Portrait of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (catalog date 1953)
A studio portrait of J. Edgar Hoover seated at a desk with an FBI seal plaque, from the FBI's photographs of personnel and activities during his tenure. The catalog notes there is no original caption.
- Date
- 1953
- Kind
- photograph
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- NAID
- 518187
- Rights
- A photograph in the Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Record Group 65), series "Photographs of FBI Personnel and Activities, Taken during the Tenure of J. Edgar Hoover" (NAID 518185). The item and the series read "Use Restriction: Unrestricted." A United States government work, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The stored copy is an 1,800-pixel downsample of the catalog's TIFF.
The National Archives catalog title is “Portrait of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. [no original caption],” local identifier 65-HN-4649, with 1953 as the production year. The bracketed note is the catalog’s: the print carried no caption of its own, and the identification is the catalog’s.
The photograph is a studio portrait of a heavy-set man in a suit, striped tie and pocket square, seated in a leather chair with his hands clasped on a desk. A plaque with the FBI seal stands on the desk. The edge of the negative is visible.
Hoover was Director of the Bureau from 1924 until his death in 1972, as the description of the Hoover photograph series (NAID 518177) states. The portrait is filed as an official image of the Bureau’s director; it records no event.
