Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I knew Fred would be an artist when he was four years old. He started to create a complex color drawing: 24 inches long and 20 inches wide. The drawing started with a boat, then an iceberg was added followed by sharks and other underwater creatures. The drawing would be worked on for weeks at a time and then put away for months before being taken out again. He completed the piece just before his sixth birthday. As complex as the final artwork became, it was not cluttered. Plenty of white space to rest the eye, create flow and add dimension.

We kept that drawing for years until it was lost in one of our many moves: probably the last Los Angeles to New York escapade. I may not remember all the details of the drawing, but I do remember with crystal clarity my son lying on the floor surrounded by colored pencils and crayons, his face fierce with concentration as he created artwork that was bigger than he.

For most of Fred’s early years, it was just the two of us. Bringing a child up on your own is an awesome task. Bringing up a future man is, for a single woman, the stuff a million fiction and non-fiction books are based on. Men of any age tend to be a bit prickly when they are challenged doing their men stuff—like protecting the woman of the house or experimenting with things that go bang. Our battles over the years have their basis in my need (duty?) to be his parent and his need to be independent and do his man stuff without my interference. Despite all the turbulence of his upbringing, he is a gentle soul and respectful of other people’s right to self-determination.

When Fred was studying at the School of Visual Art in New York his fine art professor, John Foote, asked me for permission to paint a portrait of Fred. John Foote is an accomplished portraitist and has painted Robert F. Kennedy, the English acting “Sirs” Olivier, Gielgud, Ustinov and many icons of dramatic and political theater. The portrait of Fred shows a young man in a moment of contemplation; the deep-set eyes are steady as he gazes into his future and light falls on strong expressive hands resting on a knee. The portrait won an important competition for Mr. Foote and has been exhibited in galleries over the last fifteen years.

A few days ago John Foote called me. The letter I sent some years ago inquiring about the portrait had slipped down the side of a filing cabinet and he just found it. He is quite old now, 86 this year, but still sharp of mind and eye. The painting is ours if we want it he said. Want it? I dream of that painting!

Soon it will arrive in Minneapolis and “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” will live in my home and then Fred’s and, possibly, my grandchildren’s; an inspiring and enduring image of a young man, an artist and a very real human being.