HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
|
HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
         |
|
|
Portrait Artist Brushes Up On Country Music |
|
Artist Kenneth Hari figures some 80 well-known literary and entertainment figures among his subjects, including Carlos Montoya, flamenco guitarist; Dustin Hoffman, actor; Ravi Shankar, sitarist; Henry Mancini, composer; James Dickey, poet; Melvin Belli, attorney; Angela Lansbury, actress; Pablo Casals, cellist; W. H. Auden, poet; Irving Stone, writer; Gore Vidal, writer; Bill Blass, fashion designer; Erskine Caldwell, writer and Norman Rockwell, painter. Recently, Hari was commissioned to paint portraits of 15 country music stars, recipients of the George D. Hay Award. All of the paintings will be permanently hung in the lobby of the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. Hay was the originator of the title, Grand Ole Opry, and the award was established two years ago for those whose musical or administrative talents had been instrumental in the Opry's growth. In St. Petersburg visiting friends recently, Hari was accompanied by photographer, Scott Matu, who is completing a book about Hari's life as a painter. A native of Perth Amboy, N.J., Hari was 10 when he had his first exhibit at Greenwich Village in New York. At 12, he received his first commission with a portrait of Willie Mosconi, billiard champion. He entered college at 14, studied at Johns Hopkins and at 19 entered Yale University's department of Art and Architecture. Hari says he studied anatomy at Johns Hopkins to learn more about the make-up of the human body. "Being an artist is not easy... artist are not respected in this country. They're not even considered as prestigious as entertainers". "I get bitter like everybody else who has to struggle like we do. Have you ever seen an artist on television? I mean just talking about the art world? The only person who gets on every once in a while is Salvador Dali," Hari says. "The only way an artist can become prestigious and wealthy is to die. I guess all of these deprivations make artist even more determined to make it. I've never thought of giving up the profession." Hari knew nothing about country music when he was commissioned to paint the winners of the Hay award. So he started reading. He buried himself in the stacks of the Vanderbilt University library in Nashville browsing over letters, articles, diaries, and because some of the Grand Ole Opry award recipients were dead, he had to reconstruct their looks through descriptions given by relatives and close friends. "Hank Williams died in 1953 at the age of 29. I went to his home in Georgiana, Ala., and talked to his cousin and a friend of the man who taught him how to play a guitar as a young boy. The elderly man described how Hank looked and I got Hank Williams' first cousin to pose. "I also made a trip to Montgomery to talk with Freddie Carr, who used to chauffeur Hank Williams. One night, Hank had Carr drive him from Montgomery to Ohio while he slept in the back seat. In one of the towns the police stopped Carr for speeding and asked who that was sleeping in the back seat. Freddie told him it was Hank Williams and the trooper reached in the back and shook him. Hank had died in his sleep. People go to his grave in Montgomery and chip away a little of the stone, just so they can say they have something of him. It's real sad". "I get involved with every one of the 15 people I've painted for the Grand Ole Opry hall. They're good people. Still country, with no slick commercial attitudes. They're just ordinary people who do their own cooking, cleaning. I think Minnie Pearl is the only one that has a middle class background. "Sometimes I work through the night trying to finish a portrait of one of these Grand Ole Opry singers. It takes almost a month to do each one. It's really something because one month I'll be in Nashville working and have to fly back to New York to complete a portrait of Arthur Rubinstein. Then I'll fly back to Nashville," says Hari, smiling at the irony. Two paintings were sitting against the couch in the living room as he talked. Hari pointed to the portrait of Cohen T. Williams, chairman of Martha White Foods Inc., a benefactor of country music and the emblem of Martha White Foods in the background. The other portrait is of Uncle Dave Macon, one of the founders of the organization. Macon is dead and Hari says he had to become a detective to find an elderly black man who knew Uncle Dave. "This elderly black man was named Deford Bailey. When I found him he was living in a nursing home. It took a lot to convince Deford that I wasn't out to do something wrong to him or to Macon's image. "I've accumulated so much material on country music that I'm going to donate it to Vanderbilt University. I have pictures, letters, photostats, just tons of material. I watched movies, movies, and more movies." Every picture I've painted I've tried to make a masterpiece. I guess all artists do that. I've also learned a lot of people. All of the classical people I've painted have a lot of respect for the country music people and a lot of the country music people listen to the classics. "Ten years from today I just want to be a humanitarian. I want to paint the faces of the races of man and I'd like to paint murals depicting peace," Hari says. Of some of his most famous subjects, Hari says: "Marcel Marceau was a very kind, warm, generous man. But his face was hard to paint. He had such a rubbery face, full of movements. "Maria Von Trapp was very nice. She's like a Mother Superior. "I painted Alexis Weissenburg, concert pianist, and just learned that I will be guest of honor at his home in Bulgaria when they have their big festival next June. They'll unveil the portrait at that time. "I enjoyed painting Norman Rockwell, he's just like his paintings. While I was drawing him he was painting. He likes all other painters and calls himself an illustrator. "Dustin Hoffman was very low key. He was easy to paint. "My greatest disappointment was missing out on painting Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. I had set up time to paint both of them and both died before the date they were to sit. But I have been commissioned to paint several portraits for the jazz museum in New York." |
|
HOME | ABOUT | SCULPTURES | PORTRAITS | LITHOGRAPHS | QUOTES | MUSEUMS | NEWS | CONTACT |
