2 minute read
UP CLOSE & PERSONAL
FROM CELLULOID TO LINEN, A LEGEND IN THE MAKING
UP CLOSE & PERSONAL
Last Days of Steel
RON DONOUGHE OIL ON LINEN, CA. 2012
n the Billiard Room, the lively hot spot in the first floor of the Duquesne Club, history holds its breath. Yes, the smack of cue ball against stripes and solids clicks and clacks along the hushed green of the baize – a time-honored tradition dating back to the rise of Pittsburgh’s steel barons. Yes, conversations at the bar tend toward the topical. Yet with a suite of legendary details paying homage to the storied space (the engraved silver trophies of bygone billiard tournaments still stand proudly), none are as symbolic as Last Days of Steel. I
The oil-on-linen painting is as much a fixture in the Billiard Room as the pair of noble tables awaiting the next round of sport. Last Days of Steel is the heartwarming hearth for all who gather here: the dying embers recall a dearly departed industry; the fleeting sparks illuminate the hulking shadows of the Cambria Iron Works; and the story behind its creation goes deeper than a mere tribute to a long-gone furnace. The painting is but the final frame in local lore dating back generations. The work of art, it turns out, is based on rare film footage.
At first, Last Days of Steel was a proud steel mill in Johnstown that birthed major technological innovations copied throughout the world. Cambria Iron Works’ most revered heritage was immortalized in “The Mystery of Steel,” a film produced by The Magic Lantern and exhibited at the Heritage Discovery Center’s Iron & Steel Gallery. But when painter Ron Donoughe meets multimedia producer Greg Kurkjan from The Magic Lantern in Bloomfield, serendipity becomes the muse. And, evidenced by his frame-by-frame
editing process to source the material, Donoughe has struck the richest ore of artistic expression.
Now in the permanent collection of the Duquesne Club, the 4-foot-by-6-foot oil-on-linen Last Days of Steel is the final painting that Donoughe created for his Johnstown exhibition in 2012.
The Lawrenceville-based artist has been painting the Western Pennsylvania landscape for 35 years, with his work on display at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, The University Museum at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the Senator John Heinz History Center, and many corporate and private collections.
Documenting the Western Pennsylvania landscape through painting has been my focus for the last 30 years.
– Ron Donoughe
