At London’s Saatchi Gallery, on a chilly winter’s day last year, Jane Hartley, the US ambassador to Britain, pulled aside artist and activist Shepard Fairey.
It was only a brief chat with Fairey, most famous for his Obama Hope poster, and whose work has been shown in the V&A, MOMA and was then on display in the Beyond the Streets London graffiti & street art exhibition.
But from this encounter in February, a month when little grows, germinated a 15-metre tall flower which will be climbing up a Shoreditch wall in coming days in what is expected to be an iconic mural challenging the world to deliver social justice while tackling global warming.
For America’s top diplomat in Britain it will also show the power of soft diplomacy, especially at a time of so many wars, authoritarian leaders and challenges to democracy.
“It’s talking about social justice, how do we make our world a better place,” she outlines, as well as “dealing with climate in an equal way because climate can be one of the biggest problems in terms of creating more inequalities”.
Fairey goes into more detail, explaining: “The mural is titled ‘Rise Above Earth Justice’ and uses symbols to convey the message that it is within our power to rise above the injustice of environmental irresponsibility and push for a more healthy planet.
“I believe that our individual and collective actions will dramatically impact current and future generations, be it for the better or for the worse.
“It is our responsibility as the citizens of Earth to protect it,” stresses the 54-year-old who as a teenager started to put his drawings on skateboards and T-shirts, and created the Andre the Giant Has a Posse sticker campaign while at Rhode Island School of Design in 1989.
Beyond the art, and also through it, the mural is another small brick in trans-Atlantic ties.
“It’s a great connection,” between London and New York, says Hartley.
The project is funded by the New York-based Ford Foundation, with Fairey commissioned by Migrate Art, a charity which has also worked with the Evening Standard in the past, and with the design evolving after a series of workshops with young people on making London a better place for the planet.
Hartley, now 74, shares a love of modern art with her investment banker husband Ralph Schlosstein, a former chief executive of Evercore Partners, which pre-dates their marriage of more than 40 years.
They have two adult children and an Australian Shepherd named “Bear”.
Appointed by Barack Obama to be US ambassador to France from 2014 to 2017, she liaised closely with his White House.
Few diplomats get the opportunity of a second such plum, much sought-after posting.
But London was an offer she could not turn down, partly due to the times when America, Britain and their allies are working so closely together in the face of the threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
She has been at two meetings between Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer since he became Prime Minister in July.
A string of ministers, in a sign of the deep ties between the UK and US, are also always among the 4,000 guests who mingle at her Independence Day summer party at Winfield House, the imposing and resplendent ambassadorial residence which stands in twelve and a half acres on the northwest side of Regent’s Park.
Hartley considers herself mainly a New Yorker, having lived there most of her life, but says: “I’ve fallen in love with London.
“Forgetting the importance of the special relationship, the political relationship, the military relationship, all of that, to me living here has been also an honour and a pleasure.
“I’m a New Yorker, I love it, but there are so many things about London that you have just done right.
“Your parks, I think I’ve been in every one of your parks and I know every tree in Regent’s Park.”
The parks make London “so liveable” and “the people are so nice,” says the ambassador.
“It is a wonderfully international city, once again like New York, and I don’t want to get in trouble with my New York friends, but I call it a kinder, gentler New York,” she enthuses.
Recalling a recent walk around North London, she adds: “One of the things you all do very well is it is almost a series of villages. I walked up to St John’s Wood, then I walked up to Primrose Hill, then I looked at some of the restaurants.
“I love all the museums, I happen to think the Tate has done a remarkable job under Maria Balshaw.
“The theatres are much smaller than Broadway so performances are much more intimate,” she continues, having been to see Waiting for Godot last week.
Hartley has also opened up Winfield House to the arts including bringing over American musicians like trumpeter/composer Wynton Marsalis.
“That was a fascinating night,” she recollects.
“It is jazz, I think, that represents the American experience more than any other.
“Wynton was supposed to play for about 90 minutes and I think he ended playing for double that and we had young people there from a local school, a music school, and they were called up to play.
“That was kind of a perfect example of music being something that broke down all barriers, all cultural, all demographic, all age, everybody could relate to it in the same way.”
Amid scepticism over the impact of soft power in the increasingly volatile world, the ambassador highlights the need to defend democracy and freedoms.
“We can never forget that and even in these dark days, it’s even more important that we show up and push for these values together and there is always going to be a role for diplomacy,” says the experienced envoy who believes soft power can change minds.
“I’m not saying it’s easy right now but how a government functions and what a government stands for as a democracy and what the image of a government is as a democracy, fighting for the things that we just talked about and including social justice, is really what does put us apart, show us apart, from these autocratic regimes.
“I care about the image of America and if you have a megaphone to do the right thing, you should use it, and that is what soft diplomacy is.”
Diplomacy also prevails when I ask whether Democrat Kamala Harris has the momentum to defeat Republican Donald Trump in the November 5 US presidential election.
“In my old life, I could give you a very long answer on that,” says the former senior businesswoman and ex-Democratic fundraiser who served in the White House in the Carter administration.
“But in my current life, as you know, I have to be very careful,” she adds.
As the election race is hotting up, she ventures: “Once again, I do have confidence in the American people and one thing I would say is very important is voting, I want to make sure everybody votes.
“I’ve just filled out my own absentee ballot.
“Usually if you have people voting, you usually will get to the right decision, and I can’t tell you what that is but you can guess.”
Hartley’s interest in public art was fuelled by how New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg used it to encourage more people and businesses to return to the city after 9/11.
“I’ve always believed in art, in music, in theatre, dance as a way to bridge all communities, really to bring communities together,” she explains.
After arriving as Ambassador to the Court of St James’s in spring of 2022, Hartley jumped at the opportunity to select US and UK artwork to “honour the enduring Special Relationship” between Britain and America.
She told how the exhibition at Winfield House reflected her “affection for bold, energetic, modern, and contemporary artwork,” and her desire to make use of the splendid residence as “an incredible showcase for art”.
De Koonings were chosen for the foyer, artist Mark Bradford loaned one of his pieces for the dining room, with works also by Hans Hofmann, known for his abstract expressionism and who painted alongside Henri Matisse in Paris, and Josef Albers who experimented with unconventional use of materials and colours.
Works by women painters Cecily Brown and Helen Frankenthaler were also chosen, with the ambassador stressing that their paintings “remind me, as only the second woman Ambassador to the UK in fifty years, to support all aspects of diversity”.
Fairey’s blue and red portrait of Obama became the defining image of the 2008 presidential election but the artist later told of his disillusionment over his presidency.
Hartley hopes the mural will stand the test of time for many, many years.
“Shepard Fairey, he didn’t have to do this,” she states.
“It’s going to be huge, this is taking a lot of his time, a lot of his work, a lot of his creativity. I think it’s going to be important.”
But the question remains, why Shoreditch?
“They have a lot of public art...they give it a lot of visibility, they are very supportive of it and the most important thing is they have said they would keep it up in perpetuity,” Hartley stresses.
“Sometimes street art, public art, is only up for a year or two and we thought, this message was right on and it would be as important ten years from now as it is now.”
