Washington’s Congressmembers have been sharing one 'ugly' painting for 50 years

Last month, after all the swearing-in and inauguration ceremonies, nine of Washington’s 10 House representatives gathered in the bowels of the Capitol building in D.C. around a painting about the size of a poster.

“So first off,” Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Everett) said, “the handoff of this picture is – you might be shocked to hear this – unique to the Washington state delegation. No other delegation in Congress does this.”

In the middle of the delegation sat a painting of a larger-than-life baby chick, newly born, and not looking happy about it, from a shell that seemed far too small for its beige mass of fuzz. The rest of the painting is entirely black, giving the impression that the ugly duckling is glaring at the viewer from the depths of the void.

The artist is unknown, and didn’t sign it: Instead, the back of the painting is loaded with around 30 signatures, from Maria Cantwell to Marilyn Strickland.

Every new Congress, “The Chick” goes to the newest member of the Washington delegation. It’s been hanging in Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez’s office in D.C. She called it a “gimlet-eyed monstrosity” when she got it two years ago, in the middle of the uproar when Republicans took narrow control of the House and couldn’t agree on a speaker.

“My freshman year… was a wild one, right?” Gluesenkamp-Perez said as she prepared to hand off the painting. “And sometimes I would look at the chick in the eye, and I would – I would look deep in its eyes, and I would say, ‘Things can always be worse.’ And here today, getting rid of this thing, shirking it off of the albatross it is – things can get better, too. They really can.”

Here’s the origin story, according to a piece of paper affixed to the back of the painting: In 1972, Congressman Joel Pritchard, a Seattle Republican who’s probably best-known today as the inventor of pickleball, received the painting from a friend and brought it to D.C. (The story is the friend bought it at an auction. A hard-to-decipher scrawl on the back appears to say it sold for $50. Pritchard’s signature, under it, is followed by the words “Art Expert” in quotation marks.)

In 1976, Pritchard gave it to the newest member of the state’s delegation – newly-hatched Democratic Congressman Norm Dicks. Dicks says the two were good friends, despite being on opposite sides of the aisle.

“We played tennis together, we traveled together,” Dicks told KUOW. “We were close.”

Dicks passed it to the next new Congressman, and a tradition was born.

“I'm shocked, to be honest with you, that the tradition has been kept,” said Tim Thompson, a former aide to Dicks. “You could see it just kind of getting lost in somebody's closet and them not passing it along.”

Derek Kilmer put it above his water cooler, Thompson said. Dan Newhouse put it in his bathroom. Denny Heck put it in a closet and turned it against the wall.

“Most incoming members are warned of it before somebody shows up at their doorstep and says, 'Here – now it's your turn to hide this hideous looking piece of so-called art,'” Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck said.

Heck got “The Chick” when he joined Congress in 2013. By that time, superstitions came along with it – like if a member doesn’t display it in a place of honor, they will lose reelection.

Rumor goes Jay Inslee ran afoul of the painting during his first term in Congress in the ‘90s, when he was ousted after one term. Reached for comment on his painting placement, a rep for Inslee said he had “no recollection from his time in office.”

Now-Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck doesn’t buy the superstition. He won reelection thrice. But he likes the handoff and what it symbolizes.

“Our state's delegation used to have regular breakfast together. They used to identify more with their state and one another than they did their political party,” Heck said. “Any of these kinds of little rituals, I think, are valuable and important beyond their actual meaning.”

The joke has always been that everybody who gets “The Chick” wants to get it out of their own office, because they didn’t want to explain it to people who ask, Thompson said. But it’s about more than just bipartisanship.

“‘Take the issue seriously, but never yourself too seriously,’” Thompson said, quoting Ted Kennedy. “It tests the members’ sense of humor, and I think the trashing of the painting is part of the tradition. It's part of the joke. It's kind of like, you know, regifting Christmas presents.”

This year there are two new members of Congress. Republican Michael Baumgartner gets the painting this year, and Democrat Emily Randall gets it next year. Randall brought 100 chicken nuggets to the handoff ceremony.

“I'm happy for him to have his turn,” she said at an event in Seattle the following week. “We're wallpapering our office bathroom, and so by the time we're ready to receive the chick pic, I think it will have a place of prominence on beautiful wallpaper.”

In fact, Randall just opened that office bathroom to the public and put an “All Gender Restroom” sign on the door, as a response to Republican House rules about bathrooms and trans people.

So if you want to see “The Chick” in person, make a trek to the Longworth Office Building in D.C. next year to stare deep into its gimlet eyes.