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# George W. Bush Started His Art Career on His iPhone
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/george-w-bush-started-his-art-career-on-his-iphone/
- Published: 2016-05-12T19:18:06.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:29:24.000Z
- Description: Can George W. Bush eclipse his legacy as a war criminal and one of the worst presidents in American history by continuing to make weird nude self-portraits?
- Author: Carey Dunne
- Tags: In Brief, George W. Bush, war crimes, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

![A screenshot of one of The Onion's "Dead Iraqi Child" paintings by George W. Bush. (screenshots by the author)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/04/bush-deadiraqi-640.jpg)

Screenshot from the Onion’s satirical piece on George W. Bush’s paintings (screenshot by Hrag Vartanian for Hyperallergic)

Can George W. Bush eclipse his legacy as a war criminal and one of the worst presidents in American history by continuing to make weird nude self-portraits? Mrs. Laura Bush and Jenna Bush Hager sure seem to hope so, based on their recent appearance on the *Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.* 

The [ex-president’s amateur painting career](http://hyperallergic.com/64837/do-bushs-paintings-tell-us-anything-about-the-former-president/) was first discovered in 2013 by a hacker called Guccifer: Two subtly unnerving self-portraits picturing Dubya in the shower and bathtub were leaked from his sister’s email account. [More paintings](http://hyperallergic.com/67336/presenting-the-first-ever-george-w-bush-painting-retrospective/) later emerged — of dogs, horses, fruit — and soon, Bush was staging an [exhibit](http://hyperallergic.com/67336/presenting-the-first-ever-george-w-bush-painting-retrospective/) of his portraits of world leaders. In this clip, Laura and Jenna explain what started all this: a drawing app. “He got the app on his iPhone — the [Penultimate](http://mashable.com/2012/05/07/evernonte-penultimate/?ref=hyperallergic.com) — and he drew these very funny stick figures,” Laura explained. When the former First Lady complimented one of these stick figures — “George, that’s very interesting lines.” — it went to his head.

“There was actually a period where he only communicated through his ‘art,’” Jenna told Fallon. “He would send Barbara and me a text that said ‘Going on an airplane’ and would do a stick figure of an airplane … Now he’s painting Putin,” she says, pronouncing it *poo-din.* Bush’s use of iPhone as canvas doesn’t necessarily disqualify him from the race to art world glory: Legendary British painter [David Hockney draws on an iPad](http://hyperallergic.com/11328/drawing-on-the-ipad/).

For the crime of making us all contemplate Bush’s inner life, Guccifer was [sentenced](http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/10/5796216/guccifer-george-w-bush-bathroom-art-hacker-jail-sentence?ref=hyperallergic.com) to four years in prison in 2014\. When he gets out, maybe he’ll leak the iPhone sketches that inspired Bush’s “[Dead Iraqi Child](http://hyperallergic.com/121082/the-onion-skewers-george-w-bush-the-painter/)” paintings.