"adventures" contents

n the dust jacket I've designed for this book are details from a number of my portraits. On the cover you will see three world-famous evangelists: Billy Graham and his son, the Reverend Franklin Graham, and Mother Angelica, the renowned Catholic nun who broadcasts daily to a world-wide audience over her own television network. Also, there is the United States Secretary of the Treasury, the former chairman of the largest bank on earth, the former head of one of America's great television networks, the chief financial officer of the largest labor union in the world, and an African king who rules on a thousand-year-old throne. Also, the man who made the largest single financial contribution in the history of American education ($150 million in one check to New York University). I am trying to make the point that the portrait painter, in the course of his work, meets the most interesting men and women on earth. The other two women on the cover may be the most interesting of all. One is the mother of ten children and presides over one of the truly great homes of Old South, and the other, married to one of Atlanta's premiere bankers, makes her contribution as a tireless volunteer to important causes.

September 1995, in my New York studio. Here I meet an endless variety of fascinating subjects. The full length formal portrait is one of the great challenges of portrait painting. I've done several, and, believe me, they are a real challenge! In this case, I had my daughter stand up on the model stand to minimize the effect of perspective.

The inherent glamour of the profession of portraiture is hard to deny. The work involves ceaseless travel - to all parts of the country as well as internationally. But is is the subjects themselves that provide the genuine glamour — the most interesting men and women in the world. All are high achievers of the most extraordinary kind. Most are wealthy (some of my clients are numbered among the richest men and women alive). But all are people of great depth and an endless variety of interests. Before each new sitting, I try to read as extensively as possible about the background of my new sitter. I am always amazed at the breadth and depth of their accomplishments and pursuits. But I can also report that my subjects - over a period now of nearly forty years - have proved to be human beings of real warmth and genuineness. I have never had a subject I didn't like.

July 1982, in the U.S. Capitol. Painting the Majority Leader of the Senate, Senator Robert C. Byrd. We worked in the John F. Kennedy conference room just off the floor of the Senate. Whenthe painting was finished, the Senator called in his entire staff and "polled" them for an opinion. Thankfully, the response was generally favorable.

January 1993, Carnegie Hall Studio, New York. Painting the Reverend Billy Graham. My studio on the tenth floor of the Carnegie Hall buiding has been - for more than thirty years - the scene of most of my sittings. This was the first of two portraits of Rev. Graham that I painted. Ten years after this sitting, I used reference material produced during this sitting for a double portrait of Rev. Graham and his son Franklin.

May 1978, at the Royal Palace, Oyo, Nigeria. Painting His Majesty the Alafin of Oyo. I am painting a small head study of the young monarch as he sits informally. The actual painting was a full-length state portrait of the king in his royal robes. The young lady is the king's daughter - a princess of Oyo.

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