HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
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HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
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Capturing Spirit On Canvas |
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The walls in Kenneth Hari's tiny, crowding Sherman Street studio are filled with drawings, paintings, and portraits of people both well-known and unknown. Whether his subjects are famous or not, however, it is their inner qualities that Hari reveals through his work. That Hari's friend W.H. Auden was a poet may not be evident simply by looking at the drawing of him that hangs behind the studio couch. But one can immediately feel the subject's deep and brooding genius. There is no mistaking the likenesses of Dustin Hoffman, Marianne Moore, Kurt Vonnegut, Elie Weisel or Dolly Parton; as objective as they are, they do not illustrate Hari as camera. "I study everything I can about my subject, everything," says Hari, who works from two other studio/residences, one in Manhattan, another in Nashville, Tenn. His studio here is above his mother Jeanette's home. It is filled with his work, stacks of books on art, art history and history, easels, and drawing tables. Although he grew up here, his heart is really in the South, he says. His subjects pose for three sittings, Hari says, and during that time they talk and talk and talk. During these conversations Hari can sense the inner life that will imbue the portrait with its special qualities. "It's developing the rapport that is part of my talent," says Hari, whose work will be featured at a month-long show starting Aug. 9 at the Jewish Community Center of Middlesex County, 1775 Oak Tree Road, Edison. "Dustin Hoffman told me that he'd rather sit for me than talk to a shrink." No one, to Hari's recollection, was a reticent subject. Everyone who has sat for a Hari portrait - and there have been hundreds - has spent the time talking. From the time he was a child attending St. Stephen's School, art and communication came easily to Hari. A high I.Q. and scholastic achievement made possible an opportunity to attend medical school, but Hari preferred art. "There was a time when I considered medical illustrating, but that simply wasn't creative enough for me," Hari says. His first commission came from Steven Mizerak Sr., father of Steven Mizerak Jr. of pool championship fame, and also a Perth Amboy native son. Hari then 12, was asked by Mizerak Sr. to do a portrait of Willie Mosconi, the reowned billards expert and businessman. It was to be done from photographs. "I was miserable," Hari recalls. "I looked at the photographs, but there was no way I could bring them to life so I called Mosconi and told him that Mr. Mizerak had commissioned me to do a painting of him from photographs. I explained that I was 12 years old, and would he please sit for me and not tell Mr. Mizerak." Mosconi agreed. "From that day on, Hari worked only from life - with two notable exceptions. He was commissioned to do portraits of the late Paul Robeson, to hang in the Robeson Campus Center at Rutgers University's Newark campus, and the late Hank Williams, to hang at the Grand Old Opry in Nashville. Hari worked closely with Robeson family members, learning about the extraordinary man and studying the family's facial musculature. He also traveled to London to watch actor James Earl Jones portray Robeson on stage, but eventually found the greatest inspiration from a bronze bust done of Robenson from life that Jones loaned him. For Williams, Hari read everything about him, talked to family and friends, even flew to his grave site in Alabama. "I had to bring him back to life," said Hari. "I had to discover all that was unique about him." Most of Hari's commissions have come from referrals. It was Auden who referred him to poet Marianne Moore, whose portrait required four sittings to complete instead of the usual three. Hari, still as aggressive as the 12-year-old who called Mosconi, calls notables he wishes to paint and asks them to pose. "They're not so inaccessible as you might think," says Hari. A partial list of portraits he has done include, starting from the A's - actress Eve Arden, celebrity attorney Melvin Belli, cellist Pablo Casals, writer Peter DeVries, architect R. Buckminster Fuller, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, dancer Gene Kelly, comedian Groucho Marx, soccer player Pele, and illustrator Norman Rockwell. About a year ago, Hari turned over management task for his work to Rachel Frey, of Eastman & Associates Art Gallery in Keasbey. Currently Hari is completing a portrait of television newsman Harry Reasoner and working on portraits of husband and wife Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson. He's negotiating with Kaye Ballard and has just accepted a commission to paint songwriter Larry Henley. "Despite the long list of credits, Hari is not "portrait painter of the stars," he asserts. He has painted many people who are not famous, including one he remembers fondly, a bank teller in Nashville who saved enough money from her paycheck to have a portrait done. |
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