Here’s the Story Behind That Bizarre Painting of Bill Clinton in a Blue Dress Seen at Jeffrey Epstein’s Home
The painting has launched 1,000 conspiracy theories. But the artist says she had no idea Epstein owned it.
Ben Davis, August 16, 2019 -
The painting has been identified as Parsing Bill by New York-based Australian artist Petrina Ryan-Kleid. (A print version is available on Saatchi Art starting at $40.) The more feverish corners of the internet immediately began to decode the imagery for clues—but the truth is that it was part of a body of student work produced quite independently of Epstein.
The Clinton painting comes from a pair of works by Ryan-Kleid that lightly satirized political figures. Its companion, a painting of George W. Bush called War Games, features the former president sitting on the floor of the White House playing with paper airplanes and two fallen Jenga towers, referencing his manipulation of the attacks of 9/11 to justify war in Iraq, the defining scandal of Bush’s White House tenure. As for Parsing Bill, the blue dress seems a likely reference to the blue dress that served as evidence in the former president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, the scandal that marked Clinton’s time in office. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/bill-clinton-blue-dress-painting-jeffrey-epstein-1628437