Sonia Hale with Everett Raymond Kinstler at the Connecticut Society of Portraits’ event in 2012.
There is a deep sadness in the art world this week for those of us who studied and were mentored by Everett Raymond Kinstler, a famous portrait artist who painted U.S. Presidents including Ronald Reagan George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Ray brought the teachings of John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla (and other Master artists) to his students and mentees—and implored us to work from life and to paint landscapes to better our understanding of depth and light. I followed his advice and studied portraiture by learning to paint from life and grew to enjoy painting outdoors.
I grew up in the Boston area and as a child was enamored with John Singer Sargent’s portraits at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. While I grew up an artist at heart, drawing and painting from an early age, when I saw ERK’s portraits I stopped in my tracks and I was drawn to study from him. There was something about his skin tones that were radiant. I watched him demo paint (He called it a stunt, but it certainly never looked like one to me!) many times, but the first being at the Copley Society of Boston in 2001. His ease and rapidity of painting, the fluid strokes and confidence were captivating. While he performed his “stunts,” he’d regale us with enchanting stories of his life as an artist.
Later I would take classes with him at the New York Art Students League and attend the Portrait Society of America conferences in Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Washington, DC, to learn as much as I could from this artist, who’d been mentored/studied with several artists who studied with John Singer Sargent. He was a very generous artist to say the least and in addition to giving me feedback with original portraits, he would review my photographic prints of my portraits and write back his thoughts on how I could improve them. Then email came onto the scene and I’d email him images and he’d write back sometimes within a few hours his thoughts on how I could improve my portraits, most of which were children in the beginning. He would write, “You have a charm and lovely quality in painting children.”
I would go on to immerse myself in self-study by painting numerous copies of Famous portrait artist John Singer Sargent’s paintings and study JSS’s teachings to learn all I could about his techniques and philosophy in painting.
I was able to attend events which honored Ray, such as a the Connecticut Society of Portrait Artists, when he received a Lifetime Achievement Award, his show at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts and see him at the Portrait Society of America conferences. He was a remarkable man and I’m so incredibly grateful to have met him and have studied and been mentored by him.
Tony Bennett, Famous portrait artist Everett Raymond Kinstler and Peggy Kinstler, Norman Rockwell Museum show, Massachusetts.
Famous portrait artist Everett Raymond Kinstler speaks at Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts.
(photos by Sonia Hale and are not to be republished or used in any manner without her consent.)