Object Details
- Exhibition Label
- Hunter S. Thompson helped to found the New Journalism in the 1960s and 1970s by making himself a central figure in the often dangerous events that he covered, from outlaw motorcycle gangs to the fall of Saigon. The model for the Doonesbury cartoon character "Duke," Thompson often carried a gun and made no secret of his prodigious use of alcohol and illegal narcotics to enhance his experiences and his ability to articulate them. Thompson’s drug use and his political views helped to make him a symbol of the counterculture, particularly when skewering his archenemy, President Richard Nixon. His personal style, however, drew from an earlier era of stoic poise: "When the going gets weird," as he put it, "the weird turn pro." Later in life, describing his allegiance to a "higher law," he called himself "a road man for the lords of karma."
- Data Source
- National Portrait Gallery
- Artist
- Al Satterwhite, born 1944
- Sitter
- Hunter Stockton Thompson, 18 Jul 1937 - 20 Feb 2005
- Date
- 1974 (printed 2012)
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- Medium
- Inkjet print
- Dimensions
- Image: 21.7 x 30.3cm (8 9/16 x 11 15/16")
- Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14")
- Mat (vertical): 71.1 x 55.9cm (28 x 22")
- Type
- Photograph
