Photo: Getty Images
BOSTON (State House News Service) — Former Gov. Charlie Baker will be back at the State House this month for a private, after-hours unveiling of his new official portrait.
The Swampscott Republican plans to spend a Thursday evening on Beacon Hill, and away from the halls of the NCAA he now leads, to attend the Dec. 21 ceremony in the State House library.
Members of the public who are curious about how the two-term governor is depicted on canvas will have to wait a bit longer, though, as it's "an invitation only event," according to Baker political advisor Jim Conroy.
The closed-door soiree will also be "closed to media," Conroy told the News Service, in an apparent break from at least recent tradition.
The audience at Gov. Deval Patrick's portrait ceremony in early January 2015, days before Baker took over the corner office, apparently featured members of the public as well as dignitaries like former Gov. William Weld, according to news coverage.
Gov. Mitt Romney's unveiling in June 2009 also seems to have been open to the press, with remarks extensively quoted in news coverage. That included praise from the then-Belmont Republican's successor, Patrick, who told him that he "should be remembered as one of the principal architects of the greatest experiment in health care reform that this country has yet seen."
These events can be reunions of sorts, bringing back together a band of aides and officials who served at the pleasure of the former Gov., usually accompanied by other pols like a contemporaneous House speaker or Senate president.
The addition of Baker's portrait -- by artist Ellen Cooper of Pennsylvania -- to the third-floor governor's lobby will move the other former Gov.'s down a peg on the State House walls, with former Gov. Deval Patrick sliding over a space to make way for his Republican successor.
The shift will also kick 1950s Gov. Christian Herter (painted with cigarette in hand) out into the corridor, where the older executives' pictures hang. The lobby of Room 360 has space for the 12 most recent governors, and Herter has occupied the last spot by the door since Patrick's portrait went up in 2015.
Written by Sam Doran/SHNS
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