Susanna Coffey, Alix Bailey in Her Studio, 2016, oil on panel, 8 x 6 inches
The Portrait Project Artists Portraying Artists MAY 6 - 20, 2017 Reception: Saturday, May 6, 5 - 8 pm Panel Discussion: Saturday, May 13, 4 - 5:30 pm David Cohen, Mel Leipzig, Gail Levin and Jennifer Samet Artists’ Roundtable: Saturday, May 20, 3 - 5 pm WESTBETH GALLERY · 55 BETHUNE ST · NEW YORK, NY WWW.WESTBETH.ORG · GALLERY HOURS: WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY 1 - 6 PM
The Portrait Project Alix Bailey · Robert Bunkin · Susanna Coffey · Colleen Franca · Leonid Gervits Valerie Gillett · Howard Gladstone · Yuka Imata · Karen Kaapcke Eric March · Frances Middendorf · J. William Middendorf · Sharon Moreau Orly Shiv · Dena Schutzer · Donna Skebo · Clarissa Payne Uvegi
Dena Schutzer Bob F. 2016, oil on board, 14 x 11 inches
What distinguishes portraiture from every other kind of art? After all,
as Oscar Wilde pointed out, every painting is already a type of self-portrait. Put another way, every articulation of a canvas already reveals the perceptions of the artist and his or her means of organizing nature. This organization might range anywhere from Ingres’ polished forms to Cézanne’s rhythmically incised masses to Alice Neal’s fluidly corralled planes. The depicting of a human countenance, of course, demands much more than the ability to measure proportions, mold volumes and compose
details; the artist generally hopes to shape a person. The process involves, in effect, a double-translation: the revelation of one personality attempting to re-create another. The ultimate example might be Rembrandt’s portraits, which are as revelatory about the artist as about his subjects. It’s no wonder the Académie Française ranked portraiture as among the most prestigious of genres, second only to history painting. Today, portrait painting receives a little less respect. This may be because of the countless dry, academic portraits that decorate the halls of govern-
Alix Bailey Ric 2016, oil on canvas, 36 x 58 inches
ment and corporate headquarters, or possibly because the secondary market for portraiture can be comparatively slack. (Not every collector wants a likeness of someone else’s uncle.) And yet, the possibilities for portraiture—for that complex communication through which one human being captures the visual aspect of another— remain as vital as ever, and arguably still pose the greatest challenges for any representational painter. Top:
Howard Gladstone Valerie “Snapping” 2016, oil on canvas, 14 x 11 inches Bottom:
Colleen Franca Self-Portrait 2016, oil on wood, 10 x 9 inches
Donna Skebo Colleen 2017, oil on canvas, 18 x 14 inches
It was this challenge that inspired the Portrait Project, a New York-based group founded in 2011 by painter Howard Gladstone. The backgrounds of the nearly 20 artists in the group vary considerably, as do their preferred mediums, which range in the current exhibition from graphite and gouache to patinaed plaster, pastel, oil, and vinyl-based Flashe paint. Stylistically their work stretches from the meticulously life-like to the expressionistic, and from the earnestly realistic to the surreal. Methods differ, too—some of the artists work exclusively from life; others supplement in-the-flesh observations with references to photographs. Indeed, the wide variety of approaches attests to the eclectic and inclusive nature of the endeavor. The only requirement of the Portrait Project is that members produce portraits of one another.
Top:
Sharon Moreau Orly, Studio in Spring oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches Bottom:
Frances Mittendorf Dad at the Art Fair 2016, oil on paper, 23 x 17 inches
The results in this exhibition are as varied as the personalities themselves. They include works of luminous, lifelike precision (by such artists as Leonid Gervits, Yuka Imata and Eric March) and others with vividly, expressionistically carved forms (by Colleen Franca, Dena Schutzer, Clarissa Payne Uvegi and sculptor Orly Shiv). Viewers can absorb the richly atmospheric ren-
Top:
Orly Shiv Variation of Clarissa 2016, plaster with patina, 16 x 8 x 6 inches Bottom:
J. William Mittendorf Late Self Portrait oil on wood, 24 x 19 inches
derings of Valerie Gillet, Howard Gladstone and Donna Skebo, and the planar elegance of Frances Mittendorf. Some artists (Alix Bailey, Robert Bunkin, Susanna Coffey and Sharon Moreau) have placed their subjects within studio or living environments, capturing their palpable occupation of space, physically and psychically. A touch of the fantastic informs some works—humorously, in the case of J. William Mittendorf’s skeleton/self-portrait, and hauntingly in Karen Kaapcke’s palimpsest of layered images. One of the greatest rewards of experiencing these works together is identifying the same individual captured repeatedly through very different sets of eyes; in every instance one recognizes both the subject and the temperament that fashioned the likeness.
Eric March Orly 2017, pastel on paper, 25 x 19 inches
The very nature of the Portrait Project bypasses one danger of portraiture, which is the way a commissioned likeness can end up recycling the known. The sitter knows something about the artist’s style, and the artist knows to deliver something tolerably flattering. (Historically, there were often snags. As John Singer Sargent once quipped, “A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.”) Top:
Yuka Imata Eric 2017, graphite and gouache on prepared paper, 12 x 9 inches
Bottom:
Valerie Gillett Howard 2016, oil on Canvas. 14 x 11 inches
Karen Kaapcke The Painter (Robert) 2016, oil on canvas, 50 x 30 inches
None of the members of the Portrait Project, however, expects glamorized smiles or poses, because they wish for their colleagues the same freedoms they hope for themselves. Principal among these freedoms is the chance to perceive something anew, for what it really is: to embrace that unknown. Portraiture may just be the most daunting of the arts. One thinks of CÊzanne’s 1899 portrait of his dealer Top:
Leonid Gervits Golden Girl (Clarissa) 2015, oil on canvas, 26 x 26 inches Bottom:
Clarissa Payne Uvegi Orly in Her Studio 2016, oil on canvas, 36 x 30 inches
Robert Bunkin Karen Asleep by the Window 2016, Flashe on canvas, 14 x 11 inches
Ambroise Vollard, and how, after more than a hundred sittings, the master from Aix proclaimed that the contours still eluded him, but “the front of the shirt was not bad.” Cell phones, nuclear weapons and jumbo jets have vastly changed the world since Cézanne’s time, but for the painter the most basic challenges remain. In his or her own way, every artist of the Portrait Project pursues a truthful and intimate likeness, an image that goes beyond the surface of the human being before them.
—John Goodrich