table, we see two inkwells and a classical column topped by an eagle, which I think the artist put there as a symbol of the republic and of the United States. There is also a pen. So I think there is a suggestion from the artist that McKinley is about to write a new chapter of history.

0:05:07.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: And it does make me think that there is a kind of guarded hope here that perhaps the U.S. can live up to its democratic ideals, that perhaps Puerto Rico is not just trading one colonial structure for another.

Taína Caragol and Kate Clarke Lemay, editors, 1898: Visual Culture and U.S. Imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific, exhibition catalogue (Washington, D.C.: National Portrait Gallery, 2023).

Natalia Ángeles Vieyra, “Problem Portraits: Francisco Oller in the Age of US Imperialism,” Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art , volume 7, number 2 (Fall 2021).