MOURNING DOVE
Acrylic
28 x 42 inches
Collection of the artist
Published: How To Discover Your Personal Painting Style, author: David P. Richards
Published: Portrait Inspirations
Award: Elizabeth Erlanger Memorial Award, National Society of Painters in Casein
& Acrylic
Perhaps the most emotionally involved the artist ever was with a painting was
with this portrait of his brother Rick. Both the artist and his brother were
huge fans of the ex-Beatle John Lennon and this painting depicts his brother
in the month following Lennon’s murder. Rick, the ornithologist of the
family, had just lost a friend who was killed in a car crash returning home
from a hawk banding excursion. Now the murder of Lennon had him immersed in
a sense of deep loss over these needless deaths. In his brother, the artist
saw what seemed to be the feelings of people all over the world over this senseless
tragedy. With Lennon being a political dove and his brother being a bird lover
who was in mourning, the artist titled the painting “Mourning Dove”,
feeling it was the perfect thematic title.