QUICK TAKES - April 30, 2009

Tony Bennett donated a watercolor he made of longtime friend Duke Ellington to a Smithsonian museum on Wednesday, the 110th anniversary of the jazz great’s birth.

The painting depicts Ellington with a bouquet of pink roses in the background. The jazz musician made a habit of sending Bennett a dozen roses when he wrote a new tune in hopes that Bennett would record the piece.

“Every time the roses came, I said, ‘Oh, Duke wrote another song,’ ” Bennett said.

Bennett, 82, gave the watercolor to the National Portrait Gallery, the third painting he has donated to the Smithsonian Institution, following a portrait of jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and a painting of New York’s Central Park.

Bennett said he chose to focus on jazz icons in some of his paintings because they’re not appreciated enough for their contributions to American culture. Jazz was the “greatest art form that’s ever been created in the United States,” he said.