Clothes Make the Man

From “Art Oasis,” by John Russell. Courtesy House & Garden. Copyright 1985 by The Conde Nast Publications Inc.

Most visitors find their way into the room in which Walter Annenberg’s portrait by Andrew Wyeth has pride of place. It should be said here that Mr. Annenberg is, even by the standards of Palm Springs, an inventive dresser. (In the words of one observer, “His colors are worthy of the desert sunsets.”) Andrew Wyeth, no mean judge of costume, originally wanted Walter Annenberg to pose in one of his (Wyeth’s) fencing jackets. When it turned out to be too small, there was plenty in Mr. Annenberg’s own closet to choose from. In particular, he had admired the impeccable cut of the robes worn by the choristers in Ely Cathedral, and when he was in England, he had them copied by the ecclesiastical tailors who were responsible. And it is in this quasi-monastic outfit that he was painted by Mr. Wyeth. The man who looks out from the canvas is not someone to mess with, and Mrs. Annenberg ventured to say that the expression was too hard. “There is nothing of the cream puff about Walter,” said Andrew Wyeth, and the painting stayed the way it was.