June 9, 2004 -- A nationwide manhunt is under way for a twisted artist with a political agenda who left disturbing paintings of President Bush and ex-President Clinton on the walls of four major museums, including New York's Guggenheim and Metropolitan, The Post has learned.

The amateur curator's stealth-like donations in Manhattan Saturday followed similar art invasions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Friday and the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., Thursday.

The wacky spree has prompted a sweeping investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI, as well as local police in three cities, sources said.

The paintings — 15 inches by 9 inches — portray the commanders-in-chief on a background of ground-up dollar bills.

A source said typewritten notes were found nearby — political rants about "money" and the artist's "protest against genetic profiling."

In all four cases, the culprit also left behind sick taunts that claim the paintings contained his bodily fluids, sources said.

"I mixed my semen in some acrylic gel medium and I painted it in the right hand corner of this piece of art," read part of one note found just after noon Saturday at the Guggenheim, 1071 Fifth Ave. "It is an artistic reference to the silent power of the biological sciences."

A source said the note had references to Web pages dealing with money, including one to moneyfactory.com, the official Internet page of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.

The Guggenheim discovery prompted a response by cops, the NYPD Hammer Team, which normally probes suspected bio-chemical hazards, ESU officers, agents from the Joint Terrorist Task Force and Secret Service agents.

Some 90 minutes later, a similar painting, "Fear and Consumption," was found hanging inside an isolated wall of the Metropolitan, near an exit in the Modern Art galleries section.

A label detailed how it was made: "Acrylic, legal tender and the artist's semen."

Museum brass were outraged. "The Metropolitan is a repository for the greatest works of human creativity over the last 5,000 years," spokesman Harold Holzer said.

"It is not a bulletin board. For us it is clearly an unwelcome demonstration of self-aggrandizement."