Herbert Abrams
The Eyes Have It
by Jennifer Kornegay
 It has been said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. That through these luminous orbs, those around us can catch a glimpse of our personalities, our passions, our purpose. For artist Herbert Abrams, the eyes often provide the focus point for his portraits. Eyes waiting in half-shadow under the brow possess a sense of mystery and drama that draw an observer's attention to them. There one can see with his own eyes the genius in Abrams' work. For by using eyes as an anchor point, Abrams creates more than a likeness. By offering up a look inside his subject, Abrams creates a work of art.
To Abrams, using a subject's eyes to capture his essence on canvas is the natural thing to do.
"We all look into each other's eyes first," he said. "There is so much variety in the eyes that they reveal a great deal."
 Some of the eyes Abrams has painted belong to some very famous faces. One chilly day, a day when his work in the studio was going slow, Abrams got a call he can still remember the details of, vividly, to this day. A proper voice came through the receiver.
"White House calling. . .Clement Conger, Curator of Art. . .would like to recommend you to President Carter to paint his official portrait."
Abrams was stunned and overjoyed at the possibility that he might be asked to paint the portrait of President Jimmy Carter that would hang in the White House.
After the initial phone call, Abrams sent samples of his work and waited over a year to hear that he had been chosen for this important task.
Although painting a president is special, Abrams followed his standard procedure, which included first having lunch with President Carter to get to know him a bit.
"I always like to meet with and have lunch with my subjects before our first sitting," he said. "It gives me a chance to get to know them. It also helps the subject feel more confident about the process."
 Three sittings are usually sufficient for Abrams to bring canvas to life with brush and color.
President Carter was not the first prominent person that Abrams painted, nor would he be the last.
"The first prominent person I painted was General Westmorland," he said. "He was the superintendent at West Point in 1962."
Abrams generally credits his portraits of General Westmorland, and the week he spent with him in Vietnam painting war scenes, as the beginning of his national renown as an artist.
Abrams painted a second portrait of General Westmorland that now hangs in The Chief of Staff's Portrait Gallery in the Pentagon.
Abrams has also painted President George Bush and First Lady, Barbara Bush. He enjoyed getting to spend time with the Bushes as much as he was honored to paint them. "My wife and I had a marvelous time meeting and spending time with them," he said.
Abrams' other accomplishments include having his portrait of Arthur Miller chosen to hang in the National Gallery and designing the U.S. Air Force insignia, which has been on every plane since 1942.
 While Abrams is an extremely established portrait artist, with over 200 portraits lining the walls in the Capitol in Washington, statehouses, museums, medical schools, The Pentagon and corporate boardrooms, being chosen to paint presidents is still a unique and exciting experience.
"I can only compare it to winning an Academy Award," he said. "It is the commission every portrait artist dreams of."
Abrams' dream commission came true, but he still pursues one thing.
"I live in the pursuit of light," he said.
In an effort to forever preserve a moment, Abrams uses light to bring a subject alive. Closely studying the ever-changing way light attaches itself to a person, Abrams molds and strokes the dazzling matter to create an inner light as well as exterior light, to highlight and shadow the subject. To Abrams, light forms the foundation of a painting.
"The visual world depends on light," he explained.
"That is where it all begins. Light is a real thing that moves through space, strikes an object, slides off and leaves part in shadow. It is this action and movement of light that I am trying to capture and paint."
Abrams stresses the importance of light, and this is a concern he shares with the painters he admires most. Abrams professes a great love for the traditional realists, especially Rembrandt, in his opinion the greatest of all classical painters.
 "I don't try to imitate, but to understand what they knew that made them able to do what they did," he said.
Abrams is a prolific portrait artist who works daily to further his craft. Unlike some artists, who work at odd hours, constantly chasing their muse, Abrams is a disciplined painter. Everyday he makes his way to his studio in the morning, ready to work all day, only breaking for lunch.
"I go to the studio, prepared to paint, everyday. Some days nothing comes, others I can accomplish a whole week's worth of work in one day," he said. "But since I never know which day is going to be which, I go work everyday."
This rigid discipline grows out of the responsibility Abrams feels toward his family.
"I grew up in the Depression era," he said. "That made a real impression on me."
On those days when sweet inspiration finds Herbert Abrams in his studio, it is not unusual to hear music coming from inside. Notes from Bach and Beethoven float through the air and only add to the creativity no doubt flowing from Abrams to a canvas via his brush.
Painting portraits of past presidents and other dignitaries may, to many, be the obvious choices as the greatest accomplishments of Herbert Abrams' career as an artist, and while Abrams is amazingly honored, he feels another important event to be the highlight of his career and life.
"The best thing I ever did for my career was to marry my wife Lois in 1954," he said. "She is a great supporter and very knowledgeable. She deeply understands what I'm trying to do."
Abrams and his wife are truly partners in every sense of the word.
"She does all the dirty work associated with painting professionally such as handling the finances and correspondence," he said.
A great talent that has led to an illustrious career, painting prominence and power, countless awards and accolades all come together making it clear that Herbert Abrams really has it all. But when it comes down to it, it is the love of simply painting that means the most to him.
"The only interest I have in painting is to do the best I know how to do," he said.
Fortunately for the art world and the general public, the best Herbert Abrams knows how to do is utterly amazing.
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Jennifer Kornegay is a copywriter living in Montgomery, Alabama.
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