Secondary Navigation

Official Portrait of New York City's 108th Mayor: Michael R. Bloomberg

December 30, 2013

Jon R. Friedman was commissioned as the portrait artist.

Mr. Friedman paints his portraits from photographs and Mayor Bloomberg was photographed on June 27, 2013 for the portrait, which depicts Mayor Bloomberg standing in the Bullpen at City Hall. 

The portrait is oil on canvas and is 50 inches tall by 36 inches wide in a gilt frame.

Approval from the Public Design Commission is required for any artwork adorning City property, and the Public Design Commission gave final approval at the commission’s December 9, 2013 public meeting. 

The portrait was privately funded and is a gift to the city. All recent Mayoral portraits have been gifts to the City.

The portrait hangs in City Hall outside of the Blue Room, where all recent official Mayoral portraits hang in chronological order, including in adjacent rooms.

Jon R. Friedman

Jon R. Friedman is a renowned painter of landscapes and commissioned portraits. He received a B.A. in philosophy from Princeton University and an M.F.A. in painting and sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is known for his portraits of luminaries in the scientific, legal, government, and higher education fields and has recently completed commissioned portraits of Bill and Melinda Gates, Ted Turner, and former Congressman Barney Frank. Jon’s work has been displayed in galleries and museums across the country. The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. has seven of his portraits and studies in its collection. His work is also part of the private collections of various corporations and institutions. He has served as a visiting artist and lecturer at several colleges and universities in the Northeast throughout his career. He maintains studios in New York City and Cape Cod.

For more information on the artist visit www.jonrfriedman.com.

City Hall Portrait Collection

The City Hall portrait collection, an integral and historical component of the interiors of City Hall, offers a visual history of the people whose actions and contributions, whether political, military or social, made a significant impact on the city. This collection includes the portraits of United States presidents, New York State governors, New York City mayors, foreign dignitaries, military and naval heroes and political leaders who worked in City Hall or visited New York City. Both the subjects of these works and the artists who created them are important figures in the history of New York City as well as the United States.

This collection, considered one of the outstanding groups of portraits by American artists in the United States, consists of more than 100 paintings by some of the leading late-18th to mid-19th century American artists, such as Charles Wesley Jarvis, John Wesley Jarvis, Samuel F. B. Morse, Rembrandt Peale, John Trumbull and John Vanderlyn. For a collection of its size, the City Hall portraits have an unusual depth in terms of artists represented and types of sitters. In addition, the collection exemplifies the evolution in style of American portrait painting.

The collection includes portraits of people who played key roles in the birth of the new nation and the country’s formative years as well as New York City’s development. Although a few were accepted as gifts, the majority of the paintings in the collection were commissioned by New York City as commemorative acts, as was the case with Andrew Jackson, and were accompanied by elaborate receptions in City Hall to honor the sitters. Most of the portraits were painted from life, although, at times the City wished to honor recently deceased New Yorkers, as was the case with James Kent, and would commission an artist to paint a copy of an existing portrait or compose a portrait based on a number of existing depictions. These pictures, and the stories that surround them, offer a glimpse into the history of New York City.