Karen Van Winkle, President of Harvard Club of Boston painted by Boston portrait artist Sonia Hale
Oil on Linen, 52″ x 59″
Custom-sized for perfect fit over foyer fireplace at Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts
First female President of the Harvard Club. Only the second oil portrait of a woman to be commissioned. (The first was the spouse of a former club member!)
I was contacted in November as a local portrait artist the Harvard Club of Boston was considering to commission a portrait painting of their president of their club. The Harvard Club of Boston has worked with top portrait artists today in the past, so I was honored to be included for this commission of a classic portrait painting of Karen Van Winkle. The process of my being selected did take some time, including when I was brought in to meet the members included in the portrait painting commission process. It was a small group and I was pleased to meet them in person on site of the club on Commonwealth Avenue. I was given a tour of the facilities and told about the mission to include women and people of color as the Club was seriously interested in representing the diverse graduates of Harvard University. This classic portrait painting of a female, to be hung over the fireplace in the most prominent room in the clubhouse was a sea change from the prior decades of portrait painting art of white men. It was an honor to be at the HCB and to hear the lovely plans. I was even more thrilled to be called a few days later to be asked about framing for the portrait painting and then be told I’d been chosen for this important institutional portrait painting.
Being a Boston portrait artist was beneficial to the scope of this fine art portrait painting, as we were on a tight schedule from the outset. We worked as closely as could be with planning a new custom size for the portrait from the prior painting: a replica of a John Singer Sargent portrait. In the end I purchased a new easel to accommodate the large linen canvas for this portrait painting and worked hard every day to bring this painting to life. When the painting was picked up by van to be taken to the framer I had that bittersweet feeling, but I knew the unveiling would be an exciting time. A few weeks later Karen Van Winkle and I stood in front of the fireplace on either side of the framed oil portrait and pulled the cloth from the portrait painting.
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