Oh, my goodness! The Serrin Portrait....

[pegkerr]

I'd posted back in 2005 about the picture that my brother Chet had commissioned as a gift for my parents. Here's that post again:

I'd written earlier about the portrait my brother had commissioned for my mom and dad by Richard Serrin (read the story here). I got permission from my dad and from Richard to post the portrait so you can see it, so :



Here is what Dad has to say about it:

The setting is Florence, Italy or Firenze and the official location is the Piazza Signoria, Firenze. This is the second time that Richard has painted this particular Piazza. Prior to 1985 he did a very similar painting of the Piazza Signoria that is included in my brochure that I wrote and designed about Richard. We designed and wrote this brochure for a show that Richard had at the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois. This show of his work was held during 1985 at Wheaton College at the Billy Graham Center there.

The earlier painting of this same Piazza was done for his friend Lorna who Richard and Dorothy met in Florence some years ago. Lorna an American lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and Richard did a similar painting for Lorna and included 26 recognizable portraits of members of Lorna's family and friends from Florence. In the foreground of this painting is a picture of Richard on the far left handside painting the cityscape.

Originally Richard had suggested a Venitian scene, but there were four large vertical columns in this scene that would have made the figures much smaller if the vertical columns were included. So I radically cropped his suggested cityscape and Richard refused to paint according to my croppings. So I ultimately suggested that he consider repainting the Piazza Signoria at which he balked at first.

However, in the end he said in this instance I was entirely right and I am very pleased with the result. Incidentally, Richard, Dorothy and a Florence friend are also included in this painting in the far background left.

Richard said that in fifty years everyone will think that they were actually there on location.

Rob and I are in the center of the painting (I'm in the red blouse), Rob has the black hair and beard, facing the viewer. Fiona and Delia are two of the children seated in the carriage. Dad and Chet are in the foreground, studying the map. My mom is at the horse's head (in the white blouse) with my sister-in-law Heather in the denim jacket beside her. My brother-in-law Rob (Cindy's husband) is holding up his youngest son, Mitchell, at the horse's head, while Stuart, his oldest, strokes the horse's nose. I think that's Georgia, my brother Chet's youngest, in the driver's seat. Cindy's Lewis is beside Fiona and Delia in the carriage seat. The girl and boy looking at the woman with the parasol are Jack and Leigh, Chet's oldest two. My sister Betsy's family (Betsy, her husband Greg, and four boys David, Michael, Steven and Andrew) is the group of six closest to the fountain, behind Cindy with the camera.

And the basset hound is not a member of the family--just a passerby!

***

This painting is hanging on my parents' living room wall.

Oh my goodness. My dad, immortalized in Florence by the very man he was visiting when he died.

It's almost like the universe knew, didn't it?

I hope this painting will be a great comfort to my mother.