“‘Real Portraits’: Time Covers by Henry Koerner,” displays Time Magazine covers painted by Henry Koerner and includes four original paintings by the artist. Presented by the Henry Koerner Center for Emeritus Faculty in conjunction with Joseph Koerner, the artist’s son, the exhibit features twenty-two Time covers published between 1955 and 1967. Annabel Patterson, Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale, curated the exhibit. A full-color catalogue compliments the exhibit, which includes essays by Patterson on each one of the covers, in addition to essays by Philip Eliasoph, Professor of Art History at Fairfield University and painter and art historian, Jonathan Weinberg. The title of the exhibition quotes Koerner, in reference to his self-portrait, Springtime for Henry, when in a 1951 interview, Patterson writes, “he declared that his style and goals had changed: ‘Instead of painting just people I made them real portraits. I tried very hard for likeness.”
Joseph Koerner recalls of his father: “His view of the Time covers was roughly as follows: he was the greatest painter of his time, not only technically but spiritually, as he [he claimed] had resolved the relation between Realism and Abstraction that had vexed painting since Cézanne;… His Time covers, then, were something for which he was destined; he would paint the most important figures of the day, as part of his oeuvre… He didn’t understand the art world’s understanding of these commissions, that they proved him to be an illustrator and a commercial artist. For him they were his version of Las Meninas.”
To view the Yale News article featuring the exhibit, see http://news.yale.edu/2015/10/22/koerner-center-showcases-real-portraits-its-namesake.
The exhibition will be on view through December 11, 2015 at 149 Elm Street, second floor. Visit by invitation or appointment by calling 203-432-8227.
Henry Koerner, Ludwig Erhard. Oil on canvas.
Private Collection