For a man who describes himself as very shy, Don Bachardy nonetheless engages almost daily in an act of extreme intimacy, often with strangers. These silent encounters, always held in daylight, last many hours and involve no physical contact. Bachardy is a portrait artist, and his work depends entirely on the presence of live models. Each work is completed in a single sitting, with the departure of the model registering with Bachardy as “the breaking of a spell.” Bachardy’s all-consuming focus produces paintings charged with great immediacy and intensity. These works go far beyond reproducing mere likenesses, probing deeply and unflinchingly into the interior world of each sitter. Sessions, lasting from two to as long as nine hours, require the sitter to remain absolutely still while maintaining eye contact with Bachardy throughout. “It gives me direct access to their energy,” the artist told the Palisadian-Post during a recent interview in his Santa Monica Canyon home and studio. “In fact, their energy helps me do the picture.” Virtually every day for the past 45 years, Bachardy, exceptionally fit and energetic at 70, has immersed himself in portraiture, a niche he’s occupied throughout his artistic career. “I’ve never found anything as varied or challenging as working with another person,” says Bachardy, who adds that he’s done enough landscapes and still lifes to know they don’t excite him nearly as much. An exhibition of Bachardy’s portraits entitled “Celebrities, Friends and Strangers,” largely composed of recent work, is currently on view at the Huntington Library in San Marino. As the show’s name suggests, Bachardy’s sitters fit every classification, but the celebrity list runs the gamut of “Who’s Who” in Los Angeles, past and present. A past-her-prime Bette Davis famously quipped “Yep, that’s the old bag” upon viewing Bachardy’s 1973 portrait of her. Governor Jerry Brown shunned convention by commissioning Bachardy to do his official portrait, which now hangs in the California State Capitol Building. Sir Laurence Olivier turned down a request by David Hockney for a sitting, making the session he agreed to with Bachardy a charmed and nervous-making occasion. Hitchcock agreed to a sitting, then died before it could happen. Bachardy faithfully keeps a journal, including detailed accounts of sittings with celebrities. These entries are reproduced in “Stars in My Eyes” (2000), a book that shows off Bachardy’s talent as a no-holds-barred raconteur in addition to being a superb draftsman. Entree into the world of the famous–especially prominent artists and literary figures–came about when the 18-year-old Bachardy met Christopher Isherwood, the celebrated expatriate British author who was 30 years his senior. The two became lifelong partners, living together on Adelaide in Santa Monica Canyon until Isherwood’s death in 1986. The young Bachardy was introduced to Isherwood’s friends, people like Aldous Huxley, Dorothy Parker, W. H. Auden, Ana’s Nin and Francis Bacon, many of whom later sat for portraits. Isherwood was Bachardy’s first live model, a happening that inspired the young artist to formally pursue studying art at Chouinard in his 20s. In fact, Isherwood became Bachardy’s most frequent subject over the next 33 years, with hundreds of drawings and paintings produced. On the day Isherwood died, Bachardy spontaneously decided to spend the day drawing his corpse. “He was both my first life subject and first death subject,” Bachardy recalls in “Stars in My Eyes.” “He always took such an interest in the work I was doing,” Bachardy says. “That kind of encouragement is golden.” Bachardy credits his artistic awakening, largely driven by Isherwood, already a well-established writer, as the saving grace of their relationship. “We both knew staying together depended upon my making something of myself.” The seeds of Bachardy’s talent were planted during childhood in Los Angeles when, mesmerized by the giant images of actors he saw on movie screens, he began to draw these same faces by copying photographs he saw in magazines. Later, he dreamed of becoming an actor, but recognized how the profession “would have cost him dearly” due to his inherent shyness and the chancy nature of the business. “I realize my fundamental craving to be an actor is in what I do,” says Bachardy in his characteristically gentle, well-spoken manner. “My work is really a form of impersonation. I have an instinctive ability to identify with my sitter, which comes from those early years of moviegoing when I identified with the actors on screen. My portraits are really self-portraits in costume.” Bachardy’s earliest works were pencil and ink washes. He switched to strictly ink drawings in the late ’70s, eventually moving on to color using acrylic paint on paper by the mid-1980s. “He has pulled out all the stops on what this medium can do,” says David Koslow, the artist’s agent, referring to the remarkable, almost watercolor-like effect Bachardy achieves with acrylic paint. Lately, the artist has experimented with using a colored ground as the backdrop for his portraits. Koslow casts Bachardy’s art as psychological portraiture. “Like John Singer Sargent’s great work, Don catches the sense of the private person behind the public mask.” Subjects often remark to Bachardy “I look so sad” when seeing their portrait. “People are accustomed to smiling for photographs,” Bachardy explains. “Something fascinating happens visually when a sitter becomes tired and loses that public face.” Koslow sees that quality of Bachardy’s work–an overriding mood of reflection and melancholy–as symbolic of “a generation of Americans consumed by worry and grief.” When forced to choose one feature, it is the mouth Bachardy finds most revealing and open to artistic interpretation. “The soul resides in the eye, but the mouth gives access to personality and character,” says the artist, who resists overanalyzing a process he considers overwhelmingly intuitive. “One of the strongest aspects of Don’s painting is that he is completely ‘in the moment,’ says longtime friend and fellow artist Karla Klarin. “Don’s work is clear and beautiful and one can see his journey in each painting.” “Celebrities, Friends and Strangers: Portraits by Don Bachardy” continues at the Huntington Library, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino through February 6, 2005. The artist will conduct tours of the exhibition on January 13 and 20. Contact: (626) 405-2146.
