HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
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HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WORLD |
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Intermission - The Arts in N.J. |
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All of the people whose likenesses were in the Perth Amboy house were famous. There were writers Katherine Ann Porter, Kurt Vonnegut and W.H. Auden, actors Dustin Hoffman, Marcel Marceau and Eve Arden and personalities Bill Blass, Salvadore Dali and Ravi Shankar and Kenneth Hari. Hari, who owns the house, is going to be famous because he painted portraits of all the rest. Hari began painting famous people several years ago at the suggestion of Auden, who encouraged him to put everyone into a book. "You'll have a great big party of the world's biggest names in your book," Auden told him. Others in the book will be Gene Kelly, Pablo Casals, B.F. Skinner, James Dickey, Buckminster Fuller, Groucho Marx, Marianne Moore, Andres Segovia and Norman Rockwell. Collection of Hari's work is now on exhibit at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick. This will probably be one of the last large exhibits of his 85 noted personalities because he will either put together his book or gradually stop painting celebrities. "I've done a great number already and I'd like to move on to other important projects," said Hari. "Next, I would like to paint scenes related to the thinking of the mind." He has approached some of his famous subjects and some of them have contacted him. Auden suggested some of his friends and, when they saw Hari's work on them, they turned him on to others. Now noted people call him and ask for a portrait. Unlike many artist, Ken Hari will only paint people he likes. "I think that's logical, because what comes out of an artist's brush is an interpretation of how a person looks. People I don't like would look like it. I just won't do it. If someone asked me to paint President Nixon's portrait, no matter what the fee, I probably would not do it. I've turned down several noted people at handsome fees because I did not like them," he said. Because of this philosophy, all of his portrait sessions are pleasant. He has driven through New York with Dustin Hoffman and spent a week doing an incredible 22 different portraits of writer Katherine Porter, who was 84 when he painted her. He has joked with Eve Arden and philosophized with Dali. He has been complimented on his work by subjects as far ranging as Henry Kissinger and Gore Vidal. "I've found, generally, that the more famous people are, the nicer they are. All of my subjects, with the exception of Otto Preminger, have been very friendly. They all extend themselves and go out of their way to be cooperative. They understand that portraits take time. These are all people who live in a very fast, time-short world, and yet they will work with an artist in his work," said Hari. He likes to talk to his subjects for at least an hour before he starts his portrait. Then he tries to bring into his strokes what he knows about their careers. He does not want to misrepresent them. Some of his favorite subjects died before he was able to start painting. Two of those were Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Others have been unavailable when he was. Some of the people he has painted were - and are - unknown. He predicts fame for them, however. Two people he is trying to contact for portraits now are writers, Eudora Welty and Jerzy Kozinski. "I started painting when I was ten and I love it," said Hari, who was graduated from the Maryland Institute of Art. He declined acceptance at Yale graduate school because he felt he could learn more about art on his own. |
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