Henk Pander on the McCall Portrait…

An intrepid band of the general public met today at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art to watch a video made in 2002 about Henk Pander and the painting of his 1982 portrait of Governor Tom McCall, and then to take  walk over to the State Capitol Building to look at the painting.  We were hosted by Roger Hull

who curated the retrospective of Henk Pander’s painting currently showing at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art (“Memory and Modern Life,” on view at the museum in Salem until March 27th).

The video was an interesting interview with Pander that included some still images of drawings Pander made of McCall in preparation for his painting the oil portrait

and this fuzzy still of Pander actually painting the governor during his last sitting.

We quickly walked to the Capitol to view the actual portrait…on view now for almost 30 years (except for a couple of years when it was locked in a closet…)

and since we were right there, we took a look at Henk Pander’s portrait of Governor John Kitzhaber (2009) at the other end of the hall.

Henk answered many questions and then told us the secret…both governors have one foot in the water

After lunch back to the museum where Henk spoke to three classes from Linn Benton Community College (here with professor Gary Westfjord)