It was the kind of large indoor gathering that would soon feel anachronistic, like an ancient custom from a lost civilization. On a Sunday night in November 2019, one month before Covid-19 first appeared in Wuhan, China, kicking off the worst pandemic in mod- ern history, luminaries from the worlds of politics, media, business, and the arts gathered at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and hundreds of other guests packed the museum courtyard for an invitation-only, black-tie affair. They were there to celebrate the addi- tion of six new portraits to the gallery’s permanent collection, honoring iconic Americans such as Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, as well as the richest person in the world: Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos.
Bezos’s lifelike portrait by the photorealistic painter Robert Mc- Curdy depicted him against a stark white background, wearing a crisp white shirt, silver tie, and the severe gaze that had flustered Amazon employees over the last twenty-five years. In his speech that night, ac- cepting the Portrait of a Nation Prize for commitment to “service, cre- ativity, individuality, insight, and ingenuity,” Bezos thanked his large coterie of family and colleagues in the audience and struck a charac- teristic note of public humility.
