Dr. Anthony Fauci is being honored with a portrait in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery.
Fauci is being recognized along with tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams, World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés, record executive Clive Davis, film director Ava DuVernay and Children’s Defense Fund president Marian Wright Edelman as winners of the gallery’s Portrait of a Nation Award.
“These honorees are innovators in their respective disciplines and advocates for social causes who use their voices to care for and lift up others,” Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, said in a statement, according to the Washington Examiner.
“The Portrait of a Nation Award reminds us that history is living and the choices people make have an impact on the nation’s legacy.”
Meet our 2022 Portrait of a Nation honorees! This fall we celebrate: José Andrés, Clive Davis, Ava DuVernay, Marian Wright Edelman, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams with the Portrait of a Nation Award. #PortraitOfaNation pic.twitter.com/PFAKDSxNqu
— National Portrait Gallery (@smithsoniannpg) January 26, 2022
The portraits will be unveiled on Nov. 10 and remain on exhibit until October 2023.
“It is one of the most humbling of all of the recognition that I’ve gotten,” Fauci said of the award, according to The Washington Post.
“I’ve lived in Washington the last 50 years and the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery is an iconic place in my mind. It makes me feel humbled and almost embarrassed to be in the same building with the people whose portraits are there.”
“When I go and look at the portraits of Obama and Roosevelt and all the presidents, clearly the artist is trying to express elements of the person’s character, the person’s stress and strain, the person’s accomplishments,” Fauci added.
“You get a feel for the person, and that I can appreciate.”
“I am one of many, many scientists in the federal government. I just have been, by a series of circumstances, put in a position where I’m well-recognized,” he said.
“People are going to say, ‘What’s a government worker doing with those people?’ In some respects, it creates a little more awareness and respect for people who are in government service.”
Fauci was featured in a different type of culture on Tuesday when Kid Rock released a single called “We the People.”
“’Wear your mask, take your pills,’ now a whole generation’s mentally ill,” the song says. The lyrics then leave printable words behind by proclaiming, “F*** Fauci.”
Fauci also made the news this week when Fox News reported that he was made aware early in the pandemic that the coronavirus could have been engineered in a lab in Wuhan, China, where the virus was first reported.
According to Fox, notes from a meeting Fauci convened soon afterward reveal that the lab leak theory was suppressed over concerns about how the public would react to news of “possible Chinese government involvement.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
