Seeing and Remembering

CEDAR RAPIDS - Even in this digital age, where snapshots go from smartphone to Facebook in an instant, the 5,000-year-old art of portraiture remains relevant.

“The painting, to me, has the power to show much more of the personality - the way that person was, they way they held themselves and the way they lived in their own world,” says Dee Ann McIntyre of Santa Fe, N.M., an artist and founding member of the Portrait Society of America.

She finds comfort in an oil portrait of her late husband, Cedar Rapids businessman Scotty McIntyre, that was painted in 2008, the year before he died of cancer at age 76.

“After Scotty died, that painting became so much of a treasure,” she says. “It captured him - his smile, his sense of humor. The way he faced life is in that painting. I don't think you can have that quality with a photograph.”

Time is one of the critical factors between the two forms, she says.

“You snap a photo, it's done, it's over,” she says. “In the time that it takes for you to sit (for a portrait), you're very meditative but your expression changes.” The resulting composite of layers and details are among the many stories a portrait can tell.

Thousands of years of portraiture is on display every day at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, but the focus will zoom in on about 78 pieces when “Seeing and Remembering: Portraits and Their Stories” opens in the first floor galleries Saturday (9/24/2011) and runs through Jan. 15. In tandem is the special exhibition of William Charles Peale's 1776 portrait of George Washington, on loan from the Brooklyn Museum through Dec. 31, 2011.

The larger exhibition was scheduled for February, but when museum officials realized the Washington portrait was going to be at the museum in the fall, curator Sean Ulmer says it made more sense to pair it with the broader portraiture show tracing works from the 1500s to today.

A public reception, lectures, demonstrations and children's activities are planned around both exhibits.

The initial idea for the portraiture exhibition came from McIntyre, who studied art in college and is a member of the Cedar Rapids art museum's board of trustees. She makes frequent trips back to the Cedar Rapids home she shared with her husband, longtime president, CEO and chairman of United Fire & Casualty Co.

The couple's portraits, as well as one of Scotty's daughter, Kaye Drahozal, will be included in the exhibition, jointly sponsored by United Fire Group, The McIntyre Foundation, Dee Ann McIntyre and the Momentum Fund of the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation.

“Portraiture is very near and dear to her heart,” Ulmer says of McIntyre. “We had done a couple of small shows that looked at portraiture, but nothing big. We wanted something that made it more interesting than just a whole bunch of portraits on the wall.

“We're fortunate in that our collection is very rich in portraiture, when you look at prints, drawing, photographs, paintings and sculpture,” he says. “We have great portraits by Marvin Cone and Grant Wood and Joan Liffring-Zug Bourret and Malvina Hoffman. We thought how nice it would be to have an opportunity to mix all of that up.

“But we still needed some overarching premise to guide the exhibition,” he says. “What we came up with was to look at portraiture more through the eyes of the artist rather than the sitter.”

Those views are arranged in six sections: artists' portraits of family members, self

portraits, artists' portraits of other artists, commissioned portraits, portraits of celebrity and portraits of community. Most are culled from the museum's collection, but others represent key loans from collectors and artists.

“Self portraits as well as portraits of family have a level of intimacy that you don't often find,” Ulmer says. “Artists portraying other artists oftentimes have a certain level of reverence that bespeaks of an admiration on the part of the artist making the portrait. It could be one of their mentors or an artist whose work they admire.”

The celebrity collection includes portraits of American Indian chiefs, Martin Luther King Jr. and an Andy Warhol print of Jackie Kennedy. The community section features paintings from Rose Frantzen's “Portrait of Maquoketa,” which was shown at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington in 2010, a photograph from Peter Feldstein's celebrated “Oxford Project” and a Norman Rockwell watercolor.

The exhibit's dedicated galleries aren't the only places visitors will find portraits.

“Portraiture is such an important part of the big picture of art, that you will probably find a portrait in every gallery in the museum, because it's part of the story,” Ulmer says. “Our Roman gallery is filled with portraits.”

The second-floor Lasansky Gallery next to the Washington room also will be changed to portraits in October.

Contemporary pieces are included to show that “portraiture is still alive and well,” Ulmer says. “It stretches back from Rome and even before, up to the present day.”

To underscore that, he says the museum will host the Portrait Society of America's Portrait Academy on Oct. 15 and 16, where participants can learn from nationally known artists through demonstrations, a panel discussion and a slide presentation. It is free to museum members and area high school and college students and is expected to draw participants from throughout the Midwest.

Why does this ancient art form continue to intrigue us?

“We still live with portraiture, we still see portraiture - everything from high school yearbooks to our pictures on Facebook,” Ulmer says. “Portraits are still very much part of our daily life. Portraiture still exists on our currency. We see it everywhere we go. ...

“Also, portraiture is really hard to do - it takes a lot of skill. I think we continue to be fascinated by individuals who possess that ability to capture not just the surface appearance but the inner life of an individual. Portraits from history have the ability to open up places and times that we don't think about all the time, like with the Washington. What was Grant Wood thinking when he drew that self portrait? What's the premise behind the ‘Portrait of Maquoketa.' These individuals are caught frozen in time for our contemplation forever,” he says.

“When you think about some of the greatest works of art ever created, or the most famous, portraiture tends to dominate. The ‘Mona Lisa.' ‘American Gothic.' ‘Whistler's Mother.' It's really amazing how often portraiture is featured in the most famous works of art.”

ARTS EXTRA

• What: “Seeing and Remembering: Portraits and Their Stories”
• Where: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, 410 Third Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids
• When: Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011, through Jan. 15, 2012; open noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday; noon to 8 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday
• Admission: Free for all ages this Saturday for Family Fun Day; otherwise $5 adults; $4 ages 62 and older and college students; free ages 18 and under and Museum Members; free for all ages 4 to 8 p.m. Thursdays
• Opening reception: 4 to 6 p.m. Friday (9/23); free admission; celebrates portraiture exhibit and George Washington portrait exhibit
• Extras: Full slate of events planned in conjunction with portraiture and Washington exhibits, www.crma.org/Events/Default.aspx
• Information: www.crma.org

Portrait Academy

• What: Educational series presented by Portrait Society of America
• When: Oct. 15 and 16, 2011
• Where: Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
• Cost: $25; free for museum members, area high school and college students
• Registration: Required by Oct. 7; call 1-(877) 772-4321 or email carolyn@portraitsociety.org
• Sessions: Demonstration by Judith Carducci, “Body Parts: Ears, Eyes, and Hands,” 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Oct. 15; “Portraiture is Alive and Well,” artist panel discussion with Judith Carducci, Rose Frantzen, Chuck Morris, Jean-Paul Tibbles and Gwenneth Barth-White, moderated by Priscilla Steele, 2 to 4 p.m. Oct. 15; slide presentation by Jean-Paul Tibbles, 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Oct. 16; “A Look Into Portrait Painting,” demonstration by Rose Frantzen, 1 to 5 p.m. Oct. 16
• Information: www.portraitsociety.org and www.crma.org