Don Bachardy Exhibition

An exhibition of portraits by Santa Monica artist Don Bachardy will be on view at The Huntington from Oct. 23 through Feb. 6, 2005, in the Library’s West Hall. The 35 works, taken from The Huntington’s collection as well as lent by the artist, encompass Bachardy’s long career, with some completed as recently as this past summer.

Also included in the exhibit is a continuous video presentation of the documentary “The Eyes of Don Bachardy” by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Terry Sanders.

“It’s a departure for The Huntington to have such a current exhibition from an artist who is still working,” says the show’s curator Sara S. Hodson, curator of Literary Manuscripts. Bachardy was the lifelong partner of the writer Christopher Isherwood. “Celebrities, Friends, and Strangers” follows on the heels of “Christopher Isherwood: A Writer and his World,” which ran at The Huntington from June 12 through Oct. 3; that exhibition included several of Bachardy’s portraits of Isherwood. The author was Bachardy's first live model, and his initial sitting in 1953 marked the beginning of a series of portraits. The Huntington owns the complete archive of Isherwood, having acquired the papers and artifacts of his literary life from Bachardy in 1999. The Huntington began collecting the works of Bachardy at the same time.

Dorothy Parker, 1962

“Celebrities, Friends, and Strangers” will include the familiar faces of noted personalities as well as lesser-known individuals.

The celebrity pen and ink portraits (all from The Huntington’s collection) will include portraits of Julie Harris (1973); Gerald Heard (1962); Aldous Huxley (1962); Anais Nin (1962) and Dorothy Parker (1962). It was mainly through Isherwood that Bachardy encountered these writers and actors.

The show’s acrylic color paintings are the products of Bachardy’s later move toward the use of bold, vivid colors. Known mostly as a black and white portraitist, Bachardy began using color in the 1960s only after felt he had become sufficiently proficient drafting in pen and ink. He created portraits in both black and white and color into the ‘80s but by the end of that decade he was working completely in color.

Bachardy began drawing as a child in Los Angeles, and by his teen years he already had specialized in portraits, partly attributing his interest in people to his passion for the movies. While a student at UCLA in 1952, Bachardy met Isherwood, and the two men began a relationship that lasted until Isherwood's death in 1986. In his memoir, “Christopher and His Kind” (1976), Isherwood describes Bachardy as “the ideal companion to whom you can reveal yourself totally and yet be loved for what you are, not what you pretend to be.” It was Isherwood who encouraged Bachardy to pursue a formal art education, and he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and at the Slade School of Art in London.

Peter Connelly, June 12, 2004, no. I

Over the decades, Bachardy has become known for his unique creative style and approach. Portraits are always completed in one session that may last from two to six hours, and they are signed by the sitter. “For more than 35 years I have obeyed my early, instinctive urge to complete each work I do in a single sitting,” Bachardy says. “The departure of my sitter is like the breaking of a spell. I never alter any detail of the work I’ve done once the sitting has ended.”

Mel Roberts, May 13, 2003, no. II

Bachardy’s first solo exhibition took place at the Redfern Gallery in London in 1961, and one-man shows have followed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, and New York.

In addition to The Huntington, his work resides in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the M.H. de Young Museum of Art in San Francisco, the University of Texas, UCLA, the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, Princeton University, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Portrait Gallery in London. His official portrait of former Gov. Jerry Brown hangs in the California State Capitol building.

Michael L. Odierna, Feb. 8, 2004. no. I

Seven books of Bachardy’s works have been published: October (in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood 1980); One Hundred Drawings (1983); Drawings of the Male Nude (1985); 70 X 1 (1983); Last Drawings of Christopher Isherwood (1991); and Short Cuts, The Screenplay (1993). Stars in My Eyes (2000) is Bachardy’s illustrated account of numerous sittings with various actors, writers, composers, and directors.