David A. Leffel

This is the second painting done by Leffel and the one which we used in the magazine. 

One of the most accomplished and collectable painters of our time is David Leffel. Though I had spoken to David by phone many times I first met David at his home studio in Taos, NM when he painted me.  David's new home studio is an artist's dream come true.... 20 foot ceilings, natural North light with controls to change the natural light, a large space and a high loft. Two studios sit side by side (the other for Sherri McGraw).

I learned a powerful lesson when David painted me. Don't force a deadline. I was dropped off at the studio about 9 am in the morning and Bruce Adams, who worked for the magazine at the time, was going to pick me up about 5 so we could head out to dinner plans. Though it seemed like a good idea at the time and though David was agreeable it created time pressure. As we neared the deadline it was clear David would like to have had some more time, and it was wrong for me to not offer it to him. Upon completion of the portrait I could tell David was not completely satisfied and as a result he commented that he needed to do a little more work on it, which he would complete after I left. The portrait was looking pretty good when I left.

This is a fuzzy picture of David with the original painting before adjustments.

A couple of weeks later when the portrait arrived the painting had lost a lot of the likeness and I was uncomfortable with using it in the magazine because it did not look as much like me as it had. What was I to do? How could I possibly be critical of one of our great masters? I did not want to insult David, nor did I want to hurt his feelings, or make him angry. This upset me so much that I phoned a couple people who were friends with David for their advice. In both cases they told me that it would be best to leave it alone, run the painting in the magazine and not say anything. As Sargent said, no one would know the difference in 100 years. But I felt because of the magazine and people accustomed to the likeness, I needed to do something about it. So sheepishly I phoned Sheri McGraw Davids wife and told her what had transpired. She was very gracious and suggested David would want to know so she had a discussion with him and he phoned me. David explained that when I left he kept working on the painting and realized there had been an error in measurement and he needed to move one of the eyes. As a result he moved the eye and then had to readjust all of the expression without a reference photo or model. 

David graciously offered to repaint the picture and I flew back to Taos. We spent another day together, no deadines, no pressure and the outcome was fabulous. Both paintings were excellent, the one, however captured a much better likeness.

David and Sherry.

The painting we did not use (this image before changes were made to it after I left.)

David painting Eric

Comments

[Errol]

I know this if off topic but I'm looking into starting my own blog and was curious what all is required to get set up? I'm assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny? I'm not very web savvy so I'm not 100% sure. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Kudos

[super real]

That's the kind of image that i really thing is super image like. If more images very real like this were out there we'd be super full of graet images in the world.

[Darryl Pomicter]

Good one!

[Hedwig]

Thank you, Mr David, and thanks to internet :)))
Hedwig