What we can learn from Biden's Oval Office art and decor choices
The paintings, busts, and rug Biden chose for his Oval Office
President Joe Biden got to work this week in a newly refurbished Oval Office. The room is one part workspace, another part executive set, and a president’s decor decisions can send a powerful statement about their priorities. Biden’s office is an homage to the national story, told with a new set of American heroes.
Biden kept former President Donald Trump’s gold drapes, previously used by Bill Clinton, and Trump’s patterned wallpaper, but swapped out Trump’s orange-and-peach-colored rug, previously used by Ronald Reagan, for a deep blue rug, previously used by Clinton, according to the Washington Post, which got a preview of the office. The rug anchors the room in bright primary colors, and Biden picked it because he liked its deep hue.
Trump’s Oval Office was heavy on military pomp, with American flags and flags for each U.S. military branch circling the room. Biden kept just two flags, an American flag and a flag with the Seal of the President of the United States, both behind his desk.
Biden will continue to use the Resolute Desk. Made from wood from the British ship H.M.S. Resolute, it was gifted to Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880. The desk has been used by every president since Hayes, except Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.
The powerhouse gallery wall
The centerpiece of Biden’s Oval Office is Frank O. Salisbury’s 1947 oil painting of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It hangs above the fireplace mantle, directly within Biden’s line of sight while sitting in the Resolute Desk. It’s a departure from the painting that all of Biden’s predecessors back to George H.W. Bush hung in that spot, a Rembrandt Peale oil-on-canvas portrait of George Washington.
The FDR painting choice says something significant about how Biden views the challenges he faces as president. Roosevelt led the U.S. through the Great Depression and World War II, while Biden listed the virus, inequity, systemic racism, and the climate crisis as some of the historic problems America faces today during his Inaugural address. As the focal point piece of the room, Roosevelt’s portrait speaks to the kind of presidential role model Biden will look to. It’s also ambitious; FDR was a transformative president and his coalition remade Democratic politics for years to come.
Roosevelt’s portrait is flanked to the left by America’s most beloved presidents, Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and to the right by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson and Hamilton’s portraits were purposefully paired together as a statement about “how differences of opinion, expressed within the guardrails of the Republic, are essential to democracy,” Biden’s office told the Post, because the two men were known for their disagreements. The two busts on either side of the fireplace are of two of Biden’s civil rights heroes, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy.
The bust collection
In addition to the King and Kennedy busts, there’s busts of Rosa Parks, former first lady and United Nations delegate Eleanor Roosevelt, 19th century Sen. Daniel Webster, and Lincoln. The desk directly behind the Resolute Desk includes a bust of Cesar Chavez, along with a collection of framed family photos.
Like a rebuke to the 11th hour 1776 Report, the plagiarized, “slapdash and slanted” history put out by the Trump administration, Biden’s Oval Office bust collection tells the story of a nation built by many of our traditional American heroes, but also by women, minorities, and civil rights icons.
Biden replaced a portrait of the controversial President Andrew Jackson that Trump hung next to his Resolute Desk with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis. Trump had the same Franklin painting hanging in a different part of the room while he was in office, but its new, more prominent location under Biden is meant to serve as a nod to Biden’s trust in science, per the Post.
On the other side of the Resolute Desk is “The Avenue in the Rain” by Childe Hassam. The 1917 oil-on-canvas painting is one of America’s most celebrated works of patriotic impressionism, depicting Fifth Avenue in New York City draped in flags following the end of World War I. It most recently hung in former President Barack Obama’s Oval Office.
This isn’t necessarily the final version of Biden’s Oval Office, if past presidents are any guide. Presidents often make changes to the room after taking office, including Trump changing the wallpaper in August 2017, and Obama swapping out wallpaper, drapes, and art.
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The furniture comes from the White House collection, and the new set-up was done on Wednesday before Biden took office.
For comparison, here was the second version of Trump’s Oval Office, facing the desk…
…and facing the fireplace.
