in memory of John T. Donaldson, noted Painter of Dog Portraits
Hoodoo
Washington Post
July 24, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/metro/obituaries/index.html
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Illustration -
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2005/07/23/PH2005072301004.html
"Over Here" was one of Donaldson's favorite works. The artist was
a master of canine anatomy who also took pride in capturing
habitats. He worked from photos for his portraits, which took a
couple of months to finish. (Bonotom Studio Inc.)
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As a boy growing up in White Plains, N.Y., John T. Donaldson was
a nature lover and budding artist. Roaming the woods near the
family home and hiking in the Adirondacks, he developed an eye
for detail and an appreciation for beauty and subtle distinction
that would come in handy when he decided that art and
illustration would be his life's calling.
He also was a dog lover, with an Irish setter as his boyhood
companion. He recalled going on a pheasant hunt with a neighbor
and being awed by the innate skills of a springer spaniel.
It wasn't until many years later that the three compelling
strands in his life -- love of nature, love of dogs and a talent
for illustration -- serendipitously came together to make
Donaldson the preeminent painter of sporting dogs in the United
States.
When the Falls Church artist died June 5 at age 86, he left
hundreds of sporting dog portraits owned by dog lovers around the
world. The works capture not only the realistic detail of subject
and setting but also the grace, personality and athletic prowess
of the individual animal, whether it's a blue tick hound or a
Brittany spaniel, a Jack Russell terrier or a Labrador retriever.
"You can't ignore them; you can't walk past them and not notice
them," an admirer of the portraits wrote to Donaldson's daughter
Petie Bonbrest after his death.
Bonbrest and her two sisters grew up in the Brookmont area of
Bethesda, a wooded wonderland near the Potomac River. They
remember their father as a stay-at-home freelancer, a
perfectionist who worked long hours on his illustrations and who,
when he wasn't working, loved giving his daughters the
opportunity to revere nature and enjoy it the way he did.
With their father as guide, the girls explored the Potomac,
fished the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, camped along the Shenandoah
River and hiked the Appalachian Trail. They also went along with
him to field trials, where he would put his pointers through
their paces in quail-hunting competitions.
"He gave us our eyes," Bonbrest said last week as she sat in the
living room of her Falls Church home. "He opened us up to things
most people don't see."
That included his lifelong love of snakes, daughter Sally Tomlin
recalled. Donaldson's first job as a boy was collecting
rattlesnakes and selling the venom to the Bronx Zoo. He gave his
girls a black snake as a pet and was determined that they would
grow up appreciating the beauty of the slithery creatures and
would respect, not fear, them.
He enjoyed telling stories and loved jokes and foolishness,
particularly when his girls were involved. Tomlin recalled how
her father once took the time to carve a tiny footprint out of an
art eraser and then, for his daughters' wonder and delight, made
trails with it all over the family bathroom.
Donaldson knew early in life that he wanted to be an artist. As a
high school student, he attended the Art Students League in New
York, where he studied anatomy under George Bridgman, whose books
on life drawing are still used today. He studied art and
illustration at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and in the years
before World War II, he drew comic strips for Dell Publishing and
worked as an illustrator for General Motors and Remington Arms.
After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, he moved
to Washington and went to work as an illustrator for the Naval
Gun Factory and for several design studios before launching his
career as a freelance commercial artist. He took commissions
where he could find them, whether it was Leatherneck, a Marine
Corps magazine, or Montgomery County schools. "I'm a draftsman
with good taste," he liked to say.
In 1970, friend John Baker persuaded Donaldson to do an oil
portrait of Baker's dog Paladel, a handsome pointer who had just
won the National Open Shooting Dog Championship. The painting was
so successful that other commissions to paint dogs started coming
Donaldson's way. He began painting the annual winners of various
field trials and other sporting dog events across the country,
and by the mid-1970s, he was painting dogs almost exclusively. He
painted a cat -- once.
When Donaldson accepted a commission from a dog owner, he worked
from numerous photographs of the animal and of its habitat. A
master of canine anatomy, he also took pride in getting the
habitat just right. A portrait would take him a couple of months
to complete.
In 1999, he told the magazine Canine Images that he was one of
those lucky people who got paid to do what they loved.
He continued painting until 2001, when a detached retina and
macular degeneration rendered him almost blind. As daughter Kate
Donaldson noted, it was a cruel irony that a man who relied so
passionately on visual acuity would lose his sight.
He always worked standing, so it was only fitting, Bonbrest said,
that her father was standing when he died. He was at the
refrigerator, freezer door open, a glass of good scotch in his hand.
--
It's a big old goofy world. - John Prine
deb...@comcast.net
Bill Schenley
> that's a classic!
Cassius Marcellus Coolidge ... around 1903. Earlier this year ... one
of C.M. Coolidge's dog/poker oils ... sold for $590,400.00. There
are nine in the series.
His art:
http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~richeyje/dpp/gallery/coolidge/a_bold_bluff.jpg
http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/wallpaper/MPdogs.jpg
http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lg24-028.jpg (Dogs Playing Pool)
http://sportsposterwarehouse.com/warehouse/baseballdogs04aq-1.jpg
("One To Tie, Two To Win" aka "Dog Baseball)
More: http://www.michaels.com/art/online/artistproducts?artistid=289