From the archives: Documenting a life and a time

This story was originally published in Newsday on April 30, 2005

About three years ago, Stephen Fishbach of Great Neck asked artist Marvin Mattelson to paint a surprise portrait of his 82-year-old mother, Sylvia.

There was just one little twist: Paint her not as she is now, Fishbach said, but as she was 65 years ago, a high school senior with penetrating blue eyes and a high, unfurrowed brow. That was the Sylvia in a faded head shot, taken for her 1937 high school yearbook, that Fishbach handed Mattelson for the secret portrait.

While Fishbach scurried about helping Mattelson arrange other details for the painting of Sylvia at 17, Sylvia at 82 sensed something was going on.

"I said, 'What is he up to now?'" she recalled.

But, said her son, "She couldn't figure this one out."

Portrait of a trend

Actually, the secretive goings-on in the Fishbach family are not that unusual.

Paintings of aging parents, often created as a surprise, are in today's pantheon of frequently commissioned portraits, alongside those of soon-to-retire corporate chiefs, middle-aged couples celebrating their 25th anniversary and people reaching key birthdays (especially that bittersweet turning point, the 50th).

Iconic legacies also include family portraits, posthumous portraits, animal portraits, people-with-animal portraits. In one case, even a marital breakup - more usually cause for a hasty cancellation - may have spurred the husband to commission a pastel portrait of the wife for her 60-something birthday. "Maybe he considered it a parting gift," the ex-wife, who lives in Huntington, says wryly.

These forays into painted, sculpted or drawn immortality vary in cost from less than $1,000 to more than $200,000, depending on factors such as size, medium, number of people portrayed, complexity of the background and reputation of the artist. No matter what price, the impulse behind the art is the same, said Marian MacKinney, director of Portraits Inc., a firm that matches artists to potential clients across the country.

"It can fit into one word - documentation," said MacKinney, whose Manhattan gallery is loaded with sample portraits of men, women, teens, children and dogs. "You're documenting a life and a time, regardless of what the subject matter is, really."

At one time, women - having reached what used to be delicately termed "a certain age" - were reluctant to be "documented," MacKinney said. "They felt they were over the hill. But now it's one of the fastest-growing areas. The glass ceiling is being broken. A lot of women are in business, academics, politics and the clergy," and like their male counterparts, are now the subjects of official portraits ordered by their companies, universities, government offices and churches or synagogues.

For Fishbach, the goal was more personal. When he approached Mattelson to paint his mother's portrait, Fishbach recalled, "I wanted anyone looking at the portrait who knew my mother during that time period to recognize her - but anyone else to look at it and see a beautiful person."

Having had his own portrait done by Mattelson in 2001, at age 48, Fishbach - a New York City intermediate-school science teacher who gave up summer vacation trips to help pay for the paintings - had confidence in the artist. He gave him latitude in turning a mere head shot into a full-length, dynamic portrait of young Sylvia.

So Mattelson, who, like Fishbach, lives in Great Neck, took an imaginative leap, painting her clad in a maroon high-necked mandarin dress, lounging on a carved-wood Chinese couch decked with yellow damask pillows. (A model stood in for Sylvia below the head.)

How did it go over?

"I didn't know the way my mother would react," Fishbach acknowledged recently, recalling the party last fall at which the painting was presented to his mother in the presence of some 30 friends and relatives. "But when she walked into the room, she said, 'Oh my god - it's me!'"

It was an expansive party, attended not only by the artist, but by the model, her boyfriend and her mother. "It was extremely emotional," Mattelson said. "People were in tears. The model's mother ... tears were running down her face. And she didn't know anyone!"

Unlike Fishbach, whose scholarly interest in portraiture (he collects antique portrait miniatures) led him to welcome the Chinese theme, most clients probably wouldn't let the artist depart so freely from reality.

Or rather, from a somewhat enhanced version of reality.

"We have a five-and-five rule - everyone wants to look five pounds thinner and five years younger," joked MacKinney of Portraits Inc.

Mattelson concurred: "I tell people my purpose is to paint them on the best day they never had."

Intimate dynamic

In fact, most portrait artists work collaboratively with their clients, photographing them first and getting feedback on their favorite angles and poses. The give-and-take is intended to forestall major disappointments, misunderstandings and disputes ("Are you kidding? I don't look like that!").

"I might say, 'I love your nose, it would be great to do a profile,'" Mattelson said. "And they say, 'Oh, I hate my nose!' Then I would not do a profile."

Client-artist deliberations aren't just about bad profiles and heavy jowls, though. Clients may tell the artist about a meaningful object - a memento from a loved one, a family heirloom, a significant book - that they want included in the portrait.

Stephen Fishbach was painted with examples of his collection nearby, and Sylvia Fishbach was shown wearing a ring made specifically for her graduation.

For the portrait of real estate magnate Peter Malkin, artist Daniel E. Greene included a more prominent icon: the Empire State Building, seen from the 48th-floor window of Malkin's office. "It is the most widely known building in our portfolio of properties," said Malkin. "And of course, following 9/11, the Empire State Building perhaps became an even more important symbol."

The window view was suggested by Malkin's son Anthony, who commissioned the portrait as a surprise 70th-birthday gift last year. The younger Malkin worked closely with the artist, providing photographs, articles of clothing and a description of his father. (Greene also photographed the office while the elder Malkin was away.) The resulting painting - now in a company conference room - is "wonderful," Peter Malkin declared.

Wide price range

While Greene's portraits in oil or pastel (he is a renowned pastelist) can range from $25,000 to $60,000, many artists charge substantially less.

Mattelson, for example, charges $3,000 for a "portrait vignette" (the head is finished, the rest of the painting less so), though his regular fees are $5,000 and up. A drawing in pencil or charcoal could be commissioned from a Portraits Inc. artist for $1,500.

Art via computer

And Jerry Schuster, based in Durham, N.C., may charge as little as $560 for a portrait that's an admitted "hybrid" - initial color and composition (based on a photo) are done by computer, then the work is applied to canvas and finished by brush in acrylic paints.

Jodi Garcia of East Setauket commissioned Schuster to paint her parents, Allen and Cynthia Simon, as a surprise for their 37th anniversary in 2003. The inventor of the Wee-Wee Pad and other products dear to pet owners, Simon and his wife, former East Northport residents, divide their time between a Fifth Avenue apartment and a home in Boca Raton, Fla.

"It's very hard to get my parents a gift because they have everything," Garcia explained. But the portrait, for which Garcia paid "about $1,000," was just the personal touch she was looking for. Its computer origins never bothered her; Schuster "makes the picture come to life," she said.

Kasia P. Wittie's work also begins at $1,000. But the Huntington artist's rapport with her patrons may be - to borrow shamelessly from the TV credit card commercial - priceless. The psychologically delicate process of portrait sittings, when the client poses for the artist, may be when such rapport counts the most.

"It's almost as though you're naked. You have clothes on, but you feel very exposed," said Elaine Tosti, the Huntington woman who feels her dissolving marriage may have triggered the commissioning of the pastel portrait by Wittie.

If the circumstances behind the work remain a little vague, Tosti's feelings for the work, which now hangs over her fireplace, couldn't be clearer. "I love it," she said. Wittie "imparted some glow that maybe I'm not aware that I have, or mystery. You want to say, 'Who is that woman?'"

Many artists and almost as many ways to find them

Here are some resources for finding a portrait artist.

Portraits Inc., 7 W. 51st St., 212-258-2233. This third-floor gallery, in business since 1942, represents some 150 artists. Many examples of their work are on view. (visit www.portraitsinc.com.) Director Marian MacKinney will discuss the preferred style, budget, medium and other factors in linking client with artist.

A Stroke of Genius, Palm Harbor, Fla., 727-738-1688, www.portraitartist.com. A Web site that provides online links to more than 100 artists (who pay a monthly fee to the site), along with information about artist selection and the commissioning process. Artists may be contacted directly or with the help of site founder Cynthia Daniel.

American Society of Portrait Artists, Montgomery, Ala., 800-622-7672, www.asopa.com or e-mail info@asopa.com. The nonprofit organization's Web site includes links to portrait agents (who can contact artists for you) and other resources.

Also consider referrals. If you've seen a portrait you like - in a friend's home, for instance - get the artist's name and follow up. Many artists connect with the majority of their subjects through such word of mouth. Art schools also may feature exhibits by instructors and advanced students who are well-known - or up-and-coming - portrait artists.

Immortalized

What makes a portrait memorable?

The most famous one in the world (top), painted by Leonardo da Vinci in 1503-5, not only has that mysterious "Mona Lisa smile" but a smoky delicacy that was the envy of the artist's contemporaries. Best guess about her identity: Lisa Gherardini, young wife of rich Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo.

No doubts about the identity of Gilbert Stuart's subject (center), painted in 1796; George Washington was, by Stuart's account, so stiff a sitter that he was "appalling to paint."

Alice Neel's portraits, such as her 1967 painting (above) of art curator Henry Geldzahler, were unflinchingly honest. She cast Geldzahler, one critic said, "as a Humpty Dumpty egghead."