The Faces of Power, From the Portraitist in Chief -- George W. Bush’s Art Exhibition at Presidential Center --- DALLAS — Former President George W. Bush is a something of a natural when it comes to making oil paintings, a decent amateur. Although he picked up a brush only in 2012, this naturalness emerged as a definite possibility barely a year later. That’s when images of two strange, seemingly introspective paintings by Mr. Bush went viral, hacked from the email of a Bush relative, very discreetly showing the former president bathing. -- Now Mr. Bush’s unsettling talent is confirmed by “The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy,” a hagiographic soup of an exhibition that opened Saturday at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum on the campus of Southern Methodist University, and includes — amid quite a bit else — 30 of the former president’s oil-on-board paintings of world leaders. The exhibition starts with a presidential self-portrait that seems still to need work and a far more affecting depiction of his aging father, former President George Bush. -- These are followed by heads of state like Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, looking suitably stony faced and ruthless. There are portraits of Tony Blair of Britain and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia that resemble paintings by Luc Tuymans (a well-known Belgian artist who, like Mr. Bush, works from photographs) and of Angela Merkel of Germany looking open and optimistic (and girlishly nonthreatening). President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is depicted uncharacteristically concerned. Ehud Olmert of Israel appears to be reading from a speech — an appealing work that can bring to mind a self-portrait by another, visionary amateur painter, the composer Arnold Schoenberg. -- Mr. Bush has an uncanny ability to translate photographs into more awkward images enlivened by distortions and slightly ham-handed brushwork. His skill may be disconcerting for people who love painting and dislike the former president, but still, everyone needs to get a grip, especially those in the art world who dismiss the paintings without even seeing them. -- When asked about the bathing paintings in interviews ramping up to the exhibition, Mr. Bush distanced himself from them — and indirectly ridiculed anyone who took them seriously — by saying that he had only painted them to shock his teacher, the noted Dallas painter Gail Norfleet. -- When asked about the bathing paintings in interviews ramping up to the exhibition, Mr. Bush distanced himself from them — and indirectly ridiculed anyone who took them seriously — by saying that he had only painted them to shock his teacher, the noted Dallas painter Gail Norfleet. - More, ROBERTA SMITH, NYTimes, at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/arts/design/george-w-bushs-art-exhibition-at-presidential-center.html?hp&_r=0