Greetings from Philadelphia

[Garth Herrick]

Hi Chris: No, I have not studied with Nelson Shanks, but he has had a couple of free demontrations over the years that I was able to see with the crowds of admirers. One was at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts about 6 years ago.

He is worth watching, but a man of few words, so during the demo some other portrait painters and I got bored and looked at the museum galleries, and returned just in time for the last strokes of the eye lashes! It was interesing how he can make a commanding alla-prima portrait so clean and direct in just a couple of hours in front of six hundred people. His direct approach mostly began with two values in the face: a shadow mass tone and a light mass worked up aganst it. He kept the colors fairly warm and rich, and the nose began as a red triangle that was later worked into. Every feature was masterfully reduced to a couple of very deft strokes. He managed to keep all parts of the painting developing simultaneously, which I suppose is one of his secrets of success.

I visited his Studio Incamminati during an open-house, and it is a beehive of amazing talent and student productivity. Everybody uses exactly the same prescribed pallette, and most of the paintings are vibrant technicolor figure studies.

I was fortunate to be a guest of Nelson Shanks at his fabulous riverside villa, one evening in 1990 as I tagged along with Capt. Dent of Leonardo da Vinci's Horse. Shanks invited us to see his latest 15th century limewood sculpture aquisition. He has a collection of art to die for!

I am pretty sure Nelson Shanks does not remember me, but we both have mayor's portraits hanging together in City Hall.

Garth