Talking Portfolio: Episode One
Episode One Extras
Behind the Painting: Composition
When I painted Family, I worked from five different passport photos to create the composition. These photos were taken years apart and I reunited a family on the canvas. My Flipbook shows how I transform photographs into a work of art.
The man in the centre of the piece was my grandmother’s brother, Hartog. Like the others in the painting, he did not survive the Second World War.
When painting him, I found the photograph’s resolution was too poor to see the features of his face clearly.
There was only one other photograph of him in existence but it had been lost for some time.
Behind the Painting: The Missing Piece
I wanted this to be an authentic version of the family, but without a photograph to work from, I was left with a blank space in the centre of the canvas.
At the time I painted Family, my grandmother was almost 101 years old. Despite the fact it was the middle of summer, she began to ask for a particular scarf, which had been placed in a box somewhere and forgotten about.
The search for the scarf was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Just when everybody was about to give up, the box was located in the corner of a garage where my grandmother had never even been before.
What was even more surprising was what I found at the bottom of the box: beneath a tangle of scarves and a random assortment of accessories, there was a tiny passport photo: it was the missing picture of Hartog (far right) and the missing piece in putting together the family on the canvas.
Behind the Painting: Historical Information
I wrote the story accompanying this painting, based on extensive interviews with my grandmother, and it was published in 2014. In order to see the art in context, I encourage you to read the chapter.
My grandmother, Betty, was also a participant in the USC Shoah Foundation video testimony. At the time of her interview, Steven Spielberg was the chairman of the organisation and wrote to thank my grandmother for her testimony.
