48 × 36 in. (121.9 × 91.4 cm)
Framed: 57 × 45 in. (144.8 × 114.3 cm)
Accession Number
2015.009.000
Credit Line
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
Object Details
Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves’s portrait reflects his rural background and interest in airplanes. Awards from agricultural and aviation groups line the wall behind him. A wooden propeller and white silk aviator’s scarf are tucked in among them. Graves caught the flying bug early: the municipal airport in his Missouri town was in the middle of the family farm. After chores were over, he once said, “we would pump gas and wash planes, anything to get a plane ride.”
