Bill Clinton portrait contains hidden reference to Lewinsky's blue dress
Secret reference to intern who had relations with ex-president in painting
Nelson Shanks told the a shadow beside Clinton refers to the dress and a symbolic nod to the shadow of the affair on his presidency.
"If you look at the left-hand side of it there's a mantle in the Oval Office, and I put a shadow coming into the painting," Shanks told the newspaper.
He said the shadow beside Clinton, who is pictured standing in front of a hearth, "actually literally represents a shadow from a blue dress that I had on a mannequin, that I had there while I was painting it, but not when he was there," said Shanks, 77.
"It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held or on him."
Lewinsky was an intern at the White House at the time of the sex scandal that resulted in her blue dress being stained with Clinton's bodily fluids. Clinton repeatedly denied an affair, but later admitted to a relationship with Lewinsky that was "not appropriate" and "wrong".
The stained dress became a key piece of evidence in Ken Starr's special investigation of the 42nd president.
"The Clintons hate the portrait," Shanks said. "They want it removed from the National Portrait Gallery. They're putting a lot of pressure on them."
The National Portrait Gallery in Washington commissioned the 2006 painting and had it on display until about three years ago. It's one of 55 images of Clinton that rotate on display, said spokeswoman Bethany Bentley.
She said she is unaware of any pressure from the Clintons to have it removed from the collection. Nor had she heard the artist previously comment on his use of the hidden imagery. "That's the first time we've heard of those comments," Bentley said.
A Clinton spokesman did not immediately return an email message seeking comment.
Shanks has painted Princess Diana, Pope John Paul II and other luminaries. He has two pieces currently on display at the gallery, one of opera singer Denyce Graves and the other of the four female Supreme Court justices.
He said of Clinton: "The reality is he's probably the most famous liar of all time. He and his administration did some very good things, of course, but I could never get this Monica thing completely out of my mind."
Shanks did not reveal this nine years ago when the portrait was unveiled. But perhaps now we could read between the lines of what he did say.
"I think the painting really feels like Bill Clinton," he said then, according to archives at the . "It has - I would not call it swagger… What? An informality? A looseness, a relaxed nature."