Artist Roma Harlan completed this posthumous portrait of Kenneth Wherry for his family in 1968. The work was on loan to the Capitol office of the Republican leader of the Senate until 1990. At that time, Marilynn Latta and David Wherry, daughter and son of the senator, donated the portrait to the U.S. Senate Collection.

Roma Harlan began painting at the age of five under the influence of her mother, also a portrait painter. After training at the Art Institute of Chicago, Harlan became resident portrait painter for the Lake Shore Club of Chicago. She later relocated to Washington, D.C., where she worked in the offices of the National Gallery of Art while continuing her painting career. Among Harlan’s many portrait subjects are military leaders, politicians, and educators. These include Senator Edward Martin of Pennsylvania; Rear Admiral Albert Cushing Read, a pioneer aviator; and Judge Burnita Shelton Matthews, the first woman to serve as a federal district judge.