The sitter was born on October 15, 1872 and died on December 28, 1961), and was the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson, and therefore was First Lady of the USA from 1915 to 1921. She married the widower Wilson in December 1915, during his first term as president. After President Wilson suffered a severe stroke in October 1919, Edith Wilson began to screen almost all governmental matters and to decide which were the most important to bring to her bedridden husband. In doing so, she essentially ran the executive branch of the government for the remainder of the president’s second term, until March 1921.
The picture was the result of a commission from Colonel Edward M. House, an adviser to President Wilson, who offered the President the opportunity to have the portrait at the time of his second marriage to Edith Galt on December 8, 1915. Mrs Wilson was born in Wytheville, Virginia.
Colonel House evidently decided to give Muller-Ury the commission on the advice of a Mrs. Young (Yale University Library, MSS466, Box 82A, Folder 2808, typescript copy of lost original letter from Muller-Ury to Colonel House, dated November 1, 1915) whom Muller-Ury had painted in 1913/14. Muller-Ury invited House to visit his studio ‘to see some of my paintings and sketches…as it would be the only way to judge my work’. There may have been delays in getting sittings due to commissions already accepted and fitting in with the First Lady’s schedule, and the portrait must therefore have been painted during April 1916, because on May 7, 1916 House wrote from 115 East 53rd Street, New York, the following letter card in the artist’s papers:
‘Dear Mr. Ury —
In handing you this check I want to again express my appreciation for the portrait – which your genius has wrought. It is something that will live, and I am glad to have had even a small share in its production. The President and Mrs. Wilson are as pleased with your effort as I am – Sincerely yours,
E. M. House.’
The following day Muller-Ury acknowledged the letter (Yale University Library, MSS466, Box 82A, Folder 2808, letter from Muller-Ury to Colonel House, dated May 8, 1916), which begins:
‘Dear Col House
Your very kind note just received with cheque — many thanks indeed — I am delighted to know that all are pleased with the portrait — I did all I could & for your sake too —— My greatest delight & satisfaction is to know that my work is all my friends expected…’
On May 25, 1916 Mrs. Wilson’s secretary Edith Benham wrote on behalf of Mrs Wilson to thank the artist for sending her photographs of the portrait and added ‘…Everyone has admired so much Mrs. Wilson’s charming portrait and her friends seem delighted with it…’ (same source). In an undated cutting from the San Francisco Examiner (July 26, 1923?) concerning Muller-Ury’s portrait of Archbishop Edward Hanna of San Francisco, he told a story about this picture
“There were about twenty guests at dinner in the White House…and everyone agreed that Mrs. Wilson had never looked as well as she did that night. It was decided that her portrait must be painted just as she was. When I went to see her she came in wearing the same black gown, so that I would have no other impression of her. At once I said, ‘Madame, I shall never paint you in that dress.’
She was surprized, I might imagine annoyed. It is the President’s wish, she told me. Nevertheless, I asked her to put on some other gowns for me. I chose a mauve which she did not like. For a time it looked as if this portrait might be a failure. The President was greatly pleased with it.”
Mrs Wilson described the outfit in which she was portrayed and the importance of this portrait to her husband in her autobiography, My Memoir, p.306:
“…while I was in the White House, Colonel House having presented one by a Swiss artist, Muller-Ury, as a wedding gift to my husband. For the Ury portrait I wore a dress of my loved shade of orchid, a brocade which was made for my trousseau by Worth. A dark violet velvet evening coat, with darker fur, deepened the background. This portrait has always hung in my husband’s bedroom, both in the White House and in our own house.”
The Stapko copy today at the Woodrow Wilson house in Washington DC.
A 1936 photograph of Woodrow Wilson’s bedroom at 2340 S. Street N.W. does indeed show the picture above the mantelpiece. When Mrs. Wilson died in 1961, she bequeathed the house which she and her husband had shared from 1921-24 with all its contents to the National Trust for Historic Preservation; however, the Muller-Ury portrait was excluded and was sent in 1963 to the White House.
A copy was painted by C. Gregory Stapko in c.1963, slightly larger in size (46” x 36” or 116.8cm x 91.4cm), belongs to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Woodrow Wilson House, 2340 S. Street N.W., Washington D.C. 20008.
