56 HENRY is delighted to present I Suppose I Could Have Stayed Home and Made Cookies and Had Tea, an exhibition of work by Todd Eberle from 1993. Comprised of a single photograph, the show will be on view from October 31 through November 08, 2016.
In July 1993, Todd Eberle went to the White House to photograph First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, on assignment for W Magazine. He photographed her on the South Portico, which had been set with café tables and small arrangements of pink flowers. Ms. Clinton wore a black St. John mid-calf skirt suit with white trim and gold buttons, matching the gilded chair on which Eberle had her lean. Framed between two columns, the White House rises powerfully behind her.
In the years since Eberle took this iconic portrait, Mrs. Clinton served another term as First Lady, sat for two terms as Senator for New York, and was appointed Secretary of State by President Barack Obama. Her commitment has been to public service, as it was when her family lived in the White House; as she explained to a reporter in 1992, "I suppose I could have stayed home and made cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life." Now, in the final days of Mrs. Clinton's own bid for the presidency, Eberle has printed a large version of his photograph from 1993, which will hang alone in the gallery through Election Day.
This was the beginning of Eberle's relationship with President William J. Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, having lived over periods of time with them in the White House in 1999-2000, photographing the public and private rooms of the White House, Air Force One, and Camp David at the invitation of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Todd Eberle lives and works in New York City, and West Cornwall, Connecticut. His work has been the subject of numerous international solo presentations, including exhibitions at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA/P.S. 1/The Clocktower, and Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills. Eberle's first major monograph, Empire of Space, in which this portrait appears, was published by Rizzoli in 2011. This is his first exhibition with 56 HENRY.
Exhibitions at 56 HENRY are visible 24 hours a day. Gallery doors are open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, 12:00 – 6:00 pm. For more information or images related to the exhibition, please contact Ellie Rines at (646) 858-0800 or info@56henry.nyc.
