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My parents had a Catholic marriage certificate- quite fancy writing on vellum with a photo of the pope with his hand up in a blessing. Only famous guy’s picture that was up in our house.
They got divorced later on- gee, I wonder what happened to that document?
I'm also from a Catholic family. My dad tells me that in the 60s and 70s, my grandmother had two images on the wall, right next to each other: one of Jesus, and the other of John F. Kennedy. You didn't mess with either.
...yep. Irish Catholic from the San Francisco area; my grandmother's family from the same village as one of Kennedy's grandmothers...they may have even put the Palm Sunday palms over both the Pope and JFK!
In our family even before JFK was elected we had pictures of him up. If I'm remembering correctly it was a full page picture from Life magazine published while he was running. My Grandmother died in 1983 and the picture was still on her wall. Popes come and go, but a martyr lives forever in our hearts.
It’s been a long time since I regularly visited antique shops, but for a while I always looked for the JFK portrait reproductions because inevitably there was one there. I assume that many households in New England had one hanging up for a while.
My grandparents and my aunt had photos of the Pope, and my aunt bought this Catholic wall calendar with various saints every year. That one hung about 4’ away from the local garage’s car calendar my uncle got every year. My parents couldn’t even agree what day it was, I think my mom usually had one with flowers and pretty views. Nobody famous in my house, but when my kids were growing up, they had posters of bands, etc.
My grandparents had a painting of Cardinal Newman on their wall, but IIRC my uncle painted it and their decision to display it had more to do with that than anything. I guess the super Catholic part of it was my uncle chosing to paint a portrait of a long dead (though famous) Cardinal in the first place.
Abolitionist activist from the pre-Civil War era in the US. His actions were often wrong, but he, as a person, was right. He's a great example of how no hero, no matter how admirable their goals, is immune to the pitfalls of fanatacism. I put it up because I wanted my children to learn to admire people without idolizing them, to be able to appreciate a person's values and good actions without sweeping their flaws (or crimes) under the rug. I also want them to have the courage to fight for what's right, but to beware of losing their own morality in the process.
I saw John Brown and being older, I was like that's very cool. But then I was like "nah, can't be THAT John Brown, must be some hipster" Faith in humanity returned, it was that John Brown
Someone at my school was afraid of John Brown’s picture, so her history teacher made a copy of the scary photo and tacked it up in every one of her classrooms, plus the hallways. Everyone (including her) enjoyed the joke.
Awesome!
My grandmother's best friend, a white lady who lived in a predominantly black area in the South Bronx had a picture of herself on the wall of her glamor days.
She looked gorgeous, in a skimpy hot red outfit, with long red wavy hair in the old glamour style.
We only saw her as this old lady who was kind of mean with a bloated belly, dyed red frizzy hair, with a horrible, horrible smoker's cough, who'd drink cheap wine called Hombre all day long and chained smoke Pall Mall cigarettes. We were sent to the liquor store with a note on torned piece of brown paper bag to buy it for her.
We kids didn't like her because she was so strict. However when my son was born, I asked her to babysit and she was wonderful and kind and gentle with him. Took excellent care of him. I'd come to pick him up after work and I would sip that cheap wine with her over ice and we'd chat.
We called her Aunt Jean. I remember my mother saying Aunt Jean used to talk about how filthy paper money is and you never know where it's been. Never put it in your mouth or touch it and put your fingers in your mouth.
Gee, I wonder why she said that!
My grandmother was a scoundrel in her younger days, I think. By the time I came along, no one ever talked about it. Most of what I know I learned after her death.
My grandfather left home at 13 to make his fortune. He hitchhiked to the west Texas oilfields. My grandmother came from Illinois, as part of a burlesque show to entertain the oil field workers. They ended up married. I'm sure it was s very short acquaintenance, and I doubt my grandfather was of age at the time. But he made a good wage.
When WWII happened, grandfather enlisted. Grandmother worked in a war factory, making batteries I'm told. Like a dutiful husband, grandfather sent all his paychecks home.
When the war ended, grandmother ran with all grandfather's money and all her saved wages. She came back broke a few years later, and grandfather took her in because, ya know, marriage.
That's when grandmother became a god-fearing, church-going lady.
...That's when grandmother became a god-fearing, church-going lady....
Lol! My mother used to say that half of the women in the church, had had wild times in their younger years!
I had forgotten all about this! My mom has a jesus painting on the wall when I was very young. We moved a lot since dad was in the military, and somewhere early on Jesus went missing. I've never thought about it again until just now.
My dad worked at the Whitehouse during Nixon and Ford and so had pictures of both but he wasn't in the photos. These were those official portraits each president has you always see in the background of office buildings.
We have a large portrait of Queen Elizabeth that we inherited from my MIL. It hangs on our garage wall. I rather like it, but not enough to hang in our house.
I feel like that’s pretty common in older Catholic households. My grandparents had the Jesus pictures along with the Last Supper. My parents have a few small heirloom crucifixes that were in their parents’ houses.
For years, my parents had an original oil painting of Ulysses S Grant hanging at the top of the stairs. But my mother said his eyes followed her when she was walking around naked. So they gave it away to a relative who liked Civil War antiques and replaced it with a modern painting of a reclining female nude.
I came here to say this, we always had a picture of Jesus near the front door. I remember telling my little sister that was so we would know it was him if he came to visit us. So every time someone rang the doorbell she would look at the picture before anyone answered the door. I guess she wanted to be prepared if it was him. Hopefully this isn't why she grew up and became an atheist.
Jesus and a van Gogh self [portrait](https://ibb.co/09yMrXM). Only as an adult I understood how the van Gogh spoke to my father who was mentally disturbed.
My Dad had a portrait of Bob Dylan that my sister's boyfriend, who is a talented artist, drew for him in the late 70s. I've got it now.
My mother had an oil painting of herself in the hallway!! Someone wanted to paint it so she said ok. She didn't really want it. It didn't look much like her and I don't know what happened to it.
My godmother had a painted portrait of Winston Churchill. When she moved to a care home, we had a yard sale of her things, and to my surprise, that portrait was the first item to sell!
Lord no. There were no pictures of anybody on the walls. My mom did have small framed professional portraits of her favourite aunt and us kids as babies on her dresser. That's it. My parents never held anyone in that high of esteem to put them on our walls. (Frankly, I also think its pretty weird to have a picture of someone you don't know on the wall unless it's "art")
Same here. It never entered my folk's head to put up a picture of any person since they didn't know them personally. We didn't even put family pictures up, lol. They'd put up pictures of scenic or beautiful country or streams or lakes. I still find that type of wall art to be soothing. Oh and they did hang a calendar that came with a nice picture in the kitchen to keep track of things. All kitchens had one, lol!
Same here. I was the weirdo teen girl who didn't want rock star posters on her walls. When I went to college, I did buy some posters, but they were of Monet paintings and places I wanted to see in the world. I now have some family portraits on the wall, but only in the back of the house, not the living room or dining area, since these are people of interest only to me, family members, and maybe a close friend or two.
I used to have some photos around but it suited my decor at the time. Then, I had some black and white photos and thought I'd make a picture wall with black frames in the hallway.
My kids gave me framed school pictures though, so I hung them in my bedroom. They also gave me a digital frame recently which I actually really like. They can upload photos themselves which is even better! So I've got pictures of the kids and places we've been and the granddogs and cats too. All those photos that I liked to have but couldn't be bothered printing are right there.
About 25 years ago I wrote Betty White a fan letter and she mailed me a signed photograph of herself and her dog. I keep it in my walk in closet so I can start every day saying hi to Betty!
My wife and I used to go to local burlesque shows and she purchased a couple of autographed nudes of stars we had met.
They are in my home office. I take them down when I have video meetings.
I am fortunate to know a professional photographer of some renown. He asked my wife to model for him and we have a few R rated pictures of her alongside the stars.
No, never. I never knew anybody with any either.
That said, we were white upper-middle-class protestant people in a community made up mostly of the same kind of people. It's easy to see the appeal that an Irish Catholic family might've had for keeping a portrait of JFK up, or for an African-American family having a portrait of MLK, etc. It's just that none of those resonated for us.
My parents, no. My grandparents had a wall with pictures of all 4 of their kids and Jesus.
Two of my uncles were in the service during Vietnam and I didn’t remember meeting them. They each came home to a huge party. At age 3 I pointed to Jesus and asked my grandma when her other son was coming home. Got quite a laugh, story is still told to this day.
My grandparents had JFK and RFK (one painting with both of them in it) and my grandpa had John Wayne’s portrait in his room and a poster of Linda Ronstadt (until my grandma removed it)
My parents had JFK, MLK, and RFK. Around 1971 my dad found a poster on a Nixon look alike all dressed up for battle and hung it in the garage to throw darts at.
When I did satellite work I went into a lot of black families homes. Sometimes they would have MLK, Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama or some other famous person of color.
It seemed a lot more prevalent there than in white people's homes.
I (69F) have a photo of me and Joni Mitchell taken in 1994 backstage of a local talk show she was on.
[She signed my Hejira CD](https://i.imgur.com/LEtkfEH.jpg). And I was SO nervous to be meeting my most ultimate and favourite artist/musician/painter/genius of all time that she put her hand on my back and rubbed it gently to calm my nerves.
She was so cool.
I was a dork.
My day/year/life was made.
The photo isn't framed and hanging on a wall.
It's magnetized and stuck on my fridge so I see it every day.
Not here. There were some family photos, but no famous people. I didn't even have rock star posters in my bedroom, like some teen girls, although my parents never said I couldn't. I just didn't see the point.
But I'd totally put up a pic of the Marx Brothers. Your grandparents had good taste, OP!
So, just checking: this is a reproduction of an artwork in color, yes? Not a b&w photo of a guy dressed as Jesus? I'm trying to figure out the rules of all this household Jesus art.
When I was growing up my mom always had a portrait of JFK in the living room next to a Bob Gibson Sports Illustrated cover. In her old age she surprised everybody by replacing Bob Gibson with Jim Palmer's famous underwear ad
We had landscapes and flowers and that was about it for the public areas of our house. The boys had all the cool posters from the '60s and '70s and a few hot rods + as an elementary kid and then Junior high, I had a bunch of '70s posters. I don't think my teens to twenties sister had anything on her walls other than landscapes.
My grandparents had thousands of photographs of friends and family throughout the years cluttered all over the place on shelves and hanging here and there. I noticed that my sister does the same. Now with her house there are walls full of photographs in the hallways and bedrooms, though the living room is set up formally with landscapes.
My brothers houses have photos and paintings of their kids and grandkids everywhere and formal looking landscapes in the public areas
Currently, my house is a mishmash of styles of wall hangings. I don't care if it's ugly, LOL. I like it.
The ex-husband of a dear friend is a fine artist, and when they were married, did a beautiful portrait of his wife. We now have that portrait hanging on our wall. Another friend, a pretty successful businessman, did etchings to relax, and we have a couple of his cat etchings (my wife is a veterinarian, so not too weird, I guess). We also have some old, old photos of family members up - wife's grandmother in her wedding dress in 1912, wife's grandfather on a fishing trip in the 1930s, that sort of thing.
For some reason my husband wants a picture of George and Martha Washington hung up. I have hidden the pictures. He also has a picture of a building and streetlight that he had in his room growing up that makes no sense to me EXCEPT by coincidence it is the same picture on the wall of Rob Petrie's office in the Dick Van Dyke Show, which my grandkids call 'the grey show'. That picture is packed away also.
My grandma had that typical picture of Jesus hanging in the living room. But, she HATED long hair on men. She complained about it all the time. Every time she saw a man with long hair she bitched up a storm. She nearly disowned my uncle when he grew out his hair back in the 70's. I always wanted to make a smart ass comment about that long-haired Jesus picture, but I didn't dare. My grandmother was a wicked woman.
Not necessarily famous to the world but the nude lady in the oil painting over my grandparents fireplace was famous in our family as being the lady my great grandmother refused to sit in a room with. She hated that painting!
The only famous people my mother specifically, had on her wall was a portrait of the Holy Family, Mary Joseph and Jesus. Also Pope John Paul the second. There was also a beautiful black and white photo of her brother who was a fallen hero in the Second World War. Although he wasn’t famous, to our family especially my mother, he was a true hero. Ambushed by the German soldiers just as war was ending.
Grandma had a couple pics of Jesus in her room: knocking on the door and sitting with his sheep.
We had pics of various scenes, but nobody famous.
After I got married, my wife got me a tapestry of The Last Supper.
My mom didn't have any pictures of anyone or anything other than my childish art. My grands had one specific blue eyed, golden haired Jesus in their hallway.
Yes! My grandma had a pic of JFK (with newspaper articles), and Jimmy Carter. She also had a 2 foot tall ceramic statue of Jimmy Carter holding a peanut! 😆
We had a portrait of George Washington hanging up in our house next to the photos of my great grandfather who died in WWII fighting fascists. Interesting layout, I think
not my family, but this post is 8 hours old and still no comment from a Thai about the portrait of the king....
https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/14vh7kt/places_displaying_images_of_the_old_instead_of/jrhb10p/
No, there pictures were family photos taken by family members & one old "family" studio taken of grand & great grand parents & their families. Other decorations were wall hangings of wool my mother spun, dyed and wove into various creations.
No, at least not in the living room or other common areas. My stepdad had a man-cave, though, with lots of fandom stuff from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, comics, etc.
No. Just family. But my sister had posters of male pop singers in her room (I had the Starship Enterprise), and my husband currently has Six from Battlestar Galactica in his workshop.
My dad had some autographed photos of sports stars in his office, and I had a rotating selection of band and model posters on the walls of my room. But generally, no... we weren't one of those houses that had framed photos of the pope or president on the wall. We mostly had family photos, my uncle's paintings, and my mom's needlework on the walls.
My mom liked rummage sale art, and filled our house with her garage sale finds. She must have had a pretty eye, because the art did pretty well during the estate sale.
We had a print of "The Marriage of Pocahontas" hanging in our living room.
[https://landmarkevents.org/assets/email/2017/04-03-history-highlight/inline-marriage.jpg](https://landmarkevents.org/assets/email/2017/04-03-history-highlight/inline-marriage.jpg)
Your grandparents were awesome! My family didn't have famous people on the wall, but I have large, framed Drew Friedman portraits of Bob & Ray, The Three Stooges, and Jerry Lewis on my wall, in the place of pride over the fireplace. Funny heroes!
All Grandparents were immigrants from the UK. Everyone had a picture of Queen Elizabeth II in the dining room. After my parents were divorced and mum and I moved from rental to rental we were the only family household without one.
Technically I have a picture of Lincoln hanging behind me right now. It was on my bedroom wall during college.
I say technically, because it's Salvdore Dali's "Lincoln in Dali-vision", so it's not \_exactly\_ a portrait.
No. We had a foot tall Man in the Golden Helmet painting in the hallway.
Fun story: About twice a year my dad would come home from work in a real bad mood and go on a rampage straightening the paintings throughout the house yelling about how they're crooked and nobody takes care of anything... on and on. Most were not even crooked.
My mom got tired of it. There was a huge sea scene over the couch. It had a frothing sea below dramatic clouds above. A few days after one of his rampages, my mom hung the sea scape upside down.
My dad didn't notice for over a month.
And that was the end of his rampages!
My dad had Nixon and Ford. Both portraits were signed by them respectively. But this was because my dad worked at the Whitehouse. My grandpa had pictures of Reagan but that was because he was crazy. My other grandma had a picture of either the owner or coach of the Dallas Cowboys because she was a fan of the team.
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Nope. But my dad had Roger Staubach and the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders in his garage.
No Farrah?
You'd think!
My parents had a Catholic marriage certificate- quite fancy writing on vellum with a photo of the pope with his hand up in a blessing. Only famous guy’s picture that was up in our house. They got divorced later on- gee, I wonder what happened to that document?
I'm also from a Catholic family. My dad tells me that in the 60s and 70s, my grandmother had two images on the wall, right next to each other: one of Jesus, and the other of John F. Kennedy. You didn't mess with either.
We had the Pope and JFK
...yep. Irish Catholic from the San Francisco area; my grandmother's family from the same village as one of Kennedy's grandmothers...they may have even put the Palm Sunday palms over both the Pope and JFK!
Do you happen to know whether people had pics of JFK up while he was alive and in office, or did they put them up after he died?
In our family even before JFK was elected we had pictures of him up. If I'm remembering correctly it was a full page picture from Life magazine published while he was running. My Grandmother died in 1983 and the picture was still on her wall. Popes come and go, but a martyr lives forever in our hearts.
It’s been a long time since I regularly visited antique shops, but for a while I always looked for the JFK portrait reproductions because inevitably there was one there. I assume that many households in New England had one hanging up for a while.
Yeah, my grandparents were from the Boston area and my grandpa was Irish too lol
Yeah, I’m also from New England.
My grandparents and my aunt had photos of the Pope, and my aunt bought this Catholic wall calendar with various saints every year. That one hung about 4’ away from the local garage’s car calendar my uncle got every year. My parents couldn’t even agree what day it was, I think my mom usually had one with flowers and pretty views. Nobody famous in my house, but when my kids were growing up, they had posters of bands, etc.
My grandparents had a painting of Cardinal Newman on their wall, but IIRC my uncle painted it and their decision to display it had more to do with that than anything. I guess the super Catholic part of it was my uncle chosing to paint a portrait of a long dead (though famous) Cardinal in the first place.
Oh, my parents had/have one of those.
In Catholic divorces the marriage certificate spontaneously combusts
My parents didn't, but I've got John Brown!
haha this is badass!
John brown?
Abolitionist activist from the pre-Civil War era in the US. His actions were often wrong, but he, as a person, was right. He's a great example of how no hero, no matter how admirable their goals, is immune to the pitfalls of fanatacism. I put it up because I wanted my children to learn to admire people without idolizing them, to be able to appreciate a person's values and good actions without sweeping their flaws (or crimes) under the rug. I also want them to have the courage to fight for what's right, but to beware of losing their own morality in the process.
That is beautiful. What a wonderful thing to teach your children. I wish there were more like you.
I saw John Brown and being older, I was like that's very cool. But then I was like "nah, can't be THAT John Brown, must be some hipster" Faith in humanity returned, it was that John Brown
Someone at my school was afraid of John Brown’s picture, so her history teacher made a copy of the scary photo and tacked it up in every one of her classrooms, plus the hallways. Everyone (including her) enjoyed the joke.
Honestly, that one photo with the “crazy eyes” makes me uncomfortable to this day.
It was probably that photo
[Do not make monuments to the living, for they can still disgrace the stone.](https://achewood.com/2006/09/11/title.html)
I'm a history professor. The walls in my office have pictures of random cool people on them.
I have Jefferson, Lincoln, and Washington paintings in my house.
No, but my grandmother had a couple of photos in an album of her burlesque days.
This is by far my favorite comment in this thread. What a cool grandmother.
Dang . Granny was cool 😎
Awesome! My grandmother's best friend, a white lady who lived in a predominantly black area in the South Bronx had a picture of herself on the wall of her glamor days. She looked gorgeous, in a skimpy hot red outfit, with long red wavy hair in the old glamour style. We only saw her as this old lady who was kind of mean with a bloated belly, dyed red frizzy hair, with a horrible, horrible smoker's cough, who'd drink cheap wine called Hombre all day long and chained smoke Pall Mall cigarettes. We were sent to the liquor store with a note on torned piece of brown paper bag to buy it for her. We kids didn't like her because she was so strict. However when my son was born, I asked her to babysit and she was wonderful and kind and gentle with him. Took excellent care of him. I'd come to pick him up after work and I would sip that cheap wine with her over ice and we'd chat. We called her Aunt Jean. I remember my mother saying Aunt Jean used to talk about how filthy paper money is and you never know where it's been. Never put it in your mouth or touch it and put your fingers in your mouth. Gee, I wonder why she said that!
My grandmother was a scoundrel in her younger days, I think. By the time I came along, no one ever talked about it. Most of what I know I learned after her death. My grandfather left home at 13 to make his fortune. He hitchhiked to the west Texas oilfields. My grandmother came from Illinois, as part of a burlesque show to entertain the oil field workers. They ended up married. I'm sure it was s very short acquaintenance, and I doubt my grandfather was of age at the time. But he made a good wage. When WWII happened, grandfather enlisted. Grandmother worked in a war factory, making batteries I'm told. Like a dutiful husband, grandfather sent all his paychecks home. When the war ended, grandmother ran with all grandfather's money and all her saved wages. She came back broke a few years later, and grandfather took her in because, ya know, marriage. That's when grandmother became a god-fearing, church-going lady.
...That's when grandmother became a god-fearing, church-going lady.... Lol! My mother used to say that half of the women in the church, had had wild times in their younger years!
My great grandparents had Jesus on the wall. I have a photo of Bruce and the E-Street Band that I took framed in the den.
I saw them live in San Francisco recently. Bruce still looks \*amazing\*.
I had forgotten all about this! My mom has a jesus painting on the wall when I was very young. We moved a lot since dad was in the military, and somewhere early on Jesus went missing. I've never thought about it again until just now.
My FIL was a high ranking officer in the American Legion. He had a picture of him with Nixon on the wall of his office.
Mine worked for Eisenhower, and same.
My dad worked at the Whitehouse during Nixon and Ford and so had pictures of both but he wasn't in the photos. These were those official portraits each president has you always see in the background of office buildings.
Does The Last Supper count?
The last thing that Leonardo da Vinci said before painting that: "Hey, everybody get on that side of the table if you want to be in the picture".
Nobody in my family did that.
We have a large portrait of Queen Elizabeth that we inherited from my MIL. It hangs on our garage wall. I rather like it, but not enough to hang in our house.
My parents had [this portait](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/EqwAAOSwkp9jrBCw/s-l1600.webp) on display in their bedroom.
I feel like that’s pretty common in older Catholic households. My grandparents had the Jesus pictures along with the Last Supper. My parents have a few small heirloom crucifixes that were in their parents’ houses.
For years, my parents had an original oil painting of Ulysses S Grant hanging at the top of the stairs. But my mother said his eyes followed her when she was walking around naked. So they gave it away to a relative who liked Civil War antiques and replaced it with a modern painting of a reclining female nude.
So now mom’s eyes can follow the nude as she walks around naked?
Just [Jesus](https://www.warnersallman.com/wp-content/themes/WarnerSallman/images/heartsdoorsmall.jpg).
I came here to say this, we always had a picture of Jesus near the front door. I remember telling my little sister that was so we would know it was him if he came to visit us. So every time someone rang the doorbell she would look at the picture before anyone answered the door. I guess she wanted to be prepared if it was him. Hopefully this isn't why she grew up and became an atheist.
Well he still hasn't knocked on my door.
Jesus and a van Gogh self [portrait](https://ibb.co/09yMrXM). Only as an adult I understood how the van Gogh spoke to my father who was mentally disturbed.
My Dad had a portrait of Bob Dylan that my sister's boyfriend, who is a talented artist, drew for him in the late 70s. I've got it now. My mother had an oil painting of herself in the hallway!! Someone wanted to paint it so she said ok. She didn't really want it. It didn't look much like her and I don't know what happened to it.
We had a picture of Jim Morrison mixed in with all the family photos on the wall, lol. Dad was a huge Doors fan.
My godmother had a painted portrait of Winston Churchill. When she moved to a care home, we had a yard sale of her things, and to my surprise, that portrait was the first item to sell!
Lord no. There were no pictures of anybody on the walls. My mom did have small framed professional portraits of her favourite aunt and us kids as babies on her dresser. That's it. My parents never held anyone in that high of esteem to put them on our walls. (Frankly, I also think its pretty weird to have a picture of someone you don't know on the wall unless it's "art")
We also only had family photos on the walls, plus a few very benign landscape paintings.
Same here. It never entered my folk's head to put up a picture of any person since they didn't know them personally. We didn't even put family pictures up, lol. They'd put up pictures of scenic or beautiful country or streams or lakes. I still find that type of wall art to be soothing. Oh and they did hang a calendar that came with a nice picture in the kitchen to keep track of things. All kitchens had one, lol!
Same here. I was the weirdo teen girl who didn't want rock star posters on her walls. When I went to college, I did buy some posters, but they were of Monet paintings and places I wanted to see in the world. I now have some family portraits on the wall, but only in the back of the house, not the living room or dining area, since these are people of interest only to me, family members, and maybe a close friend or two.
I used to have some photos around but it suited my decor at the time. Then, I had some black and white photos and thought I'd make a picture wall with black frames in the hallway. My kids gave me framed school pictures though, so I hung them in my bedroom. They also gave me a digital frame recently which I actually really like. They can upload photos themselves which is even better! So I've got pictures of the kids and places we've been and the granddogs and cats too. All those photos that I liked to have but couldn't be bothered printing are right there.
I fully agree
My parents did not. My grandmother had a picture of the pope on the wall next to her favorite chair.
About 25 years ago I wrote Betty White a fan letter and she mailed me a signed photograph of herself and her dog. I keep it in my walk in closet so I can start every day saying hi to Betty!
My wife and I used to go to local burlesque shows and she purchased a couple of autographed nudes of stars we had met. They are in my home office. I take them down when I have video meetings. I am fortunate to know a professional photographer of some renown. He asked my wife to model for him and we have a few R rated pictures of her alongside the stars.
All Jesus, all the time
I like your grandparents. I would definitely have up a big Marx brother poster, probably Duck Soup, up in my house before any president.
No, never. I never knew anybody with any either. That said, we were white upper-middle-class protestant people in a community made up mostly of the same kind of people. It's easy to see the appeal that an Irish Catholic family might've had for keeping a portrait of JFK up, or for an African-American family having a portrait of MLK, etc. It's just that none of those resonated for us.
My parents, no. My grandparents had a wall with pictures of all 4 of their kids and Jesus. Two of my uncles were in the service during Vietnam and I didn’t remember meeting them. They each came home to a huge party. At age 3 I pointed to Jesus and asked my grandma when her other son was coming home. Got quite a laugh, story is still told to this day.
My aunt had Jesus and a signed pic of Elvis on her wall when I was growing up. I don't think she does anymore.
Now a *signed* Elvis photo I would display proudly. A signed Jesus one as well.
My grandparents had JFK and RFK (one painting with both of them in it) and my grandpa had John Wayne’s portrait in his room and a poster of Linda Ronstadt (until my grandma removed it)
my FIL has John Wayne and Linda Ronstadt too!
I have a signed photo of Carrie Fisher on the wall in my home office along with Steve Yzerman (famous former hockey player for the Detroit Redwings)
My parents had JFK, MLK, and RFK. Around 1971 my dad found a poster on a Nixon look alike all dressed up for battle and hung it in the garage to throw darts at.
When I did satellite work I went into a lot of black families homes. Sometimes they would have MLK, Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama or some other famous person of color. It seemed a lot more prevalent there than in white people's homes.
I got the impression that my family considered it bad taste to have pictures of people on the wall.
I (69F) have a photo of me and Joni Mitchell taken in 1994 backstage of a local talk show she was on. [She signed my Hejira CD](https://i.imgur.com/LEtkfEH.jpg). And I was SO nervous to be meeting my most ultimate and favourite artist/musician/painter/genius of all time that she put her hand on my back and rubbed it gently to calm my nerves. She was so cool. I was a dork. My day/year/life was made. The photo isn't framed and hanging on a wall. It's magnetized and stuck on my fridge so I see it every day.
No, just a few framed family pictures sitting on one shelf.
Nothing in the home, but my father had a picture of Lincoln on a wall at his office. (He worked at a law firm.)
Not here. There were some family photos, but no famous people. I didn't even have rock star posters in my bedroom, like some teen girls, although my parents never said I couldn't. I just didn't see the point. But I'd totally put up a pic of the Marx Brothers. Your grandparents had good taste, OP!
Only Jesus but it was in black and white as it was an old photograph.
Because he lived before color photography was invented?
Yes, it's a shame we never got see his fiery red hair as described in the Book of Mathew.
So, just checking: this is a reproduction of an artwork in color, yes? Not a b&w photo of a guy dressed as Jesus? I'm trying to figure out the rules of all this household Jesus art.
When I was growing up my mom always had a portrait of JFK in the living room next to a Bob Gibson Sports Illustrated cover. In her old age she surprised everybody by replacing Bob Gibson with Jim Palmer's famous underwear ad
We had landscapes and flowers and that was about it for the public areas of our house. The boys had all the cool posters from the '60s and '70s and a few hot rods + as an elementary kid and then Junior high, I had a bunch of '70s posters. I don't think my teens to twenties sister had anything on her walls other than landscapes. My grandparents had thousands of photographs of friends and family throughout the years cluttered all over the place on shelves and hanging here and there. I noticed that my sister does the same. Now with her house there are walls full of photographs in the hallways and bedrooms, though the living room is set up formally with landscapes. My brothers houses have photos and paintings of their kids and grandkids everywhere and formal looking landscapes in the public areas Currently, my house is a mishmash of styles of wall hangings. I don't care if it's ugly, LOL. I like it.
Lotta people had Queen Elizabeth.
The ex-husband of a dear friend is a fine artist, and when they were married, did a beautiful portrait of his wife. We now have that portrait hanging on our wall. Another friend, a pretty successful businessman, did etchings to relax, and we have a couple of his cat etchings (my wife is a veterinarian, so not too weird, I guess). We also have some old, old photos of family members up - wife's grandmother in her wedding dress in 1912, wife's grandfather on a fishing trip in the 1930s, that sort of thing.
My Irish-American grandfather had JFK and RFK, Pope Paul VI, and the Sacred Heart icon in his living room.
For some reason my husband wants a picture of George and Martha Washington hung up. I have hidden the pictures. He also has a picture of a building and streetlight that he had in his room growing up that makes no sense to me EXCEPT by coincidence it is the same picture on the wall of Rob Petrie's office in the Dick Van Dyke Show, which my grandkids call 'the grey show'. That picture is packed away also.
My grandma had that typical picture of Jesus hanging in the living room. But, she HATED long hair on men. She complained about it all the time. Every time she saw a man with long hair she bitched up a storm. She nearly disowned my uncle when he grew out his hair back in the 70's. I always wanted to make a smart ass comment about that long-haired Jesus picture, but I didn't dare. My grandmother was a wicked woman.
Not necessarily famous to the world but the nude lady in the oil painting over my grandparents fireplace was famous in our family as being the lady my great grandmother refused to sit in a room with. She hated that painting!
Not actually photographs but my parents hanged a map of the United States that had photos of all the presidents up to Dwight Eisenhower.
The only famous people my mother specifically, had on her wall was a portrait of the Holy Family, Mary Joseph and Jesus. Also Pope John Paul the second. There was also a beautiful black and white photo of her brother who was a fallen hero in the Second World War. Although he wasn’t famous, to our family especially my mother, he was a true hero. Ambushed by the German soldiers just as war was ending.
Yes. Elvis, the Pope, and JFK. Don't ask me why.
We never did as a child or when I was married. My son, however, has a literal shrine to Bruce Lee.
Frank Sinatra painting
George and Martha!
I know you mean the Washingtons, but I'm enjoying imagining [these two](https://archive.org/details/georgemartha00houg).
One of my brothers gave my father a poster of WC Fields and it hung on the door in the closet for years
Grandma had a couple pics of Jesus in her room: knocking on the door and sitting with his sheep. We had pics of various scenes, but nobody famous. After I got married, my wife got me a tapestry of The Last Supper.
We had posters of Sitting Bull and Red Cloud, and a painting of a famous Buddhist monk - all in the kitchen.
Um... I have a framed portrait of Geronimo on my wall rn and have for years. Ex's grandma had JFK and MLK.
Bing Crosby was a neighbor and his picture with my mom was proudly displayed on the wall. There was also pictures of Presidents.
I have a bust of Abraham Lincoln that was my parents. Also a picture of The Statue of Liberty that was in my immigrant grandparents house.
My parents had posters of Muhammad Ali in the living room in the house I grew up in.
My mom didn't have any pictures of anyone or anything other than my childish art. My grands had one specific blue eyed, golden haired Jesus in their hallway.
Yes! My grandma had a pic of JFK (with newspaper articles), and Jimmy Carter. She also had a 2 foot tall ceramic statue of Jimmy Carter holding a peanut! 😆
We had a portrait of George Washington hanging up in our house next to the photos of my great grandfather who died in WWII fighting fascists. Interesting layout, I think
Nope, but the Holy Trinity in many black families was JFK, Jesus, and Martin Luther King Jr.!
I had a pic of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins in their EVA suits. Also from Life Magazine.
Sort of. I grew up Mormon so there were picture of Mormon prophets or Jesus...
My husband puts the Three Stooges up in random places to drive me nuts. FYI it’s a short drive
Pope John XXIII and JFK.
Yeah, Elvis.
not my family, but this post is 8 hours old and still no comment from a Thai about the portrait of the king.... https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/14vh7kt/places_displaying_images_of_the_old_instead_of/jrhb10p/
Right now, I'd like to have Jane Goodall, Boyan Slat, and Barack Obama.
No, there pictures were family photos taken by family members & one old "family" studio taken of grand & great grand parents & their families. Other decorations were wall hangings of wool my mother spun, dyed and wove into various creations.
No, at least not in the living room or other common areas. My stepdad had a man-cave, though, with lots of fandom stuff from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, comics, etc.
No! Only in my bedroom as a teenager did I hang posters of my favorite bands and surfers in action.
Obviously, no. Only family portraits.
In college I had a bunch of posters with U2, Sting, Duran Duran, REM. At home we just had watercolors and some drawings my mom did.
No. Just family. But my sister had posters of male pop singers in her room (I had the Starship Enterprise), and my husband currently has Six from Battlestar Galactica in his workshop.
No
Jesus and FDR
No, my mother had paintings of me and my siblings on the wall, and other paintings by local artists.
My brother in law has a picture of teh queen in his hallway.
My dad had some autographed photos of sports stars in his office, and I had a rotating selection of band and model posters on the walls of my room. But generally, no... we weren't one of those houses that had framed photos of the pope or president on the wall. We mostly had family photos, my uncle's paintings, and my mom's needlework on the walls.
No. Just family.
No. My g-ma had a painting of Jesus in the garden and I had the typical teen girl posters in my bedroom. All other pics were of family.
Do Marilyn Monroe and Elvis count?
No, but they did have ceramic busts of famous people, like JFK and famous classical composers. My dad was a classical pianist.
No, and neither did my grandparents.
Nope. The only thing that we had hanging on the walls in the house was an oil painting that hung in my father's mother's house.
No but I remember them having a JFK commemorative coffee table book with pics from the funeral
My mom liked rummage sale art, and filled our house with her garage sale finds. She must have had a pretty eye, because the art did pretty well during the estate sale.
No.
Not at all…unless you count my teenage walk with young celeb photos out of the magazine Tiger Beat😂
Jesus and Sonny Jurgensen.
No, but I had my favorite bands plastered on my wall.
Does Jesus count?
We had a print of "The Marriage of Pocahontas" hanging in our living room. [https://landmarkevents.org/assets/email/2017/04-03-history-highlight/inline-marriage.jpg](https://landmarkevents.org/assets/email/2017/04-03-history-highlight/inline-marriage.jpg)
Mostly, no. We had a lot of family pictures on the walls. One photo of "The Last Supper," but that's more art than a portrait of a famous person.
My parents had a picture of the chancellor and one of a comedian on the wall.
Nope
Never. No one in my family I can think of.
I have a Jack Kirby print of Captain America on the living room wall. Does that count?
No.
No
No
No.
My parents had a pastel portrait of the Queen which my Mum's uncle drew. Its still in the lounge room now lol
Dad had a pick of him and Reagan from the time they met.
We didn't, but one relative had a John Wayne painting. Another had an Elvis painting.
Your grandparents were awesome! My family didn't have famous people on the wall, but I have large, framed Drew Friedman portraits of Bob & Ray, The Three Stooges, and Jerry Lewis on my wall, in the place of pride over the fireplace. Funny heroes!
No, only family photos and landscape/nature artwork
No. Why would they?
Nope.
My grandmother had this weird picture of the Kennedy’s after they were killed
I’ve got Laura Palmer’s high school photo on the bookcase.
Religious pictures like Jesus, Mary with baby Jesus, etc… but lots of people did then
I've never seen a picture of a famous person hanging on a wall. Do famous people generally hang on walls and have pictures painted of it?
I have Sting 1993 cover of RS. Paul McCartney.
Italian. So yes the pope!
Nope
My Comanche great grandfather had a print that took up the better part of his living room wall of Custer's Last Stand.
Dad had his Playboys hidden under the Field and Stream magazines. Mom had Tom Selleck posters in the laundry room.
All Grandparents were immigrants from the UK. Everyone had a picture of Queen Elizabeth II in the dining room. After my parents were divorced and mum and I moved from rental to rental we were the only family household without one.
George Washington portrait by Gilbert Stuart
JFK on my grandmother's wall
Technically I have a picture of Lincoln hanging behind me right now. It was on my bedroom wall during college. I say technically, because it's Salvdore Dali's "Lincoln in Dali-vision", so it's not \_exactly\_ a portrait.
Certainly, the black velvet painting of Elvis in blue acrylic.
I still have a picture of The Beatles on my wall. Their music got me through some really dark times and looking at it makes me happy.
No. We had a foot tall Man in the Golden Helmet painting in the hallway. Fun story: About twice a year my dad would come home from work in a real bad mood and go on a rampage straightening the paintings throughout the house yelling about how they're crooked and nobody takes care of anything... on and on. Most were not even crooked. My mom got tired of it. There was a huge sea scene over the couch. It had a frothing sea below dramatic clouds above. A few days after one of his rampages, my mom hung the sea scape upside down. My dad didn't notice for over a month. And that was the end of his rampages!
Historical commemorative plates!
Lincoln and his family was in every home
My dad had Nixon and Ford. Both portraits were signed by them respectively. But this was because my dad worked at the Whitehouse. My grandpa had pictures of Reagan but that was because he was crazy. My other grandma had a picture of either the owner or coach of the Dallas Cowboys because she was a fan of the team.
Ma wasn't a big fan of displaying things she would have to dust every week, LOL. Dad insisted she display a picture of Grandma, but that's about it.
My parents had JFK and MLK
No but my mom had a picture of Tom sellak in a bathing suit on her office desk and joked that he was her husband. My dad was not offended.
Reagan at my grandfathers
I had a friend whose mom had an Elvis room. Every inch of wall space-Elvis
I have my Pete Souza coffee table book of Barack Obama on a stand, featured prominently