In 2019, Hugo Crosthwaite became the first Latino artist to win the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s (NPG) prestigious triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The Tijuana-born and San Diego-based illustrator received the contest’s grand prize: $25,000 and a portrait commission for the museum’s permanent collection. He chose to depict Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in a stop-motion format that captures the nuances of his complicated legacy, including his criticized and then celebrated oversight of the HIV/AIDs epidemic.
Last week, Crosthwaite found his hard-won commission on a list of Smithsonian items that the White House found objectionable. He was one of at least three Mexican-born artists whose work was included on Trump’s art hit list, along with illustrator Rigoberto González and painter Felipe Galindo Gómez.
“My first reaction was surprise,” Crosthwaite shared in an interview with Hyperallergic. “But then later on, [I] felt a bit of pride to be included in this list of other wonderful artists and wonderful projects that talk about the diversity of the United States’ history.”
In 2022, after winning the Outwin competition, Crosthwaite and the NPG considered a list of individuals for a portrait. They agreed on Fauci as the commission’s subject. At the time, the infectious disease specialist was a polarized figure: a revered pandemic hero and a detested political opponent of the right.
“I jumped at the chance of doing this because it was 2022, we were in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Crosthwaite told Hyperallergic. “He became a symbol of this fight between science and truth, against conspiracy theories; Dr. Fauci kind of epitomizes the nation’s current political divide.”
The five-minute stop motion animation, “A Portrait of Dr. Anthony Fauci” (2022), begins by portraying him as a young scientist in a lab. Later, a man infected by an unnamed virus becomes emaciated until he disappears into a black hole that morphs into a scene from ACT UP protests. Men carry signs that read “Silence = Death” and “Killed by the System.” Behind them, skeletons look to the sky.
The artwork references the AIDs memorial quilt before transitioning into a segment about the COVID-19 pandemic, in which a woman’s lungs explode into tiny bits of paper. Fauci is portrayed next to the White House press briefing room podium, where he often gave virus updates alongside Trump. Crosthwaite included a thumbs-up icon moving erratically up and down behind the podium, and Fauci off to the side. He also captured anti-Fauci sentiment and the right-wing rejection of vaccines, at one point portraying the scientist with devil horns. The stop-motion sequence ends with a woman receiving a vaccine, which cuts to a portrait of an aging Fauci.
Crosthwaite told Hyperallergic that he doubts the Trump administration actually watched the video, instead targeted the work because of his identity. He rebuffed the White House’s Smithsonian list as a mediocre attempt to win a culture war, and said being included on the list was a badge of honor.
“The portrait was done from the perspective of a Mexican-American artist, someone who’s cognizant of the impact of age and COVID-19 on my community, which is presented in the animation … the diverse people who are being attacked by viruses,” he said.
The artworks that Crosthwaite initially submitted to the Outwin competition had nothing to do with Fauci. In fact, the work that secured his national win was a different stop-motion animation, telling the story of a woman he met who had crossed the US-Mexico border illegally.
Crosthwaite commended the Outwin prize’s capacity to open doors for artists like himself. Any artist residing in the United States who is at least 18 years old is eligible to submit to the competition. For Crosthwaite, it was life-changing.
“Getting the commission to do the portrait of Dr. Fauci is actually a great honor — being part of the Smithsonian,” Crosthwaite told Hyperallergic. “My piece is part of the record of American history.”
