The final morning of the conference was led by two more prominent portrait artists, Daniel Greene and Nelson Shanks. Greene started off by showing slides of some of the works from his ongoing series of carnival paintings, recently on view at Gallery Henoch in NYC and also extensively covered in the art technique mags. Greene is an articulate speaker and the remaining portion of his session was devoted to Q&A, supposedly on technical issues though more of the questions went to intent and background information. I’d have liked to have gotten a question in on palette choice and color mixing, but time ran out. Interestingly, although there was almost no mention of acrylic paints at this conference and all of the principals are oil paint sticklers (with an occasional nod to pastels), Greene answered a question about acrylics giving them full-fledged status without knocking them, though he admitted it wasn’t a medium he had used extensively himself. Interestingly, Greene mentioned that he lived for a while in the 1950’s East Village and occasioned the Cedar Bar when it was the regular haunt of de Kooning, Pollock, et al., but that abstract painting wasn’t for him: he tried it but found it “too easy” and so instead he set out to continually challenge himself with representational painting.

Speaking of abstraction, the final speaker of the conference was Nelson Shanks, who can barely hide his contempt for any kind of non-representational painting (not that he tries to hide it). “Realism is the only language an artist can really use,” he said (if my notes are accurate), though “if realism is to be a valid form of art today, it needs to break barriers and not just break competence.” His talk was fascinating, though he is incredibly off-putting if you like abstraction. He slammed de Kooning and Twombly and derided Matisse as having not reached a level of artistic competence comparable to prehistoric cave paintings. Shanks is undoubtedly a very fine painter – his portraits of Lady Diana and Pope John Paul II are stunning – but I would rather spend a day looking at a room full of de Koonings or Matisses any time! (Not a big Twombly fan, myself…) He opined that in later years Renoir must have been painting mostly from the heart, without his intellect, as his later output was “pretty pathetic.” He exhorted viewers to look beyond Sargent’s brushstroke, liking brushstroke to type on a typewriter versus the words that were typed (which I think was a quote from Robert Henri). (Interestingly, as one who appreciates good graphic design and likes to learn about typeface design, I find that typeface *is* important and can make a difference in how you read the work.)

Perhaps sticking his brush in the eyes of other speakers at the conference, Shanks claimed that color is as important as value, whereas at least three other speakers had put a premium on Value, Value, Value. Shanks said that starting with a gray background is limiting and boring, perhaps needling several of the other presenters who explained that they liked to start off their paintings on a neutral gray background.

Shanks has a very high opinion of himself and claims to consider quality to be of utmost importance. Yet he didn’t give his presentation the kind of effort one would expect: his opening remarks were scribbled down at 3am and he didn’t seem to know the format of his lecture; i.e., that he would be accompanied by video to which he was supposed to be explaining his process. The introductory video was something of a barf-inducing deification of Shanks, complete with classical music and worshipful quotations from his students. Fortunately, the video showing the artist in action was much more compelling and helpful. It included a high-speed demo of the artist painting a reclining model as well as a real-time performance of Shanks painting Marisa Tomei at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The main speakers at the conference – John Howard Sanden, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Burton Silverman, Daniel Greene, Aaron Shikler, and Nelson Shanks – are all very famous names within the portrait genre of American art, or at least within the community that they themselves nurture through conferences, workshops, and magazines like International Artist and The Artists Magazine. If I didn’t subscribe to those magazines, I might not have heard of any of them (though a few of their works, such as Shikler’s JFK portrait, are iconic). With the exception of Daniel Greene, I don’t think any of these names make it to any of the same galleries I regularly visit in Chelsea, 57th Street, or the Upper East Side, so it was interesting to participate in an event from a corner of the art world that has very little intersection with my usual familiar territory.

On Saturday morning, Everett Raymond Kinstler kicked off the day with a slide presentation about the portrait artists of the past who had inspired him, including:  Sargent, William Merritt Chase, Joaquin Sorolla, Anders Zorn, Giovanni Boldini, and James Montgomery Flagg.

Following Kinstler, Burton Silverman gave a demonstration entitled “Searching for the Truth”, though there wasn’t much philosophy in the talk and instead was pretty much a straightforward demo.  Starting with a scraped down canvas from a previous painting he hadn’t been satisfied with, he began a quick portrait of his sitter, Anne E. Hall, costumed in a deep magenta hat and black coat.  Starting with very brushy strokes and working all around the canvas (in a way that made you think at first he wasn’t going to get very far), he pulled together a very interesting piece in about 75 minutes of painting.

One problem with all of the demonstrations at the conference was that the video screens didn’t seem to be properly color calibrated – they were invariably too warm and too saturated.  In addition, sometimes the camera focusing on the model was cooler while the one focusing on the canvas was warmer so that it looked like the artist wasn’t doing a great job of mixing colors.  Yet when you looked at the actual canvas rather than the screen, you could tell that the colors on the painting were more nuanced and less intense, more closely matching those of the sitter.

David Leffel gave a demonstration about “finishing” a painting, though he started with a blank (toned burnt umber) canvas.  Rather than do a complete painting from life, he painted an eye (and then a nose) from memory and brought that portion of a painting to a decent state of completion.  Leffel says that most of his “consciousness” is on the tip of his brush, either on the palette or on the canvas.  He says the most important part of learning to paint is gaining the ability to manipulate paint on the brush with total confidence so that it will do what you want.

I skipped out early from the Aaron Shikler late afternoon session because the talk wasn’t particularly well prepared and wasn’t accompanied by any visuals (and I was tired!).  Shikler is the artist who painted the official White House portrait of JFK (painted posthumously) and has also painted official portraits of Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan.  Unfortunately, by this time in the afternoon, I wasn’t in the mood for being awestruck and felt dinner was calling.

I just returned from the 3-day Portrait Society of America’s 2008 conference in Philadelphia. Why would I attend this conference, given that I am primarily an abstract painter? Well, I also enjoy painting representationally and every once in a while I paint portraits. So I went to the conference looking for some tips, some product information, and most of all for some inspiration. For the most part, the conference fulfilled my expectations.

First, some overall observations. I would guess that there were about 500 attendees at the show (although one speaker mentioned 800 copies of his brochure were printed), and it seemed that perhaps 70% were women. The crowd skewed older, with a large chunk of the audience probably over 50 years old; I think perhaps I was in the 15th percentile age-wise (i.e., 85% of the attendees were older than me). From the relatively small sampling of people I spoke with at the show, attendees came from all over the country (I spoke to artists from Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, and Long Island, for instance.)

On Friday morning, things kicked off with some introductions and then a fine, long demonstration of premier coup (“alla prima”, or “first stroke”) painting by John Howard Sanden. Sanden was well-prepared and his demonstration of putting down the right brushstroke with the right color was effective, clear, and informative. He admits to not being perfect with the technique, where in theory you look at the model, look at your palette, load your brush, look back at the model, and then place the brushstroke on the canvas. His ten tips for the process were: (1) start with a toned canvas; (2) draw with your brush; (3) the 1st stroke is the final stroke; (4) base your marks on observation alone (not what you think it should look like); (5) every stroke counts; (6) use the largest brush possible; (7) work with speed & finish in 1 session; (8) every stroke is a drawing stroke; (9) tonal judgments are the most important; and (10) be deliberate and decisive.

Sanden uses a pre-mixed set of colors for his palette, which he also sells as a set called the “Pro-Mix System”, though fortunately his demo was not a hard sell for his product and the brochure he gave out tells you how to mix his palette yourself if you want.

In the early afternoon, Michael Shane Neal talked about some business practices that he has found helpful in his professional career, focusing on how treating your customers properly and with a formal courtesy (e.g., thank you letters) can pay dividends in the form of future referrals. During his demo, he added to a portrait-in-progress that he’s working on of Sandra Day O’Connor and he brought an example of another judge portrait that he’s finishing up (because the work wasn’t yet varnished, it had a rather uneven surface sheen, but if you caught it in the right light it was a fine painting). Shane is a dynamic and engaging speaker, and though his demo wasn’t as informative as Sanden’s, it was still helpful and worth watching.

The afternoon session, though, with Edward Jonas talking about the anatomical foundation of building a face wasn’t very helpful. It was his first time giving the talk and though he’s a clear speaker and I suspect knows a great deal about facial anatomy, the material wasn’t organized in a way that provided any actionable information to the audience (other than perhaps some book references).

In the evening, Michael Shane Neal addressed a packed room on the subject of John Singer Sargent. Although the day was long and the lights were out during the presentation, Sargent’s amazing portraits and Shane’s passion for the subject matter kept me awake. Shane (and other speakers at the conference) urged viewers to look beyond Sargent’s oft-regarded amazing brushstroke and to consider his color, composition, and especially the emotional understanding of his subjects.