William E. Simon (1927 - 2000) served as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Secretary George P. Shultz and, beginning in 1973, served concurrently as the Director of the Federal Energy Office during the oil shortage. He was named Secretary of the Treasury by President Nixon in 1974 and continued under President Gerald Ford. Domestically, he faced a growing economic slump as he entered office. In response to the oil crisis, he convinced the oil-producing nations to place their petrodollar surpluses in U.S. bank deposits but discouraged them from direct investment in U.S. corporations.
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Sec. William E. Simon
Everett Raymond Kinstler
Oil on canvas
1977
56 1/4 x 46 x 3 1/2"
P.1977.1 |
Before and during the 1974 - 1975 recession, the most severe contraction of industrial production since the Great Depression, Simon was the Administration's spokesman for austerity, fiscal constraint, and maintenance of stable capital markets. In foreign affairs, Simon continued the policies begun under Shultz of pressuring Europe and the Eastern Bloc with U.S. economic weapons and thereby keeping international policy initiative in the hands of the United States. Simon resigned at the end of Ford's term.
About the Artist
Everett Raymond Kinstler (1926 - ) is a well-known painter of official Washington, whose portraits hang in the halls of the Departments of Navy, Defense, and State, in addition to Treasury. He also painted the official presidential portrait of Gerald Ford, now in the White House. He has been popular with recent Treasury Secretaries, painting six over the span of four successive administrations. His portrait of William E. Simon was begun at the Treasury Department, where Kinstler made sketches as Simon worked. "Simon had enormous energy and was able to do many things at once," Kinstler commented. "I watched him detail the night's dinner plans, New York's financial problems and a trip to the Far East." The portrait was completed in 1977 in Kinstler's New York studio.