Twenty-five years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the former President of the United States, George W. Bush, recalls the tragedy that would define his presidency with a 16-painting exhibition inspired by the events that left nearly 3,000 dead.
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As AFP recalled, Bush, who turned 80 in July, had been in charge of the U.S. for less than eight months at the time of the attacks that he commemorates in the exhibition Remembering September 11, at his presidential museum in Dallas.
The exhibition, according to the agency, begins with a depiction of New York after the Twin Towers collapsed after being hit by commercial planes hijacked by jihadists. In these canvases, the buildings of lower Manhattan are seen amid gray smoke under a still blue sky.
“25 years later, (Bush) has returned to that decisive moment in United States history with brush and canvas, painting the symbols, the people, and the embraces that have stayed with him since then”, the exhibition introduces to the visitor.
The former U.S. head of state appears in several of his paintings, which include iconic moments in which he was a protagonist. Among them when his staff informed him that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, or when he takes the hand of his father, also former President George H. W. Bush.
The American flag is also a recurring theme in this series of paintings – which contrasts color with the dark passage it recalls – exhibited at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas.
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From a small visibility in the first painting representing the attack on Manhattan, through its full prominence occupying the entire frame in another painting illustrating the Pentagon – which was hit by a third plane – to when it is waved by emergency services in another canvas.
“These are the moments President Bush chose to paint, because they are the moments he remembers most: not fear, but determination; not despair, but the instinct of ordinary Americans to come together and help each other,” states the description of the exhibition which will be open until the end of September.
This is the latest special collection produced by the former president, who began painting three years after leaving the White House in 2009, inspired by the essay of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Painting as a Pastime.
His previous exhibitions were dedicated to portraits of veterans of the wars after 9/11 in which his country was involved and to American immigrants.
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