Oil painting was one of Eisenhower's hobbies. He began painting while at Columbia University, after watching Thomas E. Stephens paint Mamie's portrait. In order to relax, Eisenhower painted about 260 oils during the last 20 years of his life. The images were mostly landscapes, but also portraits of subjects such as Mamie, their grandchildren, General Montgomery, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Wendy Beckett stated that Eisenhower's work, 'simple and earnest, rather cause us to wonder at the hidden depths of this reticent president'. A conservative in both art and politics, he in a 1962 speech denounced modern art as 'a piece of canvas that looks like a broken-down Tin Lizzie, loaded with paint, has been driven over it'.
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