My teacher, Everett Raymond Kinstler, often said that when he looked at a painting, he was looking for three things: feeling, imagination, and the ability to communicate those first two. We recently completed our 17th year of hosting the Portrait Society’s Members Only Competition. I volunteered to judge the Commissioned Portrait category and appointed four fellow artists with extensive experience—Mary Whyte, Dawn Whitelaw, Elizabeth Zanzinger and Johanne Mangi—in jurying for the other four categories. Each judge was tasked with reviewing the work in a fair, unbiased manner and based their decisions on a myriad of factors, including technical proficiency and skill in the submitted medium and aesthetic qualities that included originality and uniqueness.
1st Place Commissioned Portrait: Grace Devito, August, oil on canvas, 40 x 30" (101 x 76 cm)
I believe our judges rose to the challenge, and included on these pages are the First-Place winners along with comments from our jurors, giving you an insight into their selection process. The top winner in each category received their choice of either a Sargent Palette or complimentary tuition to The Art of the Portrait being held April 21 to 24, 2022, in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit our website to see all the winning work and find out how you can become a member at www.portraitsociety.org.
1st Place Non-Commissioned Portrait: Mark Pugh, An Unsatisfying Ending, oil on linen, 36 x 24" (91 x 61 cm)
Commissioned Portrait
I was the judge for this category, and I was immediately drawn to the quality of light in Grace Devito’s portrait and how the feeling of the time of day has been captured as well as the exceptional technique employed. I admire the use of soft color, both in the figure and the landscape, as well as the nuance of colors in the shadows of the white fabric on the boy’s shirt. There is a great deal of depth, and the figure of the boy is beautifully weighted and balanced as he’s sitting on the rock. I love the craftsmanship and the sensitivity to this subject matter. If you look at the draftsmanship, it couldn’t be better! This is one of the finest examples of a young boy’s portrait that I have seen in a while, and Devito absolutely deserves first place in the Commissioned category.
1st Place Outside the Box: Melissa Hefferlin, Is it Safe, oil on panel, 14 x 11" (35 x 26 cm)
Non-Commissioned Portrait
Mary Whyte felt that Mark Pugh’s painting checked all the boxes for what makes up a winning work, including items like concept, originality, and a fresh perspective. Whyte says, “The draftsmanship is absolutely spot on! I love the posture, and it’s so childlike, the way her feet are sort of turned in and the hands placed just so. The composition is wonderful and daring, too, because we are taught so often not to put our subject matter right in the middle of the painting, and yet this works.” Whyte concludes by saying, “This is a terrific painting, and I’m so pleased to give this the first prize; it’s not only appealing to the senses, but also engaging and memorable.”
Outside the Box
Elizabeth Zanzinger determined Melissa Hefferlin’s painting was not only wonderfully composed, but also had a strong artistic voice and really defined the idea of being “Outside the Box.” She states, “The painting technique is deliberate and controlled, the design of the painting is balanced and yet bold. The strong visual entry point of the painting is not the girl’s face, but the wonderful turquoise chair and those beautifully painted feet, which then lead your eyes down to the portrait through a very intentional spiral of angles and shapes. The painting is not a slavish description of reality, but an expert self-aware portrayal of a space that I can enter and enjoy with thoughtfulness.” Zanzinger adds, “In its boldness, it becomes a painting more than it is a picture, which delights the eye and has a viewer returning again and again to look.”
1st Place Still Life: Todd Casey, Collection of Bottles, oil on panel, 6 x 8" (15 x 20 cm)
Still Life
Dawn Whitelaw says her job was to find the brilliant among all the very, very good submissions. She selected Todd Casey’s work based on three points, the first being Casey’s selection of unremarkable objects. There is not a container here that is the star but rather it is the entire collection and their relationship to each other: they are alike, they are different, they are transparent and metallic, opaque and neutral, round and straight. Second was how perfectly described all these objects were with very limited information. The artist did not explain everything, but he told the viewer just enough. Finally, Whitelaw concludes, “The third point for me was the color. Look at the subtle shifts in color and temperature and then follow that brilliant red through the rest of the painting as it changes intensity and hue. If you cover up that blue green at the bottom, the painting is still beautiful, but the color doesn’t sing. Then add the blue green back in. The blue green is genius, and that chalky opaque color makes all the colors look beautiful.”
1st Place Animals as the Subject: Jody Gerber, Majestic, oil on linen, 14 x 24" (35 x 61 cm)
Animals as the Subject
After satisfying basic criteria of drawing, value, edges and color, Johanne Mangi based her selection on additional factors. She says, “This painting met the basic requirements and then went beyond that. It had a sense of light, not overdone, and was very subtle. It was reminiscent of the great 19th-century British animal paintings. Every time I went back to this painting, I could see more and more. This animal had a soul.” Mangi continues, “The lion had a commanding presence but calm, alert but confident. Even the little bit of tongue adds an element of ‘What’s he thinking?’ I thought there was a lot of feeling in this painting, and I think Jody Gerber accomplished it in a big way, so there was no choice but to award it first place.”
Sincerely,
Michael Shane Neal
Chairman