HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
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HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
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Kenneth Hari |
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You gasp, amazed to learn that international artist Kenneth Hari has painted portraits from life settings of Ernest Hemingway. Thomas Hart Benton, Arthur Rubinstein, James Earl Jones, Groucho Marx, Gene Kelly, Norman Rockwell, Lowell Thomas, W.H. Auden, James Michener, John Ciardi, Salvador Dali, Dolly Parton, Andre Kertesz, John Kenneth Galbraith, James Dickey, Otto Preminger, Carlos Montoya, Gore Vidal, Bill Blass - the list goes on. And you wonder how these people have affected his life and art. As a teenager, Hari used to swim in Tennessee Williams' pool in Key West, Fla., where his parents had a house. A painter himself and critic for local Key West newspapers, Williams once wrote a double-edged critique of Hari's work: "Kenneth Hari does not paint portraits as they are but as he is. I feel he is hiding something from me. To board a train into his mind would give me a ride into a dark adventure." Hari doesn't seem to be hiding anything. He's painted hundreds of faces, all "as they are" but in his own sensitive style. They tell you he has an eye for that decisive moment in which a sitter reveals without words something intimate, perhaps something daring, about him or herself. He's done portraits of Pablo Casals, Marianne Moore, Auden, Marcel Marceau and others. Some of Hari's very early works include a la Rembrandt. No, he didn't do Rembrandt, but he learned from the masters. He grew up with famous people, he said, even Hemingway's dentist. The celebrities go to his studios in New Jersey, Tennessee, New York City and Beijing, China - or Hari goes to his subjects. For example, he said artist Giorgio DeChirico and Salvador Dali wanted to meet him at a dimly lit New York bar, where it was difficult for him to sketch. "When I complained about having no light," Hari said, "Dali told me 'You have to suffer! Dali suffers!" Ha! he painted under enormous skylight in his studio!" Though he assigns major credit to his parents for his success, his career picked its wild card with Auden, Hari said, whom he first met through a professor friend. "Then (composer) Virgil Thompson introduced me to Auden in the '60s," he said. "Auden hadn't had a portrait done in a long time, and no one excepts scholars was paying much attention to him. I called him and did his portrait. Then I was introduced to one of my first patrons, Lincoln Kirstein, the founder of the New York City Ballet. From there, I did portraits of Marianne Moore. Christopher Isherwood, George Balanchine - and the whole thing mushroomed." According to "Who's Who in America," Hari graduated from the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts in 1996 and earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Marlyland Institute of Art two years later. His work is represented in more than 300 private and public collections, including the Vatican, Lincoln Center Gallery for the Performing Arts, the Museum of Modern Art (which has his R. Buckminster Fuller portrait) and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn. The wide-eyed Hari is so animated, so full of anecdotes about everyone, all at once and with more bubbles than Lawrence Welk, that it's amazing to think what his sitting with the "silent" Marceau was like. What did the world's greatest mime and a world-class motorized talker say to each other? "Marcel is really a giver," Hari said. "The sitting went on for years with him. We would always see each other; he'd stay at the Plaza. He's very chatty. He talked about his life, philosophy. He also paints. I did about 30 portraits of him." There was a chain reaction of celebrities, the artist said: "I met a friend of Tom (Thomas Hart) Benton, who took photo's of my work to Benton, and Benton posed for me ay Martha's Vineyard. I knew Dustin Hoffman from Fairfax, Calif. high school, when I lived for three months out of the year on Vista Street with my brother. Dustin is really wonderful, a mega-star. We talked about everything." Yes, Hari whooshes from Benton to Hoffman that fast. Who in his kaleidoscopic "Hollywood" most enriched his life? "Auden," came the answer with no hesitation. "Auden changed my life. He said my portraits should serve as a unification of man, not as decorative ornaments. 'continue your portrait work, it is excellent', he wrote to me in one of many letters. In one letter he asked , 'Would you be my adopted son?' He introduced me to everyone - he was so good to me. I became known as 'Auden's adopted son', and people wanted to see my work. It opened doors for me. Harry Reasoner, who loves Auden's work, saw my portrait of him and also posed for me." And the demi-god Hemingway? "Hemingway was very clumsy and you could smell the liquor on him," Hari said. "But I liked this big guy in the leather vest, he impressed me. I met him through my father's friend Charlie Thompson, one of Hemingway's best friends and fellow hunter. Charlie owned a lumber yard in Key West. Hemingway wrote about Charlie a lot. Back then, in 1957 or '58, Hemingway was older, near the end of his life. I did about 10 pictures of him. He evidently liked me. When he saw my drawings he said, "You're really good, kid; or some tough comment like that. My brother also painted Hemingway (he painted Faulkner, too), but he didn't pursue a career as an artist. He's a businessman." Hari spoke about the "business" of portrait painting. "The National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. should take more interest in artists who are doing the kind of work I'm doing instead of being so exclusive," he said, "They wanted my portrait of Auden years ago, but they said they wouldn't buy it because Auden wasn't dead yet. A person must be dead for 10 years before they buy - it's their rules! The National Portrait Gallery in London purchased the Auden. Their attitude is wonderful!" Like Auden himself. Pargot Gallery director Alan Brown said, "(Hari's) is one of the best, if not the best, show in my six years as director. It's a privilege to be showing one of the foremost portrait painters." But Hari spurns the title of "celebrity portrait painter." "(Art critic) Clement Greenberg, who never sat for me, said to me in 1968, 'Doing celebrity portraits can be dangerous, so protect yourself," he said. "I had understood that for a long time, I don't want to be called a celebrity portrait painter because I have genuine interest in what these people are about. My work is a plastic journalism. I ask a lot of personal questions. There is a lot of exchange like with the (Eli) Wallachs. What they say becomes archival facts about their lives. I explained this to Greenburg, and he said that's what I should be doing." Among these million-dollar works of art is an exquisite sculpture work that Hari created in crystal lucite, "The Prophet", truly a million dollar piece if I ever saw one. |
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